Interview with Chef Eric: Dining Hall Manager, World Traveler, and the former Maitre d'Hotel of the President of France
“I traveled the whole world, yeah. I’ve been to Jakarta, India, Brasil. Everywhere”, Chef Eric tells me in his crisp French accent, chopping greens so quickly my eyes can barely follow the movements of his shiny steel knife. When I am working next to him in the kitchen of the Bennington College Dining Hall, we could probably play this game my entire shift long. Name a port, Chef Eric will point it out on the map. Name a city, Chef Eric will have a funny anecdote for you. Name a country, Chef Eric has visited at least once or twice––as long as it is not landlocked.
White shirt, glasses, black “dining services” hat––Eric Emery is a well known figure in Bennington College, making sure student workers scrub every inch (or, in the European fashion, centimeter) of the dining hall––no complaining!––and scolding those who forgot their Bennington ID for the third time that week. For most, it’s no surprise that he was enlisted in the navy. But after questioning some d-hall workers about their boss, it soon becomes obvious that there is more to his former life in France than simply some years spent with the military service. Bennington College has a small, but tight-knit community. No one can stay at this school with its charming little white and red wooden houses and the picturesque view of the Green Mountains for very long without revealing at least one or two secrets.
“He’s met like, so many American presidents, haven’t you heard?”, one of my friends, who used to work with Chef Eric, tells me.
“I don’t know why, but apparently there’s some photos on the internet.” And indeed, after a short google search, I find a pixelated picture from 2004, showing a younger Chef Eric next to a grinning George Bush, looking at the camera like a deer caught in the headlights.
Anne Pötzsch: So I stalked your LinkedIn, and I saw you had a picture with George Bush. When did you meet George Bush, and why? And why does this picture exist?
Eric Emery: Why does this picture exist? Okay. Before I came to the US, I was working with the French Navy. And the French Navy is responsible for the food service of the President of France. So I worked for the President for eight years. The first year, I met Bill Clinton, when it was a summit from NATO in France. And the picture you have on my LinkedIn, it's from 2004, when it was the 60th anniversary of D-Day. So I served President Bush for at least seven, ten times, because the relations between France and the US were very great at that time.
But why does the Navy serve the Presidents?
Eric Emery: Okay, so we go back to Charles de Gaulle, one of the Presidents of France. In the 50s, the security for the President was not great. So since he was an army guy, he said, “Oh, I take all the people who work with the army, they already have background checks, and so like that, I already have a security measure.” In the US, most of the people who work for the President are from the Air Force.
So you don't really apply for the job to work for the President. It's just because you already worked in the Navy.
Eric Emery: I received a call and I had 30 minutes to say yes.
And you said yes.
Eric Emery: And I said yes.
Do you know why they picked you?
Eric Emery: Yes, I know. So I received a call when I was at the submarine base in Brest. Before that, I was on a helicopter carrier. I was assistant of the mess hall for the captain of the ship. And the captain of the ship knew that I was doing a great job. So he put a recommendation on my file. And when the President of France and his wife was looking for adding more people for their service, they called the Navy. The Navy looked at the file. My file appeared.
But how did the whole story even start? Why did you become like a chef in the first place?
Eric Emery: First place, I remember when I was very young, three, four years old, I was watching TV in France, looking at the culinary show. And I was fascinated by that. And very, very early age, I was very interested in food. My mother was a very good cook. My father was also very appreciative of the good food. Every winter, we had a pig hanging in a basement, to make the pig with my uncle. Chicken from the farm, not from the grocery store, ducks, rabbits, things like that. I grew up with a very foodie family, so it came naturally.
And why did you decide to work for the Navy? Was it a conscious decision? Or did it just happen?
Eric Emery: At that time in France, you had to do at least 12 months of military service. And I knew that if I want to choose where I want to go [for the military service], I will need to enlist. So I said, why don't you do three years? And three years became 15.
So you had to do it anyway.
Eric Emery: You had to do at least one year. And when you do only one year, you are put somewhere that you have no say about it. So at least if you enlist, you could do some classes [at a French military administration school, for food services]. I finished first on all of my classes. And after that, I need to choose. We were a class of, what, 30? So we have 30 places. I went to the Helicopter Carrier, who was a flagship of the French Navy. I knew that I was traveling half of the world every six months. I spent four years on it. I traveled two times around the world before I was 24 years old.
