In 2008, Paul Bocuse asked Boulud, Keller and Jérôme to start the Bocuse d’Or USA Foundation (now called the ment’or Culinary Foundation). The mission was to get Team USA to the podium—ideally to take the gold—and offer sponsorships, grants and stages so young American cooks could afford to compete. (Kaysen, who as a competitor before the foundation started, had to raise his own funds, find his own training space and build his own team from the ground up.)
Years before the American flag was raised outside Paul Bocuse’s flagship restaurant in Lyon, the chef was a young soldier fighting in World War II. He took a bullet from the Germans, and was sent to an American field hospital for a life-saving blood transfusion. “After that, he felt he had American blood in his veins and from that day on, he felt he owed something to the U.S.” says his son Jérôme, now president of the Bocuse d’Or.
As a glittering cloud of red, white and blue confetti exploded over thousands of spectators and “The Star-Spangled Banner” boomed throughout Lyon’s cavernous Euroexpo arena, I grabbed my camera and jumped the wall of the press box, to get closer to the action as the crowds descended upon Mathew Peters and Harrison Turone, who had just made culinary history by winning America’s first gold medal at the Bocuse d’Or.
