Not a trace of bitterness from the spinach leaf’s tip to its light, fragrant stem. Top chef Eric Briffard wouldn’t dream of cooking these crisp shoots, sourced for a small fortune from his treasured Japanese vegetable farmer.

“At first I sold my vegetables to Paris’ Japanese restaurants, but I found their standards weren’t high enough,” he said. “You know, if a Japanese chef leaves Japan, it means his career has been a failure.”

Yamashita grows around 50 varieties of vegetable, all of them Japanese—“even the tomatoes”—on a plot almost 3,000 square meters in size, half of it covered with greenhouses.

“What I’m aiming for is not rarity—it’s quality,” he said as he chopped slices off a kabu turnip with a machete, handing them over to taste.

Crunchy and juicy as an apple, firm yet tender, sweet with a hint of mustard at the finish. Yamashita can deliver 120 pieces per week at most.

“This is a guy who will tear out a bunch of corn cobs so that the ones that are left can grow better,” said Briffard, who holds two Michelin stars for his kitchen at the Georges V luxury hotel in Paris.

Passionate about Japan, and with roots of his own in the French rural world, Briffard has worked with Yamashita for years and often travels out from the center of the capital for a walk around his gardens.

“It is amazing how much quality is hidden here, behind his little house lost in the countryside, the density and depth and concentration of his vegetables,” Briffard said. “His sweet potatoes are a little transparent, and his tomatoes are smooth to the touch like peaches.”

The chef and his prized supplier talk on the phone several times a week.

“There are tiny seasons that you mustn’t miss, like the moment when peas are tender and juicy, before the starch comes in,” he explained outside one of the farmer’s greenhouses.

This winter, the chef’s team are serving up Yamashita’s daikon radish, his turnips and red Kyoto carrots, as well as his kabocha, a Japanese variety of squash with green skin and bright orange flesh.

“If you steam it you can eat the skin. Or you can mash it with a seaweed butter and a little ginger,” Briffard suggests.

Today Yamashita works with just six clients, including two of the world’s most innovative chefs—Pierre Gagnaire and Pascal Barbot—as well as rising star Sylvain Sendra, and with the Tour d’Argent, one of Europe’s oldest restaurants.

He recently struck two Paris luxury hotels off his customer list after their chefs failed to live up to his exacting standards.

One was “never in his kitchen, there was no exchange” with him, he said, while the other was simply cooking kabu dice in orange juice—“pointless” in the Japanese farmer’s view.

“I want to work with chefs who work hard with my vegetables, to find the very best recipes,” he explained.

And he can afford to be picky. “The quality is such that he can choose who and when to deliver, and at what price,” said Briffard, even at rates three to four times higher than typical Paris area farmers.

“This is what absolute rarity is about. You will only find Yamashita’s turnip in six restaurants in the world. White truffles, by comparison, are easy to come by,” said chef William Ledeuil, another member of the select Yamashita club.

 

And this is what we are talking about here. Vegetables are the great unappreciated gift of nature. We happily spend $50 or $60 on a bottle of wine, and sneer at the poor slobs getting by on $5 wines (actually that’s quite often me), yet we stomp out feet in protest when the price of a delicious head of lettuce goes over a dollar.

Which is more important to us?

Brand-washing

What is it about brands that makes people stupid? That can’t be answered here. It would take several books, many of them already written. It’s a flaw in our DNA is the short answer. In fact, some very smart people get stupid about brands.

To have class is not to have brands. This should be obvious. And common sense should be common, so let me explain. There are many aspects to having class, among them manners, decency, generosity, kindness, humility, appreciation….I could go on, though I hope I don’t have to. These, too, should be common sense. But to keep on track, let’s talk about the kind of class that might otherwise be said “He really knows how to live in style. He’s got Class!“

By this we mean taste and money – the ability to attract envy rather than snickers. Of course, this is not really class. I am of the opinion that even an old bum in a shack on a bubbling volcano. Look at Harry Truman, not the President. The one who lived on Mt. St. Helens. He went with the mountain, refused to leave. Went out with a bang, not to be too painfully coy about it. He had class.

Some guy with a 100 meter swimming pool and a Jacuzzi filled with champagne and naked girls, meanwhile, does not have class. He might be having fun. He might not (he might be gay). Champagne Jacuzzis and naked girls are symptoms of the need to feel envied.  So let’s keep it straight. There’s class, and there’s envy points.

Nothing wrong with seeking envy. We all need a bit of it, at least at first. Then, as we outgrow that, we may still need it…as a business expense. If I’m a get-rich-quick guru, I want to to attract envy. I want people to want what I have. Why? Because I will promise to sell it to them, thereby getting even more of what I have.

So, there are 2 reasons to brag about our taste in Champagne or what brands we buy. One reason is insecurity. The other is strictly business. Either way, the advice that follows will help you.

First: You have to know whose envy you want

Second: You have to know what that target group desires, but doesn’t have

Very simple, and it works like this. The typical rich newbie will say that he loves Dom Perignon champagne. One was even so smug recently that he added “If you know what it is, you know why I like it.” That last part eliminated any good will he might have had up to that point. The fact is, almost everybody knows what Dom Perignon is. It’s not exactly an obscure brandname. And therein lies both its benefits and its problems.  DP, as they call it in Japan, is the Mercedes of champagnes. It’s not a bad champagne, it’s quite good. But, it’s the most commonly known kind of good.

That’s a good thing when the people you want to make envious are mostly not all that sophisticated. It does no good to prattle off the name of an especially rare and prized champagne when the people who hear about it think “Isn’t that the red stuff at the local 7/11?” You’re aim is too high. Save your money and your breath. Buy Dom Perignon, and the same people will coo in admiration at your elevated taste. Bulls-eye.

On the other hand, if your target is someone who has been rolling in money since they were old enough to crap, you may want to aim higher. The thing is, unless the person is a champagne aficionado (whew, I needed the dictionary for that one), you may miss the target there, too.  Ah, but the ones who do get it will quietly bond to you, that rare person who really appreciates the truly fine things in life. So, here’s a brief guide to how to impress, whether aiming low, middle or high.

Champage:

Low- Asti-Spumante

Average- Dom Perignon

High- Tattainger Blanc de Blanc

Very High- Cristal Brut 1990 “Methuselah”

And, for our upcoming post on watches, I will add the following:

Low- Swatch

Average- Rolex

High- Patek Phillipe

Very High- Breguet Double Tourbillion

Photo source: http://www.worth1000.com/cache/gallery/contestcache.asp?contest_id=1645&display=photoshop