Wow! So where did you go on the Carrier? I mean, I guess it's a lot, but what are the most memorable places?
Eric Emery: It's great everywhere! The first place I stopped was Abidjan, Ivory Coast. And it was great also, because when I was doing classes in the French Navy for the culinary course, some officer from the Ivory Coast Navy came also doing class at the same time. So the first time I went to Abidjan, I met him again. So after that, I went to Rio de Janeiro two times. Montevideo, it’s in Uruguay. Buenos Aires, I've been two times. Punta Arenas, Cape Horn. Easter Island, we stopped over there. French Polynesia––a small island that is French near Mexico, it's Clipperton. I went two times across Panama Canal, to Quebec City, New York City, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Casablanca, Reykjavik, Hamburg, Istanbul, Cairo, Djibouti, Cochin in India two times, Jakarta, Bali, Singapore, Vladivostok. Vladivostok, it was just after the wall went down and we were the third foreign boat going to Vladivostok. It was 70 years of no foreign boats in this military airborne.
How was that?
Eric Emery: It was strange because five days before we were in Tokyo, city of light, and when we arrived to Vladivostok, it was almost like going back to time, because construction was from the 50s. No light outside, it was very dark, it was decrepit a little bit.
I know what it looks like. It looks scary. So could you also do a little bit of sightseeing in these places or was it always just work?
Eric Emery: Yeah, the most sightseeing I was able to do was when I was in India. We took a train from Cochin, so it's on the west coast of India, and we went all the way down to the pointy part, the south part of India, Trivandrum. It took five hours for doing 250 kilometers only. So the railway was really bad. It was full. We were in first class. It cost us maybe five bucks to go down. And the dining car, the thing I remember, was basically a freight car with the door open and somebody with an open fire in the middle of it. Very, very local. It was a little bit crazy. We spent two days over there in a resort, and when we went back, we didn't take the train. We met somebody over there who drove us back. And also Kerala, that's the region where Cochin is, is very well known for rice making. So you have the backwater flooded and you have a lot of canals where you can sail on. So we went back sailing on the backwater. And we stopped at one place, a junk [a Chinese sailing ship], and we ate piranha, grilled piranha over there.
Like, the fish?
Eric Emery: The fish, the piranha. You can see the teeth on your plate. It was an excellent fish, but yes, it was, “ohh, big teeth!”
I can imagine!
Did you have a lot of culinary discoveries on the journey? You must have learned a lot more about the different foods.
Eric Emery: A lot about Indian food, a lot about Chinese food, Indonesian food. We stopped in two French territories. One in Indian Ocean, that's called Réunion Island, it's near Madagascar. It's basically a melted pot of France. We have European, African, Asian, Arab people, because it was a French territory. All people want to go there, basically. It was great.
So could you take some of it for your own cooking? Or was it more something you just enjoyed?
Eric Emery: Enjoy it! And we tried to do that here [at Bennington]. We just did a Persian dinner here.
Yeah, I remember.
Eric Emery: It was great. And we are willing to [do it again], if [there are] some students from Germany or whatever they are, and they are a little bit homesick, and they want to have dinner with us. Last time, when I was here before, we did something from Bulgaria too.
That would be great!
And then, after traveling around the world in the Helicopter Carrier, I remember you saying you worked at the base for the submarines. And I remember hearing that it was very well guarded.
Eric Emery: Yes.
How do you work at a place like that, that is so guarded? Are you even allowed to talk much about it?
Eric Emery: My job, I would say, was to serve the officer who was running the base and be the captain of the submarine.
That's all you can say about it?
Eric Emery: Yeah. That's all I can say.
So it's very secretive.
Eric Emery: The name of the place––I can say it, because it's very well known everywhere––It's Île Longue. You can only go by boat. And inside the base you have also two zones. One that everybody can go. And the other zone that only the crew from the submarine can go. And that's all. Because they are nuclear submarines. It's a strategic defense of France.
Yeah. So I remember there was this thing where it showed up on Google Maps that everyone was really mad about.
