A
HISTORY OF MODERN FOOD SERVICE
The value of history is that it helps us understand the present
and the future. In food service, knowledge of our professional heritage helps
us see why we do things as we do, how our cooking techniques have been
developed and refined, and how we can continue to develop and innovate in the
years ahead. An important lesson of history is that the way we cook now is the
result of the work done by countless chefs over hundreds of years. Cooking is as
much science as it is art. Cooking techniques are not based on arbitrary rules
that some chefs made up long ago. Rather, they are based on an understanding of
how different foods react when heated in various ways, when combined in various
proportions, and so on. The chefs who have come before us have already done
much of this work, so we don’t have to. This doesn’t mean there is no room for
innovation and experimentation or that we should never challenge old ideas. But
it does mean a lot of knowledge has been collected over the years, and we would
be smart to take advantage of what has already been learned. Furthermore, how
can we challenge old ideas unless we know what those old ideas are? Knowledge
is the best starting point for innovation.
THE ORIGINS OF CLASSICAL
AND MODERN CUISINE
Quantity cookery has existed for thousands of years, if there have
been large groups of people to feed, such as armies. But modern food service is
said to have begun shortly after the middle of the eighteenth century. At this
time, food production in France was controlled by guilds. Caterers, pastry
makers, roasters, and pork butchers held licenses to prepare specific items. An
innkeeper, to serve a meal to guests, had to buy the various menu items from
those operations that were licensed to provide them. Guests had little or no
choice and simply ate what was available for that meal.
In 1765, a Parisian named Boulanger began advertising on his shop
sign that he served soups, which he called restaurants or restoratives.
(Literally, the word means “fortifying.”) According to the story, one of the
dishes he served was sheep’s feet in a cream sauce. The guild of stew makers
challenged him in court, but Boulanger won by
claiming he didn’t stew the feet in the sauce but served
them with the sauce. In challenging the rules of the guilds, Boulanger
unwittingly changed the course of food service history.
The new developments in food service received a great stimulus as
a result of the French Revolution, beginning in 1789.Before this time, the
great chefs were employed in the houses of the French nobility. With the
revolution and the end of the monarchy, many chefs, suddenly out of work,
opened restaurants in and around Paris to support themselves. Furthermore, the
revolutionary government abolished the guilds. Restaurants and inns could serve
dinners reflecting the talent and creativity of their own chefs, rather than
being forced to rely on licensed caterers to supply their food. At the start of
the French Revolution, there were about 50 restaurants in Paris. Ten years
later there were about 500.
Another important invention that changed the organization of
kitchens in the eighteenth century was the stove, or potager, which gave
cooks a more practical and controllable heat source than an open fire. Soon
commercial kitchens became divided into three departments: the rotisserie,
under the control of the meat chef or rôtisseur, the oven, under the
control of the pastry chef or pâtissier, and the stove, run by the cook
or cuisinier. The meat chef and pastry chef reported to the cuisinier, who
was also known as chef de cuisine, which means “head of the kitchen.”
CARÊME
All the changes that took place in the world of cooking during the
1700s led to, for the first time, a difference between home cooking and professional
cooking. One way we can try to understand this difference is to look at the
work of the greatest chef of the pe-riod following the French Revolution, Marie-Antoine
Carême (1784–1833). As a young man, Carême learned all the branches of
cooking quickly, and he dedicated his career to refining and organizing
culinary techniques. His many books contain the first systematic account of
cooking principles, recipes, and menu making.
At a time when the interesting advances in cooking were happening
in restaurants, Carême worked as a chef to wealthy patrons, kings, and heads of
state. He was perhaps the first real celebrity chef, and he became famous as the
creator of elaborate, elegant display pieces and pastries, the ancestors of our
modern wedding cakes, sugar sculptures,
and ice and tallow carvings. But it was Carême’s practical and
theoretical work as an author and an inventor of recipes that was responsible, to
a large extent, for bringing cooking out of the Middle Ages and into the modern
period.
Carême emphasized procedure and order. His goal was to create more
lightness and simplicity. The complex cuisine of the aristocracy—called Grande
Cuisine—was still not much different from that of the Middle Ages and was
anything but simple and light. Carême’s efforts were a great step toward modern
simplicity. The methods explained in his books were complex, but his aim was pure
results. He added seasonings and other ingredients not so much to add new
flavors but to highlight the flavors of the main ingredients. His sauces were
designed to enhance, not cover up, the food being
sauced. Carême was a thoughtful chef, and, whenever he changed a
classic recipe, he was careful to explain his reasons for doing so.
Beginning with Carême, a style of cooking developed that can truly
be called international, because the same principles are still used by
professional cooks around the world. Older styles of cooking, as well as much
of today’s home cooking, are based on tradition. In other words, a cook makes a
dish a certain way because that is how it always has been done. On the other
hand, in Carême’s Grande Cuisine, and in professional cooking ever
since, a cook makes a dish a certain way because the principles and methods of
cooking show it is the best way to get the desired results. For example, for hundreds
of years, cooks boiled meats before roasting them on a rotisserie in front of the
fire. But when chefs began thinking and experimenting rather than just
accepting the tradition of boiling meat before roasting, they realized that
either braising the meat or roasting it from the raw state were better options.
