As I write this primer for beginner cooks, an excellent memory fortunately enables me to bring back into sharp focus the years when 1 myself was a fumbling novice. Thus I feel better able to anticipate the questions beginners might ask, to understand their difficulties, and to suggest the simplest way of resolving their problems. What's more, I find in my memories many good teachers whose example I can follow. I have numerous choices, ranging from my energetic little grand-mère and gentle maman to those great turn-of-the-century chefs under whom I studied and worked.
But memory plays strange tricks sometimes. As I write, long-forgotten faces and incidents suddenly come to mind, as if an early impression that for one reason or another has been buried deep for many, many years was only waiting for some pertinent cue to bring it back into my conscious memory. Fish cookery, the subject of this month's article, is an example of such it cue.
A top-ranking chef must be able to prepare all kinds of fish in all kinds of ways, and no one knew this better than I did, when at sixteen I started my first job in Paris at the Hôtel du Rhin. The idea frightened me a little, since I knew so little about fish cookery. Coming as I did from an inland section of France, I was familiar only with the fresh-water fish that inhabited our local ponds and streams. Salt-water varieties had to be transported in barrels of ice from the sea coast, and were too expensive for us. We were on terms of everyday familiarity with leek-and-potato soup and pot-au-feu, but salt-water fish were anything but commonplace in our kitchen. What I know about fish cookery I learned, for the most part, in the kitchens of the hotels in Paris where I served as commis-cbef.
Of the many experienced chefs who taught me the basic rules—and the flourishes—of fish cookery, the one whom I remember most vividly was actually far from my ideal. Bur he was so colorful, so unusual, and above all, so good at his work, that I learned a great deal from him and enjoyed knowing him in spite of his deplorably Undisciplined habits,
Père Auguste was chef grillardin at the Hôtel du Rhin, and the best grill chef in Paris. To my young eyes he seemed like an old man, but I suppose that he could not have been much more than forty years old. He was. very tall and corpulent, and never quite sober. He had a special wineglass that held nearly a quart of wine, and he refilled it, whenever it was empty, by wheedling or intimidating his juniors and by bribing the waiters to bring him whatever wine the guests left in their bottles. Père Auguste was always in a state of euphoria. He never actually walked to and from his range; he weaved his way, swaying so that his toque slipped dangerously at rakish angles. His eyes were blurred, his voice thick, and his plump hands shaky. Hut none of this affected the quality of his work. When Père Auguste was at the grill, the fish was beautifully browned, always cooked to perfection. Even shad, the most delicate and difficult of all fish to broil, never stuck to his grill and broke. Although I had no desire to emulate Père Auguste's unfortunate habits, I knew that there was a great deal to be learned from him.
At the other extreme, there was the man who was my professional ideal, Monsieur Malley, saucier at the Paris Ritz and later chef del cuisines at the London Ritz. Monsieur was a gentleman to his fingertips, always immaculate, always perfectly groomed, whether he was in the kitchen in working clothes or dressed to leave the hotel in Street attire, complete with cane and top hat. You can see why a sixteen-year-old boy from the country would admire and respect such a fine gentleman! Monsieur Malley's talents as a chef were great and he was especially expert in poaching and saucing fish. He taught me the importance of changing basic formulas to achieve variety and the tactical value of naming such newly created dishes in honor of special guests or occasions. Malley had a fertile mind, and many of the fish sauces served in good restaurants today were originated by him.
Pinterest
