Hautes Etudes du Goût/Advanced Studies in Gastronomy

I am not sure that I told you enough about our Institute for Advanced Studies in Gastronomy : this is a very successful educational institute, with the most extraordinary specialists teaching "gastronomy", i.e. the reasoned knowledge about man's nourishment.

Today, I am happy to tell you that my friend Jean-Christophe Augustin, from the French Académie d'agriculture de France, is teaching at this institute :

Jean-Christophe Augustin is professor at the National Veterinary School of Alfort, in the Hygiene, Food quality and security unit.

He is in charge of the « food microbiology » module for the Advanced Veterinary Studies Certificate, with a specific focus on « Food safety and quality management ».

He is an expert at ANSES (French Agency for Food Safety).

He has authored numerous teaching publications as well as scientific papers.

Joel Doré is teaching at the Hautes Etudes du Goût

Every week,  I have the pleasure to tell you about a colleague who is teaching at the Institute for Advanced Studies of Gastronomy.
This week :

Joel Doré

Research Director at INRA, Joël Doré is Scientific Director of MetaGenoPolis, a Unit of the Micalis Institute “Food and Gut Microbiology for Human Health”. Joël Doré joined INRA in 1983 and received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, in 1988. He developed a unique expertise in the field of intestinal microbiology. He aims to contribute to a better understanding of the host-microbiota symbiosis in order to support therapeutic choices in the medical area, as well as science-based recommendations in health nutrition.

In his HEG class entitled "Man-microbe symbiosis : I am what they eat...", Joël Doré presents the current vision of the human intestinal metagenome and highlights insights it has provided towards the current understanding of the importance of the microbiome in nutrition and health, particularly for chronic inflammatory and metabolic diseases. He presents an extension of the dysbiosis concept that confers a central role to man-microbe symbiosis, with potential implications in health-nutrition and translational research.

Professors at Advanced Studies on Flavour (Hautes Etudes du Goût) 4

Every month, I have the pleasure to tell you about the wonderful teachers of the Hautes Etudes du  Goût.


This week,

Denis Saillard

Denis Saillard is an historian, professor of modern history. In 2000, he joined the Centre d’histoire culturelle des sociétés contemporaines (CHCSC) of the University of Versailles/Saint-Quentin (UVSQ, today in Paris Saclay University). 

He is a specialist of cultural history of food, a field in which the food representations and social practices are included. In 2011, Denis Saillard published his results in this area in   Gastronomie et histoire culturelle, published by the European Institute for Cultural History. 

He is co-director of two international workshops:  in 2005, Gastronomie et identité culturelle française. Discours et représentations (XIX^e-XXI^e siècles) ; in 2010, Le Goût des autres. De l’expérience de l’altérité gastronomique à l’appropriation (Europe, XVIII^e –XXI^e siècles).

For four years, he is running a seminar inviting scientists from all disciplines with a link to food, and from all countries. Half the sessions are at the Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris (BhVP), and others are in particular places of interest.

Denis Saillard is giving lectures in France and abroad: Canada, Royaume-Uni, Italie, Allemagne, Belgique, Estonie, Roumanie, etc.

A selection of 10 publications

* « Culture gastronomique et alimentation de demain », in Gilles Fumey (dir.) L’alimentation de demain, Paris, CNRS Editions, coll. « Les Essentiels d’Hermès », 2016, pp. 47-68.

* « Food and Gastronomy in the Universal Exhibitions 1851-2015 (Alimentation et gastronomie dans les expositions universelles 1851-2015) », in Germano Celant (dir.), Arts and Foods, catalogue (en anglais et en italien) de l’exposition de la Triennale de Milan (Exposition universelle 2015), Milan, Electa Mondadori, pp. 40-61.

* « A la recherche du “moi gastronomique”. L’œuvre de M. F. K. Fisher », Revue de la BnF, n° 49 « Gastronomie : du Sens aux Sens », 2015, pp. 6-10.

* « La Cuisine de l’Autre. Echanges et rivalités dans les relations gastronomiques franco-anglaises du XVIII^e siecle à nos jours », in Diana Cooper-Richet et Michel Rapoport (dir.), Nos meilleurs ennemis. L’entente culturelle franco-britannique revisitée, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Atlande, 2014, pp. 100-129.

* « Entre Europe orientale et Amérique du Nord : l’invention de la gastronomie juive dans le Paris de l’entre-deux-guerres », in Cylvie Claveau, Stanislaw Fiszer et Didier Francfort (dir.), Cultures juives. Europe centrale et orientale, Amérique du Nord, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi ; Paris, Le Manuscrit, 2012, pp. 521-542.

* « L’artification du culinaire par les expositions (1851-1939) », Sociétés et représentations, vol. 34, automne 2012, pp. 71-84.

* « Vin et gastronomie : identifications culturelles », Rencontres du Clos-Vougeot 2010, Des hommes et du vin : le vin patrimoine et marqueur d’identité culturelle, Dijon, Centre Georges Chevrier, 2011, pp. 157-168.

