the Chef’s Reminder

A significant gift I received for Christmas last year turned out to be a little red book entitled “A Selection of Dishes and the Chef’s Reminder”.  The book was purchased by my mother at a public library book sale for $4, and given to me by younger sisters.  Obviously the book was worth more to me than $4 or I would not be writing a blog post on it.  The book was copyrighted in 1896 and 1909, by Charles Fellows and John Willy respectively, my copy being the book’s tenth edition.  It is the book’s content, however, that makes it most fascinating to me.  Most of the book is occupied by a series of entries describing specific dishes.  Many of the dishes are ones that today’s chef might not be familiar with.  Even those dishes that remain, to a greater or lesser extent, in use today, seem to be written with a set of considerations in mind that is entirely different from that of today’s chef. A good example might be the entry for sauce espagnole on page 77:  “Ham, veal, beef, in meat and bones, fried till brown, with carrots, onions, turnips, celery, parsley, thyme, marjoram, savory, bay-leaves, cloves, allspice and pepper, enough flour added to form a brown roux, moistened gradually with good stock, add plenty of tomatoes,  two or three chickens or roast fowl carcasses, simmer slowly for several hours, add sherry wine, and strain.”  Other content that I found particularly interesting included the list of “hints to cooks and stewards” on pages 111-116, a consolidation of culinary dictums that the author was clearly familiar with.  I would personally be interested in knowing what light scientific investigation might shed on the list.   I was also intrigued by the section on pages 192 and 193 titled “a private dinner menu”, which includes the menu served by Fellows to a man described as “the millionaire and terrapin king” Mr. Hermann Oelrichs, along with the accompanying “waiter’s instructions”.  The aforementioned menu, as well as the book as a whole, provide a fascinating glimpse into a previous chapter of American haute cuisine.

The Chef’s Reminder may be read on Google books here, or purchased online relatively inexpensively.

Changes in Class

My time at the PCI has been going quite well thus far.  I have been receiving reasonably good grades, and more importantly, I am learning much.  Just this week, we have had a bit of a transition in both our curriculum and our class dynamics.  While our chef-instructor’s original plan was to begin on the study of the physiology of taste and smell this week, a change of plans has meant that we are now delving into international cuisine first.  While each student would previously work primarily from their base station for the completion of all dishes, we now rotate work stations so that each station may be affixed to the preparation of a specific dish.  Additionally, the chef is now beginning to  demonstrate more extracurricular dishes.  Those he has covered in Chinese cuisine are hand-pulled noodles and Peking duck (my workstation partner, Andy, brought the air compressor).  To maximize my education value, I am continuing to frequent my chef-instructor’s night class on Monday through Wednesday.  I usually practice dishes or techniques I have learned during my regular class, with my chef-instructor’s oversight.  We will, however, occasionally work on something outside of the curriculum (N-ZORBIT M maltodextrin was interesting).  Sometimes I also help out at the PCI with special events.  Yesterday I had to turn down the opportunity to work at a banquet from 2 pm to 10 pm, from the 17th through 22nd, at $15 per hour, not only because of scheduling issues, but also because I will not work on Sundays.

This Wednesday, chef Marc Bauer from the FCI (who was once chef-instructor to Wylie Dufresne) gave a demonstration garlic soup with rock shrimp and pesto, duck breast with pomegranate, brussels sprouts, and parsnip puree, and mango and apple tart tatin with coconut and lime sorbet.  During the demonstration, he demonstrated the use of the Vita-Mix blender for garlic soup as well as the pesto and sorbet.  All three dishes where quite good.  The element that particularly interested me was the dark baked strip of coconut meat he used to garnish the sorbet.

a Statment of Culinary Principles

What follows is a list of a number of principles I believe have come to define my thinking about cuisine, and the practice of a chef more specifically.   Note that this statement is by no means exhaustive, and for purposes of this statement their are many subjects that I have but touched upon.

Preliminary Principles:

1.       The chef’s goal, in its entirety, must be to glorify and bring pleasure to his Creator.

2.       The chef must be a perfectionist.  His ingredients must be of the highest quality, or otherwise best suited to his ends.  He must constantly refine his skills and repertoire in order to improve the dining experience he is able to offer.  The chef must be prepared to change any practice which proves to be compromise.  The chef must learn from his shortcomings.

