photo by Murray Lee.by Mackensy Lunsford

Susi Gott Seguret is a fascinating cast of characters all in one body. Originally from Madison County, she seems thoroughly Southern, playing the banjo, fiddle and guitar. But she’s also an unapologetic Francophile and a reliable authority on French cuisine, spending at least nine months each year living in France. Seguret directs the Swannanoa School of Culinary Arts at Warren Wilson College (SSCA), a five-year-old immersive culinary program that, for part of the summer, runs parallel to the music-focused Swannanoa Gathering. Seguret says she views French cuisine more as an approach than a set of recipes or methods.

So what’s so great about French food? First, outside of the usual astounding assortment of cheeses and wines, you can walk into typical French grocery stores and find atypical products. “You walk down the meat aisle and you can find brains and liver from all different kinds of animals—all kinds of odd parts of thyroids, rabbit ears, cockscombs…things that you wouldn’t find at Ingles,” she says. Of course, France doesn’t have everything—like corn on the cob, for example, or Mexican food. And with all the cheese in France, Seguret finds it difficult to find a good sharp cheddar there. But you might argue that average French cooks start out ahead of American ones, mainly because they start with access to a wider variety of better ingredients.

Then there’s the way Americans feel about food, which is often guilty. And that translates into low-carb, low-fat meal plans. Not so for the French, who emphasize the pleasurable aspects of eating, which results in the much-discussed “French paradox”: the notion that French people can consume fattier foods and more wine than Americans and still seem to come out on top health-wise. (For more on the topic, check out the 2004 book French Women Don’t Get Fat, by Mireille Guiliano.) “A large part of it has to do with the pleasure factor,” Seguret says in reference to the paradox. “They’re happy eating good food, they’re happy sharing it around the table. They eat enough without eating too much, and it’s satisfying.”

Tips du Jour

Common misconceptions about French food: That all the recipes are complicated and involve loads of butter and cream. Seguret adored Julia Child, but “she chose incredibly complicated recipes with way too many steps.”

Don’t try this at home: Pâte feuilletée, a puff pastry. “It’s very time consuming. You roll it out again and again and again. I might do it sometime when I’m older and have nothing else to do.”
French ingredients that are hard to find: Good mustard. “You can’t find anything close enough to French mustard to make me happy. I bring it over in my suitcase in great quantity.” What’s sold as French Dijon in American stores doesn’t taste much like the real thing, which has a flavor closer to horseradish.

For more about the Swannanoa School of Culinary Arts, visit www.schoolofculinaryarts.org or call 828-301-2792.