Every great chef is something of an artist. The potager, the saucier, the rôtisseur-the chef who keeps close to the soup kettle, the saucepan, or the roasting oven-encounters few artistic problems. But in the departments where salads, appetizers, aspics, pastries, and desserts are made, and garnishing and decorations are of major importance, the chef is lost if he is not a little bit the artist. At the very least, he must have good taste to guide a deft hand and knowing eye.
Fashions in food embellishment change with the times; unlike recipes, they rapidly become outdated. How ridiculous the elaborate 19th-century decorations would look on today's simpler tables! Yet some garnishing tricks have stood the test of time because they are in good taste. It is with these garnishes, and the basic rules that apply to them, that this class in classic cuisine deals.
Classic French cuisine assigns prime importance to the appearance of food. A plat must be enticing, it must pique the appetite. And in the finest French cooking, it must also have an air of sophistication. The embellishment must never be heavy-handed, never gauche, never overdone. The artist-chef has a light touch-and he strives to achieve tasteful design and garnishes of suitable size, shape, and color. He can indulge in humor, too. and in sentiment decorations très gai for New Year's Eve, tres doux for an anniversary.
I will never forget the flair Theodore Tzarvas, the famous Theodore who was maitre d'hôtel at the old Ritz-Carlton roof garden, had for that sort of thing, or the way he had of making more work for the kitchen, usually when we were busiest. When guests whom Theodore knew well and liked gave formal dinners, he would promptly ascertain the color of the hostess” gown. Hurrying into action, we would create a pink or green or yellow mousse or bombe for dessert-or sometimes one in two colors to match the lady's dress. Then Theodore would take the exquisite bombe in on a shining silver platter and say, 'To match your gown. Madame.” It was most impressive. Only favorites received this accolade.
When the reference is to food. the words “garnish” and “decoration” mean practically the same thing-but not quite. In French cooking, anything served with a dish is spoken of as the “garniture.” Vegetables, for instance. that are put in the stew with the meat, are often called “la garniture.” But the piped figures on petits fours and patterns arranged on aspic-covered food-these are “decorations.” Garnishes are often, but not always, decorations, and decorations are often, but not always, garnishes.
A careful look at garnished dishes in restaurants, in pictures, or at formal dinners or buffets will give you many ideas, and a few simple rules will help you carry them out. A sharp knife is your best tool.
Consider first the over-all effect. Choose a dish large enough to hold food and garnish without crowding, and never, never let the garnish spill over the edge; there should be a definite border of china or silver. Select a flat plate for a frozen bombe, a cake, or a pâté that must be sliced, then keep the garnish out of the way of the server. A garnish of stuffed vegetables is one thing around chops, which have merely to be lifted off the plate, quite another when it gets in the way of a carver slicing a ham. Put only as much sauce-if there is any-on a platter as it can comfortably hold; pass the remainder in a sauceboat.
Now, take color. The most popular color, because it is the easiest to come by, is the green of parsley and water cress. The bright accents of tomato and pimento arc the red favorites; hard-cooked egg provides white and yellow; truffles and black olives, black. Suppose you decide to garnish a cold main dish with tomato. Peel firm, rather small tomatoes that are bright red. Here are some of the ways you can use them:
Cut off the tops, gently squeeze out the surplus juice, and fill the tomatoes with a salad made either of seeded and finely sliced cucumbers or of finely diced vegetables. Replace the tops and on each put a tiny tip of parsley. Or cut the tomatoes in eighths and make fan shapes with hard-cooked eggs that have been cut in quarters or sixths. Or place slices of hard-cooked egg on tomato slices and top each with a center of a slice of ripe or stuffed green olive. Or overlap very thin tomato slices around a dish and sprinkle them with a band of finely chopped parsley. Whole stuffed tomatoes show up best on nests of small lettuce leaves; slices look best with a few sprigs of parsley or water cress tucked sparingly around them.
Because parsley is not only the easiest garnish to get, but the quickest and simplest to use, it has become the backbone, so to speak, of the garnishing art. Handle it, however, with discretion. Use a large quantity only around such a dish as a whole cold turkey on a large platter. Ordinarily, a few sprigs will serve. Show off only the leafy part of whole parsley; tuck the stems, cut short, under the food. Prepare chopped parsley this way: bunch the stems in your left hand, lay the bouquet of leaves on the cutting board, and make fine, even cuts from the leaf tips back. Discard the stems, and placing the point of the knife on the board, rock the blade up and down over the cut parsley until you have fine uniform bits.
You should also be acquainted with mimosa, bouquets de légumes. and certain aspic decorations. Mimosa is a mixture of hard-cooked egg and parsley. the egg white and parsley chopped very, very line and the yolk pressed through a fine sieve. This is simple to prepare and very attractive sprinkled in a band around appetizers or salads, or used in the center. A bouquet de légumes usually includes-and your aim here is daintiness and colorfulness-string beans cut in small pieces, peas, little Lima beans. small white turnip and carrot dice, and flowerets of cauliflower, all cooked until barely tender in salted water. Dress the vegetables with butter and make parsley decorated mounds around hot food; for Cold platters, dress them with a little vinaigrette and make dainty piles in lettuce nests.
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