3.       The chef must be prepared to go to whatever lengths necessary to ensure that his ideals are fulfilled as closely as possible.

4.       The chef must think outside the box in devising the means by which his ideals will be fulfilled.  He must recognize the need for science, technology, and collaboration with those within and without the strictly defined culinary sphere.

5.       While science and technology may play an increasing role in cuisine, they must still be considered only supplementary to taste and experience.

6.       The chef must maintain a well ordered restaurant.  He must recognize the necessity of both mise en place in the kitchen and a well choreographed service.  The respective tasks that need to be done simultaneously or according to a certain order of operations must be well coordinated.

7.       The chef must not compromise the safety of the diner.  Food must be prepared under sanitary conditions, and the products he uses must be safe and wholesome in the quantities they are served.

Developing the Dining Experience within a Multimedia Framework:

8.      A diner’s perception of a given experience will be depend a great deal upon the diner’s own reference points, along with a myriad of other factors, both physical and psychological.

9.   A dining experience that emotionally impacts the diner (sometimes referred to as the sixth sense) will be much more rich and memorable than a dining experience that merely impacts the diner at an intellectual and physical level.

10.    Although requisite that the diner be to some degree emotionally detached from events immediately preceding the dining experience, the chef may aim at evoking memories more deeply rooted within the diner.

11.    As dining is a multi-sensory experience, all five senses effect a diner’s perception of food.  Since the various areas of the human brain that process different forms of stimuli and pleasure are in fact neurologically connected, the chef  may purposefully induce and exploit environmental stimuli other than food itself in order to enhance the dining experience.  Certain external environmental stimuli may even require the active participation of the diner.

12.   In seeking to understand the relationship between the dining experience and human perception, the chef may look to such fields as neurology and physiology.   The knowledge attained by studies of human flavor preferences and human behavioral patterns in the area of eating can be particularly enlightening to the chef.

13.   Fine dining can provide a form of pleasure that transcends pleasure derived from the physical satisfaction of the appetite.  Standards of culinary aesthetic evaluation have traditionally recognized, although not necessarily articulated as such, an appreciation of a good balance of flavors, textures, and colors, as well as an appreciation of novelty, especially regarding foods associated with luxury.  Of course, eating cannot be completely removed from its functional, utilitarian, purpose.

14.   When a chef serves a dish which challenges (in a constructive manner) the preconceptions of a diner who is well informed of existing  standards of culinary aesthetic evaluation, he provides the diner with one of the highest forms of intellectual stimulation.  His work may thereby be compared with that of artists in other fields.

The Development of Cuisine:

15.   The chef must look beyond immediate trends within the culinary sphere in order to set the future direction of creative cuisine.

16.   A chef may adapt existing dishes, emphasizing particular qualities or characteristics of those dishes, or develop new dishes, through any number of creative models.  Nature can also be a rich source of inspiration for new dishes.  The chef should place special emphasis on the creative developmental process in general.

17.   Culinary heritages that have historically been devoted to gastronomy are a rich source of inspiration for the chef today.  It is not enough for the chef to explore only the range of culinary possibilities offered within his own cultural framework.  The chef must collaborate with those with expertise in food cultures other than his own.

18.   The chef must not restrict himself to developing dishes that fit neatly within traditional categorization, in particular, the traditional sweet-savory distinctions; although the chef must still be aware of the role these categorizations play.

19.   New ingredients, transformation processes, and even service methodologies can be a source of inspiration for new dishes to a limited extent if such fit within his overarching ideals.

The Attainment of Defined Ideals:

20.   No preparation should be considered above reexamination and scientific inquiry, no matter how traditional or pervasive.  The chef must not simply believe culinary dictums that have been perpetrated without adequate verification; they often prove false.

21.   A scientific understanding of the composition of ingredients, whether natural or processed, simple or complex, and how characteristics of ingredients may be modified by various processes, or methods of combining with other ingredients, enable the chef to decide what ingredients, processes, or combination methods to use to reach the desired result.

22.   The use of highly precise measurement devices, whether they measure temperature, mass, ph, brix, or some other quality, enable the chef to accurately monitor processes that produce changes that can be quantified by such instruments.

23.   The expanding array of equipment available to the chef offers many options for fulfilling both existing and new functions.  The chef must learn to utilize, both equipment that is capable of transforming ingredients in new ways, and equipment capable of fulfilling existing purposes more accurately and effectively.