Eric Emery: Yeah.
And then when you worked for the President, it was probably also very well guarded and very secretive.
Eric Emery: So I served the President of France from 1996 until 2004. So any President, Prime Minister from that time you say, oh, did you serve him? Most of the time I would say yes. I served two of your [Germany’s] chancellors.
Oh, really?
Eric Emery: Yeah. Schroeder. And 1996, I think, Kohl? He did the reunification.
You don't talk, you just...
Eric Emery: You do your job. You need to disappear. The job needs to be done almost by magic. Since I was in the private service of the French President, I was also in charge of taking care of some foreign presidents because sometimes, for medical reasons, they come to France to get their health checked, or if they need to have something done. And especially people from Africa, they come in France to get some operation or things like that. I have to take care of them when they came.
Yeah, okay––that's extremely confidential!
And then, in the midst of all of that, how did your wife come into the picture? Because if I remember correctly, your wife is from the US, right?
Eric Emery: I met my wife when I was on the helicopter carrier.
Oh yeah––that makes sense.
Eric Emery: That makes sense, no! So I met my wife when it was my third round with the helicopter carrier. We went to Philadelphia. I met her because the French veteran of the Second World War who lived in the Philadelphia area did a party. And I met her here because she was a French teacher. The French Association invited all the people who speak French at that time over there. And she appeared. And... Oh! Bing bang boom! 28 years later, we are still here together.
That's cute! So it was a long distance thing?
Eric Emery: It was a long distance. We spent three days together because I was working on a shift. She was a French teacher at that time in New Hope, Pennsylvania. It's about an hour north of Philadelphia. And I say the magic word: “I could visit your classroom!” So she gave me a map. I went. It was her first year over there. So the map she gave me was wrong. It took me three hours instead of an hour and a half to find her. We spent an afternoon, and I went back to the ship after that. That was in April, and in June, she came back to France because she had a study abroad at the University of Rennes. I met her over there because my boat was coming back for his tour in June in Brest. So Brest and Rennes is about an hour and a half apart by train. I met her over there. We spent time together. She left. And I came back to see her in the U.S. And back and forth. Three years later, we were married.
Oh! But that's so lucky that it worked out that way.
Eric Emery: Yes, it was. You know, it was meant to be because we met when it was [the party of] a French veteran of the Second World War. So they were 65, 70 years old. We were, what, 12 people from the ship? I was one of the youngest. And she was there, and maybe a granddaughter or one of the veterans who was under 30, basically, so… [laughs]
So you could say it was fate, almost. And then, after all of your time with the navy, you went to America.
Eric Emery: After 15 years in the French Navy, you can be retired. So I chose to do that. And at that time, my wife had only some US diplomas, so it was very hard to find a job for her [in France]. So we decided to go back to the US. She found a job in Philadelphia. My kids were very young. Bryan, my son, was four. And my daughter was 18 months old. So I took care of them for the first six months. Tried to find something for me, but it was good to be the daddy at home. And spend time, because before, it was sometimes 18 hours a day [of work]. I missed the first step of my son, because I was away. So I took care of them. And basically since we moved to the US, I was always choosing a job that I was home every night and even on weekends. So it's been only for the past––what?––three years, four years max, that I can work on weekends. Because my son's getting married this year. My daughter, she's in university. She's going back to Korea for class this summer.
So family was more important than anything else for you?
Eric Emery: You need to choose. I was working for an elementary school, so the pay was not great. But you do what you need to do sometimes. Family is more important than your job.
Your daughter is also an international student. Yay! Do you think that your children are also more ready to go into the world and explore because of your experiences? Did you teach them this kind of style of life?
Eric Emery: I would say they know that there is not only one country. When we moved from Philadelphia to here [Bennington], we were in a house that was owned by the school, together with four international students. So my daughter was five and my son was ten years old, and they had these big brothers from foreign countries, that’s what they used to call them––big brothers. One from China, one from Taiwan, one from Japan and one from Germany. And for them, it was just natural to have that. Also, when we were in France, even though it was mostly French speaking for my son, who went to kindergarten over there––we went to the American church in Paris, where everyone was speaking English and French, and I remember my son, he was barely three years old, and he asked people, “oh, my name is Bryan, I speak French and English, where are you from?“ Because he knew already, at that age, that there was more than one language, because he already understood and spoke almost two himself at that time. So yeah, my children are bilingual, they are aware since a young age that the world is big. They already have the background that the world is a world. There is not just one way of thinking, there are a lot of different ways.
