Granddaughter at his side, Jacques Pepin still cooking

Working with Julia Child, Jacques Pepin was one of the first chefs on television to become a household name.

As he approaches his 83rd birthday in December, he’s barely slowed down, even after a small stroke in 2015. Rather than retiring, he’s taking on new projects involving his art and a product line for Sur La Table. He’s also working with his teenage granddaughter, Shorey, who has been seen in episodes of his television series on PBS.

Bridging the generation gap through food, Pepin teams up with his granddaughter to entice others to create memories with meals for “A Grandfather’s Lessons” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $30). Pepin, who has kept his own collection of 12 menu books from meals shared with his family and friends over the past 51 years, also created an illustrated guide to help others share his menu-making tradition with his newest book, “My Menus: Remembering Meals with Friends and Family” (Sur La Table, $40).  

For recipes and to see a collection of 36 videos featuring Pepin and his granddaughter cooking, talking manners and setting a table, go to surlatable.com.

Question: All of your books and shows provide a personal approach, but this seems to have a different intent. What’s your goal?

Pepin: You know, La Technique was an illustrated manual of cooking for professionals, starting at the beginning. Then the opposite, I did “The Short-Cut Cook” to do things the easiest way. Then I did one for cardiac patients. Those are all very focused on a specific area of food.

Here, we were not even going to do a book. Shorey was with me about six or seven years ago, a long time ago for her, for “Essential Pepin.” Then she came back on “Heart and Soul,” the last series. We had fun cooking together. I said let’s do a series, but I didn’t want to do a book.

My daughter said we should do a book with it. We have 36 shows available if people want to see, but cooking together is kind of a common ground. I’m going to be 83 years old. How do you speak to a teenager? That is a whole other world. I am faster than she is with a knife, but she is much faster with her hands when it comes to an iPhone or iPad. Cooking is a common ground and glue to hold the family together.

Q: You talk about changing tastes, and how we grow with exposure. Is there anything you still won’t eat?

Pepin: I remember one time, my mother was here a number of years ago, and there were Jerusalem artichokes, which I hadn’t seen in years. So she bought them, and I didn’t remember, but during the war that’s what we had to eat. I had hated them. I didn’t remember that.

Fifty years later, she cooked them. I said “I hate them.” That’s why I don’t throw anything away. At that time we did not waste.

Q: You talk about not wasting things. What’s something you wanted to teach this next generation?

Pepin: I show how to use a leftover baguette. It’s getting a little hard, you wet them and put them back in the oven. Likewise, going to the market, going to the garden, foraging, it is all part of what we do and our tradition. Shorey’s part of that, and hopefully she will remember that.

Q: Do you want to be known for any one thing or is it an evolution?

Pepin: Not really, it is an evolution. Quite often for many I am considered the quintessential French chef, then you pick up one of my books and you see black bean soup. My wife’s father was Cuban.

Or I’ll show a lobster roll from Connecticut. After half a century from America, I’m probably more the quintessential American chef. I don’t try to be one thing or another, frankly.

Q: Working on this newest book with your granddaughter, are you aiming at a younger audience?

Pepin: I don’t know if it’s that much of a younger audience. I don’t think that I aim toward children. There are some things I did, like a curly (hot) dog, but the recipes are very serious. They are simple, short recipes with fresh ingredients, but they are recipes for everybody.

I don’t think I would have a different way of teaching children. I don’t want her to use a knife when she is 3, but now she is 13. Before that, she knew how to use a vegetable peeler, I knew she was not going to hurt herself. You have to be careful, but you teach the same for everybody.

Q: Is there one recipe that makes you think of your granddaughter?

Pepin: I think she would cook something very simple for me, a roast chicken. As I get older, I don’t need much embellishment on the plate. I go directly for the tastes.

As a young chef you tend to add, add and add too much to the plate. As you get older, you tend to take away and be left with the essential.

Q: What do you get out of cooking with others and continuing to share recipes?

A: I’ve been married 51 years and I don’t remember any time where my wife and I didn’t sit down for dinner, share a bottle of wine and talk about the day. This is the culmination of the day for us, always that time together. This is what I wanted to show Shorey.

Q: After 51 years of marriage, do you have any advice to share?

Pepin: Be together. Especially now in our time of political correctness, we can’t talk about religion or politics or race or gender, so people talk about food. At least it is a common ground.

RECIPE:Chocolate, Nut and Fruit Treats