[Sca-cooks] Understanding 'real' food - long

[kingstaste at mindspring.com]

I wrote:
	The scary thing is that the memories will be fond nostalgic ones, thinking
that horrible jello-glop sweetness is the best tasting stuff in the world.
It takes a long time and effort to cleanse your palate after a lifetime of
eating that sort of processed food, and many folks don't know anything
different at all.
Christianna

____________

	At the Culinary faculty meeting this morning, we were having this very
conversation.  We are trying to teach kids (and adults) to cook Classical
French Cuisine, when none of them have even come close to it in their lives.
We discussed various things such as requiring 3
white-tablecloth-dining-experiences per quarter, negotiating student
discounts with some fine dining establishments, and bringing in processed
foods on a lab day where something was going to be made from scratch and
letting them do taste comparisons (such as a Twinkie vs. a sponge cake with
whipped cream, or a frozen Chicken Kiev vs. a fresh-prepared version).
	 I was lecturing on Escoffier and Careme one day and saying that they
established a system whereby certain dishes were standardized, so that
anywhere you go that you order Sole a la Meuneire for example, you would
expect to see fillet of sole, cooked in a butter sauce and garnished with
lemon juice and parsley.  If you ordered Eggs Benedict, you would expect to
see a toasted English muffin (or crumpet, if you prefer ;), a slice of
Canadian bacon, a poached egg, and hollandaise sauce (that would be another
good comparison, real Eggs Benedict vs. an Egg McMuffin).  When I tried to
get the kids to name any dish they could think of that had a name and they
could expect to see the same ingredients in, the best they could come up
with was 'spaghetti'.  (And things like Sweet and Sour Chicken, we won't
even go into what they expect to see there).   When we were planning a lab
meal, all they could talk about was which mix they could use to make this or
that, and were shocked when I said we would be making whatever it was we
would be working on from scratch!
	There are lots of pieces of classical cuisine in our modern world,
mayonnaise for example, is everywhere, folks just don't know it's a Mother
Sauce.  With the sum total of folks' culinary experimentation being buying
prepared entrees from Stouffers (Lean Cuisine, probably), they have no clue
what the real dishes are supposed to taste like.
	We also touched on the need to change with the times, be more conscious of
allergies and dietary requirements/fads, but all agreed you couldn't take
shortcuts and make substitutions before you knew the real way to go about
the process (sound familiar?).  That and the real need to establish
professionalism, respect, attention to uniform and personal appearance,
cleanliness and sanitation in the workplace, etc.  Lots of this stuff should
have been taught at home, but hardly any of it has been.
	In any case, the weaning of America from processed foods has been a concern
of mine for some time now. (Working in a huge natural health food market
will do that for you.) It is interesting to me that even given the
differences in dietary requirments (I haven't needed to make an Espagnol
sauce in some time, not eating beef, dairy, or wheat), the same problem
touches both fields.  Maybe that's one of the reasons we all get on here
around Thanksgiving and say how thankful we are for each other to talk to.
So many people in the world do not understand the passion for good food, or
the need to understand how it is prepared.
	 The Slow Food Movement may have something with their ideas about eating
slowly, I think it should extend to the kitchen as well, with a movement
towards fewer prepared and more fresh foods.  (I know, time is an issue for
everyone, and I take shortcuts too.  But, there are lots of ways to save
time and steps, you just have to rearrange your thought processes and
habits.)
	So, keep up the good work everyone, and show the benighted the light by
making a nice chicken soup from scratch, baking some home-made bread for
your sandwiches, and for God's Sake get them away from that package of
dehydrated hollandaise sauce!!!! (Sorry, I get twitchy around that stuff).
	Christianna
	not realizing I was standing on a soapbox until I was covered in suds....