Interview Transcript
Question: Collectively, what should we be doing?
Jacques Pepin: We should open our frontier more than they are open. Even because we could benefit, as I said, from another point of view. We should invite more people. We should institute more dialogue. We should do . . . For example, one of my heroes is Bernard Kouchner. And he’s the man who created doctor without frontier in 1970, ’71, whatever. And he created doctor of the world as well as the co-founder of the Nobel Prize for this. Now this is a great humanitarian. He’s now the French Foreign Minister under the new government. Now he knows what he did in Kosovo, and other part of the world, for the health that people have. So he will know how to get to place like this to feed the people, to organize the products so that they get to the right people. So if I could talk to one person in the world, maybe I would want to talk with him because I think it would be very exciting because he is a great humanitarian.
Question: What advice can you give young chefs?
Jacques Pepin: I would tell them do it for love, absolutely. Don’t do it for anything else. Because ultimately that’s what that will amount to. You have to be gratified with what you do. I mean I have the best of all possible worlds. I make a living out of something I love to do, and probably would do for free, you know? And people pay me for it, so I’m very lucky. I never regretted to be in my business; but don’t do it, as I said . . . You could become famous and all that, because it may happen; but it’s likely that it may not.
Recorded on: 09/04/2007
What is your counsel?
Chef; Author
We could all benefit from another point of view.
November 5, 2007 | In Inspiration & Wisdom
Discuss
Edward C on January 23, 2008, 1:00 AM
Historically, in small villages the elders would make a decision on whether or not the community actually “needs” the new invention or not.
Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.
Shawn Wilson on January 28, 2008, 6:33 PM
I see what you are saying but ….It would be hard to take a vote with the whole world to see if we all agree with its usefullness…we def. have alot of inventions that were a waste of time but you have to admit…it has also prob. stim. a few good ideas too. and of course trail and error…
Faheem Amir on February 11, 2008, 8:41 AM
I believe what he is saying to be true. Even today, we can see the reaction we have as individuals when someone says they are still using dial up. Dial Up? It has been over ten years since I last had dial up. I personally believe this is what is missing from the conversation about technology. As technology continues to grow into our day-to-day lives, there is an expectation that certain parts of new technology will be inherent in products we buy. For instance, a cell phone without a camera is almost unheard of now, a car radio that does not scroll across its display the name and title of the song playing. I predict in about 25 years the 411 service will completely disappear due to the devices of the day and its ability to retrieve information, there will not be a need for anyone to call 411, so please tell your children do not go to school to be a 411 Operator. LOL. No one with an Iphone and several other PDA style devices dial 411 because they have access to all the information they need via their communication device.
Tony O'Brien on February 11, 2008, 9:36 AM
Everything is changing so fast, the full implication of a new product or process isn’t always apparent. Unfortunately so many computer related processes can be used for good or bad.
lucy rice on February 11, 2008, 6:35 PM
I agree with most of what everyone is saying. The way that technology has been integrated into our lives is even evident in the way that some of the comments here are written. LOL was non-existent until instant messaging came around. It used to be that when things got bigger they were better, for instance, the Empire State Building. That kind of thing was mind-boggling and gave peole a reason to ask questions and be curious. Now, we are only amazed by how many gigabytes can be fit into a small device. Technology has made it so everything is at our fingertips and there aren’t any more mysteries about life.
Victor Dee on October 25, 2008, 2:40 PM
Yeah the facts he is saying about is definitely true, we can observe them everyday in our routine life. The Internet community grown enormously during last decade and the access to the information of any kind is just the matter of the typing few words in finders like Google. The axiomatization penetrate in every service infrastructure: ordering of items in eshops, the forecasts of weather, electronic libraries and others, thereby we do not need to go anywhere we could do most of the stuff sitting near the computer. And nevertheless the system is destabilize, the planet is terribly overpopulated. We can see in general the fast temper of growing population and contamination and in the meanwhile the fast temper of digital and industrial progress. I can only wonder what will be the end state of this.
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