Not My Job: 3 Questions For Chef Jacques Pépin About Jockstraps

Transcript

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

And now the game where we take somebody who has a tremendous amount of talent and subject them to questions asked by people with very little. It's called Not My Job. So about 55 years ago, a brilliant young chef in Paris was at the top of his game, cooking for Charles de Galle himself when he said yeah, I could run the finest restaurant in Paris. But why not go to America, where I don't speak the language and the people eat something called Cheetos?

(LAUGHTER

SAGAL: Well, despite that mistake he's done pretty well here with his incredibly popular cooking shows on PBS and best-selling books. Jacques Pepin, welcome to WAIT WAIT… DON’T TELL ME.

JACQUES PEPIN: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

SAGAL: Oh, it's such a pleasure.

PEPIN: Yes.

SAGAL: So I have to say that I have been reading your memoir this week, and it is - it's called "The Apprentice." It is so charming, a story...

PEPIN: I'm sorry, put you to sleep, right?

SAGAL: No, it was delightful. And I've even been making the recipes - like, I made the eggs in the style of your mother Jeannette. They were delicious.

PEPIN: Oh, yeah, yeah.

SAGAL: It was awesome.

PEPIN: Yeah, you liked it?

SAGAL: They were delicious. I would say thank your mother for me, but I'm sure it's too late for that. They're just...

PEPIN: Not that late - she only died last year.

SAGAL: Really?

ROY BLOUNT, JR.: Only died last night.

SAGAL: OK, well, her eggs her great. Some of the things...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Now, just to sort of fill in our audience if they don't know, you grew up during the war in France.

PEPIN: Yes.

SAGAL: Times were tough, and you describe some of the things your mother made for you, including a dish that I think you called mou? Am I...

PEPIN: Yeah, mou. Yes, right, mou.

SAGAL: And was that the one with the lung?

PEPIN: That's delicious (laughter). This is the lung of a lamb, usually or cat. So, you know, what you have to do - because when you buy the lung the air has gone out of it. So it kind shrank - so first, you have to blow - you have to blow into the trachea to expand the lung.

SAGAL: Yeah.

PEPIN: And then you cut it into pieces, and you do it with onion and red wine. It's really disgusting.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

LUKE BURBANK: I'm pretty sure that dish will get you arrested here the in the States, chef.

BLOUNT JR.: Is that why you call it mou, because when you cut into it, it...

PEPIN: It moos (laughter). Yeah, it moos.

SAGAL: Now when your - you have a daughter.

PEPIN: Yes.

SAGAL: And when she was little, did you say something to her, like, oh, I'm going to cook for you what my mother made for me when I was your age. Here is some lung.

PEPIN: Yes, I did it.

SAGAL: You did? You made lung for your daughter?

PEPIN: But she was 3 years old. At that age, she could not refuse it.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And has she forgiven you now, sir?

PEPIN: No, not really.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Your story though is amazing. You were making - you were a professional chef by the age of 17. And you ended up - I couldn't believe this - cooking for Charles de Gaulle, the president of France.

PEPIN: Actually, from '56 to '59, I cooked for three French presidents and the three of them are dead.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: How much lung did you feed them, chef?

PEPIN: Well, until they died.

SAGAL: Not your fault though? You...

PEPIN: Not my fault, yes, not my fault.

SAGAL: So you say - OK, you had just finished cooking for the president of France. And I'm assuming...

PEPIN: Yeah.

SAGAL: ...You could've gone to work at any restaurant in Paris, maybe opened your own. But you decided to go to America. Why?

PEPIN: Because America was the golden fish (ph), you know, the El Dorado. I say I'll go there for a year or two and learn the language. And I'm here half a century later, and I still haven't gotten the language right.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It's better than my French. What was American cuisine cooking like when you came to America, say that was around 1950 or so?

PEPIN: 1959, the end of 1959, yes. It was only - there was one salad in the supermarket. That was iceberg.

SAGAL: Iceberg lettuce, yeah.

PEPIN: Yeah, there was no lettuce. There was no leaks, no shallots and I remember going to Midtown, Manhattan, and asking at a supermarket where are the mushrooms? They say aisle five, and that was canned mushrooms. They didn't have any fresh mushrooms at the time. So it was quite a different world.

SAGAL: And you didn't immediately jump back into the ocean and start swimming back to France.

NEKO CASE: Seriously.

PEPIN: No, the beef was incredible. The beef was incredible and the lime and the lobster. And the girls were beautiful in New York, too.

SAGAL: Oh, yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: When you go into a restaurant, is the restaurant terrified to cook for you? You're Jacques Pepin.

PEPIN: I hope so.

(LAUGHTER)

PEPIN: No, they are not. They are not, no.

SAGAL: If you ever get a restaurant - go to a restaurant where you don't know the owner and the food is bad, do you send it back? Do you say something? Or do you...

PEPIN: No, no, the chef come and - you know, and he asked me what do you think? And I usually say, you know what? You'll never be better than today.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: That's - that's very good.

PEPIN: Yeah, take it the way you want.

