[Sca-cooks] Sca-cooks] Yippee!!!!

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Oct 1, 2006, at 9:42 AM, grizly wrote:

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> They tend to cover the basic techniques (and some advanced ones)
> used
> in classical French cookery, not so much because this is generally
> acknowledged as the greatest cuisine on Earth (although some people
> will tell you that, and they may even have a point), but because it's
> completely adaptable to just about any professional food-service
> situation -- even restaurants that don't serve French food tend to
> use some recognizable variant of Escoffier's brigade system, with the
> work of the kitchen being divided up and managed largely the same way
> since the turn of the 20th century, and possibly as far back as the
> 1880's. < < < < < <
>
> Master A. and others in the foodservice realm,
>
> What one book best covers, in your opinion, the essentials of  
> managing a
> commercial kitchen, layout and techniques/processes.  I could use a  
> general,
> best covered manual for this sort of thing as I may need it coming  
> up this
> fall.  I know the basic things that work for me, but I'd like to see
> something written about the brigade and the structure of the classical
> kitchen.
>
> niccolo
> (ain't been classically trained yet)

One book? That's a tough one.

I see that Amazon has the latest edition of the Culinary Institute of  
America's own text, "The Professional Chef" on sale, down from about  
$70 to about $40 or $45. I don't own a copy, but I hear from all  
sides it's very good.

What I own and use are Wayne Gisslen's "Professional Cooking" and  
"Professional Baking", largely because these were the required texts  
at the culinary school I went to. I would also give serious thought  
to a copy of Escoffier's Guide Culinaire (available in English as  
"The Escoffier Cookbook"), and maybe a copy of the Larousse  
Gastronomique. There are also books out there specifically about  
restaurant management, which will cover both back-of-the-house and  
front-of-the-house operations.

Adamantius