* « Nourritures et territoires en Europe. La gastronomie comme frontière culturelle », Eurolimes, Journal of the Institute for Euroregional Studies (“Jean Monnet” European Centre of Excellence, University of Oradea / University of Debrecen), n° 9, 2010, pp. 127-139.

* « Turin et le Piémont, l’invention d’un haut lieu gastronomique », colloque Gastronomie et rayonnement touristique : contribution à l’étude des hauts lieux et capitales gastronomiques XIX^e-XXI^e siècles (dir. Julia Csergo et Jean-Pierre Lemasson), Université de Lyon II et Université du Québec à Montréal, Lyon, 5-6 décembre 2006 ; Voyages en gastronomies. L’invention des capitales et des régions gourmandes, Paris, Autrement, 2008, pp. 220-232.

* « La cuisine », in Jean-Pierre Rioux (dir.), Dictionnaire de la France coloniale, Paris, Flammarion, 2007, pp. 759-764.

Professors of the Advanced Studies in Gastronomy 2

On ste souvient (peut-être) que j'ai décidé de mettre en valeur les enseignants de l'Institut des Hautes Etudes du Goût, de la Gastronomie et des Arts de la Table
Last week, I presented  Sylvie Lortal. Now I have the pleasure to tell you that our educational program includes courses by  Jean-Philippe de Tonnac.


Jean-Philippe de Tonnac is an essayist, editor and journalist. He was in charge of special editions for the Nouvel Observateur magazine for almost 10 years, and has published about twenty books. Today he works as an editor and continues his own research. His investigation into bread and its symbolism began by obtaining a diploma in baking (2007) after a training course at l’Ecole de Boulangerie et Pâtisserie de Paris, a tour of the ‘bread-eating’ Mediterranean countries (Egypt, Greece, Italy, etc.), and discussions with representatives of the wheat to-flour and bread industry.

In 2007, he took the lead in a Universal dictionary of bread project aiming to collect all the entries that bread has generated since its appearance on the edge of the eastern Mediterranean area in the late Neolithic period (from agronomy to theology including genetics, botany, anthropology, history, milling, bakery, economics, arts, and more).
He has since co-written Le Larousse du pain (2013) et L'Ami intime - Un musée imaginaire du Pain (2014)


Jean-Philippe de Tonnac est essayiste, éditeur et journaliste. Il a animé pendant près de dix ans les "Hors série" du Nouvel Observateur et publié une vingtaine d’ouvrages.
Il est aujourd’hui éditeur et poursuit ses propres recherches.
Son enquête sur le pain et sa symbolique a commencé par l’obtention d’un CAP de boulanger (2007) après une formation à l’Ecole de Boulangerie et Pâtisserie de Paris, des séjours en Méditerranée dans quelques-uns des pays de « mangeurs de pains » (Egypte, Grèce, Italie, etc.), et la rencontre et des échanges avec quelques-uns des représentants de la filière blé-farine-pain.
Il a pris en 2007 la direction d’un Dictionnaire universel du pain avec l’ambition de rassembler toutes les gloses que le pain a générées depuis son apparition sur le pourtour oriental de la Méditerranée à la fin du Néolithique (de l’agronomie à la théologie en passant par la génétique, la botanique, l’anthropologie, l’histoire, la meunerie, la boulangerie, l’économie, les arts, etc.).
Depuis, il a notamment co-rédigé Le Larousse du pain (2013) et L'Ami intime - Un musée imaginaire du Pain (2014)

Professors of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Gastronomy

 Do you know the Institute for Advanced Studies in Gastronomy ? This is a unique university programme about food, with no equivalent in the world !

The professors are chosen among the best in France in the field of food research. And this explains why, after more than ten years  of activity, our Institute is so successful, with participants from all over the world.

Now, I decided to present some professors (one per week). Today :




Sylvie Lortal is senior scientist at Inra. For 25 years, she has been having fundamental and applied research on the mechanisms of cheese ripening, on the in situ activity of micro-organisms and their  enzymes, and on the  biodiversity of technological properties of lactic and propionic bacteria. For her work, she was awarded  the Award de l’American Dairy Science Association in 2011.
For 8 years, she was the director of the  UMR Science et Technologie du Lait et de l’œuf of Inra in  Rennes, france (https://www6.rennes.inra.fr/stlo)  and co-editor of the Oxford Companion to cheese (2016-Oxford univ. press), a unique encyclopedia about cheese. With a passion for fermented food, their particular place in human food, and for  the biodiversity of microbial ecosystems, she created in  2006 a Centre de Ressources Biologiques « Bactéries d’intérêt alimentaire » (CIRM-BIA), collection of micro-organisms certified  ISO 9001 (4000 product) – member of the national network  Biobanque, CRB, of which she is now a scientific adviser.
Again in the field of microbial databank, she was the coordinator for Inra of the European Project of  Infrastructure EMbaRC (FP7 – 2009-2012).
Today, she has a mission for the Department Microbiologie et Chaine alimentaire of Inra. She is intended to create a European network managing a collective reflection on the place and the nutritional benefits of fermented food in the European diet. Also she is doing research on biofilms lying on the traditional tools used for cheese making