SAGAL: We actually - we had a question for you. I'm going to ask it. Let's assume that you knew the world was about to end - tomorrow, Donald Trump's inauguration. So this...

(LAUGHTER)

PEPIN: Oh, my God.

SAGAL: So this is your last meal.

PEPIN: Right.

SAGAL: What would you choose for your last meal?

PEPIN: Well, if it's my last meal, it's going to be very, very, very, very long.

(LAUGHTER)

PEPIN: Like, three months or...

SAGAL: Well, chef Jacques Pepin, it is a pleasure to talk to you. We have asked you here to play game we're calling...

BILL KURTIS: Lift, Support but for the Love of God Please Don't Separate.

SAGAL: You are Jacques Pepin, famous chef. But what do you know about jockstraps?

(LAUGHTER)

PEPIN: Jacques who?

SAGAL: Jockstraps famous undergarment. Jockstraps, we're going to ask you three questions about...

PEPIN: Jockstraps.

SAGAL: Jockstraps, you know what they call them in France - le strap de Jacques (ph).

(LAUGHTER)

PEPIN: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SAGAL: Yeah, he's got it. Get two of these questions right and you will win our prize for one of our listeners. Bill, who chef Jacques Pepin playing for?

KURTIS: Marcela Marin of Los Angeles, Calif.

SAGAL: All right, here we go, chef, your first question. Now, the jockstrap as we know it was first developed and sold back in 1874 specifically for what purpose? Was it A - to provide support and comfort for men wearing Turkish pantaloons, which were the rage at that time...

PEPIN: Wow.

SAGAL: ...B - for racing-horse jockeys, right, to provide protection and stability because it actually was strapped to the saddle, or C - for, quote, "bicycle jockeys," riding on the bumpy cobblestone streets of Boston.

PEPIN: I would say that it would be the Boston jockey - I've been to Boston.

SAGAL: Right, and the roads are terrible. You're right, chef.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: It was, in fact, the bicycle jockeys.

(APPLAUSE)

PEPIN: Is that?

SAGAL: Yeah. I mean, apparently, there were enough people riding bicycles in Boston and complaining that this company started making these straps for them. And that is why - this is true - the company that invented the jockstrap and still sells the most of them is called Bike.

PEPIN: Believe me, I know my jockstraps.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This sort of thing never came up during those years with Julia Child, did it?

PEPIN: Never.

SAGAL: All right, next question, chef. Next question - once the jockstrap was invented, competitors decided to improve it. Which of these was invented in the early 20th century? Was it A- the cast-iron jockstrap, B - the electric jockstrap or C - the opium-infused jockstrap.

PEPIN: Oh, wow, wow, wow, - I think I would...

(LAUGHTER)

PEPIN: I would go for the opium one.

SAGAL: The opium one - that would be fun, but it was, in fact, the electric jockstrap.

PEPIN: Electric?

SAGAL: Electric, yes.

PEPIN: That's not fair to us.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: I know it comes as a shock, but yes, it was...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It's called the Heidelberg Electric Belt. It was supposed to cure insomnia, erectile dysfunction and other problems via electricity through the jock. All rights...

(LAUGHTER)

BURBANK: Insomnia?

CASE: That is messed up.

SAGAL: That is messed up, but no...

BURBANK: Eventually you'd pass out from the pain, and I guess that is a cure for insomnia.

SAGAL: I guess so.

PEPIN: Yeah, right.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Last question - now, as you know, chef, progress moves ever forward. And as compression pants have become more popular in the athletic world, jockstraps have to keep up. One inventor recently came up with which of these? A - the bulletproof jockstrap, B - the Internet-enabled jockstrap or C - the combination gun jockstrap.

PEPIN: I would say the first one.

SAGAL: The bulletproof jockstrap?

PEPIN: Yeah, yes.

SAGAL: You are correct, chef, that is right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Well, if you think about, you know, your standard body armor has a little - you know, there's exposure down below. So...

PEPIN: Yes.

SAGAL: ...This guy has invented a bulletproof jockstrap. And you can see him demonstrate to its use in an incredibly horrifying video.

(LAUGHTER)

CASE: Wow.

SAGAL: Bill, how did chef Jacques Pepin do on our quiz?

KURTIS: Two out of 3, the chef knows what he's doing.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Jacques Pepin is an award-winning chef and TV host. His new book "Jacques Pepin Heart & Soul In The Kitchen" is out now, along with a new version of his fabulous memoir "The Apprentice." Jacques Pepin, thank you so much for talking with us.

PEPIN: Thank you.

SAGAL: What a pleasure, sir.

PEPIN: Sure.

SAGAL: Thank you, chef, bye-bye.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I DON'T WANT LOVE")

DAN HICKS AND THE HOT LICKS: (Singing) Well, I am here to say to you that I love my bread and my meat. Take a look at me and you can plainly see that I'm a man who loves to eat.

SAGAL: In just a minute, Bill drops trou. He just does it, nothing to do with the show.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It's the Listener Limerick Challenge. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to join us on the air. We'll be back in a minute with more of WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME from NPR.

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