Classical cooking

In Modern America today classical French cooking is so poorly practiced and ignored.  There are many chefs and cooks because the lack of their knowledge of this type of cooking produce food which I would call a best mediocre.  And no saying and I quote “where ignorance is bliss it's a folly to be wise “but in reality all the cooking concepts that we use in our kitchens day comes from classical French cooking. Whether we make a sauce a soup, we roast that chicken to perfection, or braise that veal shank so that is succulent and ever pleasing to the dining public.

When I was an apprentice, every apprentice within the United Kingdom was taught the same way using the same references and most of all practicing the same techniques.  The strength of that whole concept was that we were all trained under the brigade system.  From day one we were taught the techniques of Escoffier, who is very little variation of the interpretation of his works and during my apprenticeship there was very little difference in any of the fine houses and in Europe.  My chef sent me to work under Madam Prunier to expose me to fine classical fish cookery. The first day I arrived in the kitchen the chef came to me and said you are going on the saucier station.  As we all know this is the heart of the kitchen and one has to understand the basics of good sauce making. It was during Lent and we started to get fish orders demanding a dish with a lenting demi glace. I mention this last year to prove that many of the chefs were not classically trained. And I was saddened that only 2/7 chefs understood the concept. To reflect on my experience at that great restaurant was that I was taught how to fish to perfection utilizing great sauces garnishes and finishing products to please the guests.

In reflection, I was very lucky I was trying to one of the finest chef’s world has ever seen an apprentice himself of Escoffier and a wonderful mentor and I always: my second father. Not only was he a great chef he instilled in me that mediocrity was not part of our life and perfection and pleasing our guests is a most important thing we do for the rest of our lives. This year I had the pleasure of working with Chef Peter Timmins CMC we did it wine dinner together and then we demonstrate his interpretation of the modern classical French cooking whilst I did the original interpretation as per Escoffier. We were in the theater 240 other people who were amazed to see that technique was the same with the presentation was totally different. Any chef whose worth his weight in gold needs to be classically trained he or she needs to understand these vital techniques that our guests are looking for a good example of that is American barbecue sauce.  It actually originated from sauce diable or as the French called it devil sauce. When the French Creole came to Louisiana they broth or cooking culture with them because they had African-American cooks who introduced different flavorings to the sauce. For instance Brown sugar more vinegar tomatoes, and salsify which is a basis of the modern American barbeque sauce. Gumbo is another variation of the original Mock turtle soup so as we grew as a culture we found a way to take those classic or cooking methods and turn them into Great American regional cusine. So this book is dedicated to getting back to the basics of classical cooking, to enable an apprentice or a learner cook the opportunity to move forward and be successful in our industry. A lot of the recipes are from Escoffier,and  my apprenticeship notes, and a lot of my great friends who inspired me along the way. So let's start to talk about classical French cooking, and at the end of the day it were better us as a professional chef's and in the long-term please the Great American diner. A final quote Escoffier was one asked what makes a great chef he replied and I quote”Sir the world's greatest chefs in my mind are the world's greatest cooks” for the lack of those basic cooking skills the result will be mediocrity and not please our guests so let's get started and try to become one of the world's greatest cooks.

John.Kinsella CMC