[ man singing in french ] anthony: daniel may be a three-star michelin chef, but like so many of his predecessors, he s basically a farmboy at heart. he grew up milking cows and doing farm work here, on his family s spread. there is, it turns out, something of a restaurant tradition to build on. the house on his farm was once a small café as well, operated first by his grandparents and great-grandparents. the famous café boulud, it turns out, was not the first place to bear that name. daniel: they kept it about 80 years, 100 years, and then they closed it. [ daniel s dad speaking french ] daniel s dad: no, no, no, no, no. anthony: meeting daniel s dad, one begins to understand the roots of his perfectionism. [ daniel s dad speaking french ] [ daniel s sister speaking french ]
reynon: this is the saucisson a cuire. anthony: this is so good. [ reynon speaking french ] anthony: sabodet, another of lyon s most famous sausages, is made primarily from pig s head, with pork belly, pork shoulder, brandy, nutmeg, and allspice mixed in for flavor. it s always cooked, served hot? daniel: yeah. anthony: man, that s good. daniel: that s what we re gonna eat with my father. anthony: oh yeah? daniel: i m gonna get some here of the skin. [ reynon speaking french ] anthony: he knows he does really good work. daniel: uh-huh. anthony: he knows how good his stuff is, you know. cheers. oh nice, uh it s a beautiful day in lyon. daniel: yeah. anthony: in lyon, a city that believes absolutely in the power of food, one name is everywhere.
with a perfectly good job as fiction editor at the prestigious new yorker magazine. at undignified age of 53, he pretty much pulled up stakes, put his whole past life on hold, and defected to france to learn how to cook. what happened to you anyway, buford? you used to have a good job, you hang out a couple of nights with batali and the next thing you know you re living in france and cooking. bill: it s true. i discovered a whole world that the rest of the world didn t seem to know about. just a very compressed, intense lifelong learned expertise and knowledge of food. it s not the food network, and it s not glossy magazines, and it s not something you d get from reading a recipe book. it s something you get by just going deep. i was afraid of france because i knew if i went, took on the subject of french food, i d have to go really deep. so we went, and we thought we d stay for six months. and we we stayed for five years. anthony: we meet at bouchon comptoir abel. a bouchon is
kids she serves. i think it has a lot to do with the reaction they have to food. anthony: dessert is homemade fromage blanc farmer cheese, with chocolate and orange segments. daniel: what do you want to be when you grow up? veterinarian. [ boy speaking french ] daniel: fireman. [ daniel speaking french ] [ boy speaking french ] daniel: engineering machine gun. anthony: he wants to make machine guns? daniel: engineer engineering machine gun, yeah. anthony: okay, keep an eye on that one. all right. for a dope fiend, feeding the monkey means finding and sticking with heroin. for one poor guy, it s this. french food. in particular, lyonnais food. the cautionary tale of bill buford. writer, editor, literary lion
daniel: 14 years old. 1969. anthony: uh-huh. daniel: i started as an apprentice in lyon. anthony: he started as so many french cooks of his time did at the very bottom. as a 14-year-old apprentice in the restaurant nandron. what was your first job in the kitchen? daniel: they used to call me the beaver because i was just washing everything all day. you know, they make you clean the vegetables, they make you carry all the boxes from the market. anthony: 14, you can t do that anymore, can you? daniel: i don t think they can make him work 12 hours a day. anthony: right. daniel: and uh, pay him maybe a buck a month. you know what i mean? anthony: ah, the good ol days. daniel: yeah, well. anthony: why lyon? why here? look at the fundamentals, the things the lyonnais think of as birthrights. the right for instance to eat delicious cured pork in unimaginably delicious forms. daniel: the art of charcuterie, lyonnais can t live without it. anthony: look at this.