When my father took leave of me in Moulins, where I was to start my apprenticeship as a chef, I was away from my family for the first time in all my fourteen years. For months—even years—I had been pleading to be permitted to train to be a chef; now I had my certificate from our local school, the decision had been made, and I was actually a man on the threshold of a carter. And I was also a very homesick, very shy youngster who found it a distinct effort to appear unconcerned as I unpacked my bag in the dormitory that I would share for nearly two years with five other apprentis.
The only thing that kept me from bolting, aside from my determination to succeed in my chosen profession, was my self-confidence. I thought—I knew—that I was a good cook. Mais oui! Hadn't I watched and helped my gifted mother for years, and my grandmother, too, in her big farm kitchen? At home I was considered quite an expert, especially with soup, the good leek and potato soup which my family liked so well. “Ah,” they would say appreciatively, “notre petit Louis, comme il est un bon chef” Remembering that my family considered their little Louis a good chef had a steadying effect on me, and emboldened me to look forward to pitting my prowess at soup making against that of all comers.
Next morning I donned my new chefs coat and the blue apron which signified that I was an apprenti, and stalked proudly into the laboratoire, as our kitchen workshop was culled, prepared to demonstrate my facility at the soup kettle. It was, to say the least, somewhat unnerving to be informed that I would begin my course by making éclairs!
Now, I had eaten éclairs, of course, but they had been purchased—the usual procedure in France, where elegant petits fours, gâteaux, and pastries are the province of the pâtisserie. I had no idea how the crusty little shells were achieved, or by what magic trick the sweet, creamy filling was bidden inside them.
But éclairs it was, for every day of that first week, and again many more times as the months rolled by, until finally my clumsy hands could line up row after row of perfectly shaped éclairs which varied hardly an iota in size, glossy with vanilla, coffee, or chocolate frosting, and with net a drop of cream showing to reveal how the filling found its way inside.
We had the good fortune at the Maison Ca'ondre, our school, to have as a teacher Monsieur Pardel, an expert craftsman in the arts of pâtisserie and confiserie. Many of the most delectable petits fours and friandises sold by pâtisseries today originated in his agile brain and were first made by his skillful hands. So, I can think of no better way to conduct our class in pastry making than to let Jean Marie Pardel be your teacher, as he was mine. Imagine a tall, dark-haired man with a shining black mustache curling at the ends, and understand that he is a stern man and a strict disciplinarian, yet a teacher who has infinite patience with anyone who wants to learn. I wish you could watch him work—his techniques were perfection itself. And I wish he could watch you work. He noticed any slight deviation from the prescribed methods, and corrected a clumsy, unprofessional motion before it had time to become a habit. And I doubt whether he had ever read one word about psychology!
For example, the first time I tried to make a croquembouche, I had half finished my task when Monsieur came by. I was congratulating myself that my pan of caramel was properly warm and my cone-shaped mold nicely oiled. At once, he ordered me to stop. He had seen at a glance that my beautiful little puffs were not dry enough to stand up, and that I had filled them too full with the pastry cream. Monsieur told me to let the cake cool and then to unmold it. I watched with chagrin while the croquembouche, which should have stood up like a little tower, fell apart in a soggy mass. So I began again, and this time my little puffs were dry and only partly filled with the cream. It was an embarrassing incident—and a lesson I have never forgotten.
Of course, not every cook wants to make pastries. And some cooks are simply not suited to this kind of cookery The hand that wields a cleaver cannot always manage the tiny paper cornet that decorates an inch-square cake. And few chefs can switch successfully from huge soup kettles or mammoth roasting ovens to the delicate pastry tube. In pastry making, one must work deftly, quickly, and with what is called a light hand. The standards for pastry baking are far more exacting than those for other kinds of cooking; variation in the browning of a bird or in the color of a consomme may go unnoticed, hut in delectable little cakes even a slight variation may be unacceptable. The aspiring pastry cook must have infinite patience, must be willing to go through every process over and over again until he learns the feel of the mixture at each step.
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