That’s very true! Was it like that for you too, when you began to work for schools in the US? Is it very different from what your work at the Navy before was, did you also have to adopt a new way of thinking?
Eric Emery: For school, yes, it's very different. For K-12, they have a lot of regulations to follow for the nutrition guide, because all the meals are reimbursed by the state or by the federal state. So they give you some guidelines that sometimes are great and sometimes, they are completely idiots. They are stupid.You are more restrained about what you can serve.
How did you come here then, to Bennington College, after working for the school in Philly?
Eric Emery: So we moved to Philadelphia, we spent four years there. My wife had a job at a private school. Sadly, the enrollment of the French program went down and so they told her that she cannot be full-time anymore, she will be part-time. So we said, financially, it was a stretch, but we said, well, we can look around. And by miracle, the Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester was looking for a French teacher and she was hired and we had to move in one month. We already had a ticket to go to see my parents in France. It was in June. We spent a month over there, we come back here, we just put everything in a trailer, bring back everything. So it was very fast.
We moved in 2009, in August. I came here [to Bennington College] because my kids were in university, so, as you know, universities in US are not free.
I know, I know.
Eric Emery: So, it was the time for me to increase my income. Because what they gave me at high school and middle school was not enough.
How is it working here then? You work with all these college students, and to be fair, we still need to learn a lot, most of us have no experience working in dining services.
Eric Emery: It's like having cats, you know, it's like herding cats sometimes.
Cats?
Eric Emery: At least with most of them, most of them. They are best students, like you. But some of them, sometimes, you need to, you know… [makes hand gestures] They don't know what they do, you know what I mean? I have more than 35 years experience in culinary. So I always say, there are no stupid questions, because you don’t know what you don’t know. You are here to learn. If you are willing to learn, you're good. You are here, you get paid, you need to do a job. My job is to make sure that you do your job safely and as productive as you can. I try to be fair. It's not your passion, but sometimes, you learn a thing. Because cooking, you will use it. How to dice an onion, you will use it. If you learn that correctly, that will be a skill that you can have for life.
And other than your job, were there other things that irritated you about the US? Was there a big difference in the way how things worked from what you were used to?
Eric Emery: I would say it was almost more strange for my wife than me. Because we spent eight years in France. And when she came back, she thought that everything would be the same. But it's not. Everything is moving. For me, it was new every time. For her, it was, “oh, that changed!“ So it was also a culture shock for her. Mostly for her, I would say. I travel around the world, so I know that stuff is different. It's not my country. It's like, now when I go back to France, I’m like, “oh, what they do over there now?“ It's strange. You will see also, you live for a couple of months [in the US] and you go back, what's going on here in Germany? The world keeps turning without you.
Yeah, that makes sense. So when you go back to France, it's a bigger difference than when you first came to the US. How do you feel that mostly?
Eric Emery: It's strange because it's my home country but it's not my home anymore. I've been in the US for more than 20 years now. I live in France for 34 years almost. But, you know, with time it’s starting to be––”Where is home?” It's where you have your family. I have two home countries now basically.
Do you feel you got used to it, to being in both places in a way?
Eric Emery: It's strange because your brain can do funny things, like this summer when we went back to France, I was very tired, and I was turning around and starting to speak English to my brother. I don't remember which language I was speaking with him. And he was looking at me,” no, it's French here!”
Yeah. I understand that feeling.
Eric Emery: It's strange. You go back, you say, that's my country, yeah, maybe. You know, there are good things in France, there are bad things in France, and here [in the United States] it's the same. Your home, it's where you are, where you have your family, where your kids grow up. Nationality, it's what it is. We need to have a piece of paper to prove who we are, but that's all.
Your home is your home.
Chef Eric
Chef Eric, demonstrating how to cut brussel sprouts to student workers in the dining hall (he puts specific emphasis on his black rubber gloves––hygiene is très important in the kitchen!)