ESCOFFIER
Georges-Auguste
Escoffier (1847–1935), the greatest chef of his time, is still today revered
by chefs and gourmets as the father of twentieth-century cookery. His two main contributions
were (1) the simplification of classical cuisine and the classical menu, and the
reorganization of the kitchen. Escoffier rejected what he called the “general
confusion” of the old menus, in which sheer quantity seemed to be the most
important factor. Instead,he called for order and diversity and emphasized the
careful selection of one or two dishes per course, dishes that followed one
another harmoniously and delighted the taste with their delicacy and
simplicity. Escoffier’s books and recipes are still important reference works
for professional chefs. The basic cooking methods and preparations we study
today are based on Escoffier’s work. His book Le Guide Culinaire, which
is still widely used, arranges recipes in a simple system based on main
ingredient and cooking method, greatly simplifying the more complex system handed down from
Carême. Learning classical cooking, according to Escoffier, begins with
learning a relatively few basic procedures and understanding basic ingredients.
Escoffier’s second major achievement, the reorganization of the
kitchen, resulted in a streamlined workplace that was better suited to turning
out the simplified dishes and menus he instituted. The system of organization
he established is still in use today, especially in large hotels and
full-service restaurants.
MODERN TECHNOLOGY
Today’s kitchens look much different from those of Escoffier’s
day, even though our basic cooking principles are the same. Also, the dishes we
eat have gradually changed due to the innovations and creativity of modern
chefs. The process of simplification and refinement, to which Carême and
Escoffier made monumental contributions, is still ongoing, adapting classical
cooking to modern conditions and tastes.
Before
we discuss the changes in cooking styles that took place in the twentieth century,
let’s look at some of the developments in technology that affected cooking.
Development of New
Equipment
We take for granted such basic equipment as gas and electric
ranges and ovens and electric refrigerators. But even these essential tools did
not exist until fairly recently. The easily controlled heat of modern cooking
equipment, as well as motorized food cutters, mixers, and other processing
equipment, has greatly simplified food production. Research and technology
continue to produce sophisticated tools for the kitchen. Some of these
products, such as tilting skillets and steam-jacketed kettles, can do many jobs
and are popular in many kitchens. Others can perform specialized tasks rapidly and
efficiently, but their usefulness depends on volume because they are designed
to do only a few jobs. Modern equipment has enabled many food service operations
to change their production methods. With sophisticated cooling, freezing, and heating
equipment, it is possible to prepare some foods further in advance and in
larger quantities. Some large multiunit operations prepare food for all their
units in a central commissary. The food is prepared in quantity, packaged, chilled
or frozen, then heated or cooked to order in the individual units.
COOKING IN THE TWENTIETH
AND TWENTY-FIRST CENTURIES
All these developments have helped change cooking styles, menus,
and eating habits. The evolution of cuisine that has been going on for hundreds
of years continues. Changes occur not only because of technological developments,
such as those just described, but also because of our reactions to culinary
traditions. Two opposing forces can be seen at work throughout the history of
cooking. One is the urge to simplify, to eliminate complexity and ornamentation,
and instead to emphasize the plain, natural tastes of basic, fresh ingredients.
The other is the urge to invent, to highlight the creativity of the chef, with
an accent on fancier, more complicated presentations and procedures. Both these
forces are valid and healthy; they continually refresh and renew the art of
cooking. A generation after Escoffier, the most influential chef in the middle
of the twentieth century was Fernand Point (1897–1955). Working quietly and
steadily in his restaurant, La Pyramide, in Vienne, France, point simplified
and lightened classical cuisine. He was a perfectionist who sometimes worked on
a dish for years before he felt it was good enough to put on his menu. “I am
not hard to please, “he said. “I’m satisfied with the very best. “Point
insisted that every meal should be “a little marvel.” Point’s influence
extended well beyond his own life. Many of his apprentices, such as Paul
Bocuse, Jean and Pierre Troisgros, and Alain Chapel, went on to become some of the
greatest stars of modern cooking. They, along with other chefs in their
generation, became best known in the 1960s and early 1970s for a style of
cooking called nouvelle cuisine. Reacting to what they saw as a heavy, stodgy, overly
complicated classical cuisine, these chefs took Point’s lighter approach even
further. They rejected many traditional principles, such as a dependence on
flour to thicken sauces, and instead urged simpler, more natural flavours and
preparations, with lighter sauces and seasonings and shorter cooking times. In
traditional classical cuisine, many dishes were plated in the dining room by
waiters. Nouvelle cuisine, however, placed a great deal of emphasis on artful
plating presentations done by the chef in the kitchen.
Very quickly, however, this “simpler” style became extravagant and
complicated, famous for strange combinations of foods and fussy, ornate
arrangements and designs. By the 1980s, nouvelle cuisine was the subject of
jokes. Still, the best achievements of nouvelle cuisine have taken a permanent
place in the classical tradition. Meanwhile, many of its excesses have been
forgotten. It is probably fair to say that most of the best new ideas and the
lasting accomplishments were those of classically trained chefs with a solid
grounding in the basics.
New
Emphasis on Ingredients
Advances
in agriculture and food preservation have had disadvantages as well as
advantages. Everyone is familiar with hard, tasteless fruits and vegetables
that were developed to ship well and last long, without regard for eating quality.
Many people, including chefs, began to question not only the flavour but also
the health value and the environmental effects of genetically engineered foods,
of produce raised with chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and of animals
raised with antibiotics and other drugs and hormones.
The
public has benefited greatly from these efforts. Today, in supermarkets as well
as in restaurants, a much greater variety of high-quality foods is available
than there was 40 or 50 years ago. Many chefs have modified their cooking
styles to highlight the natural flavours and textures of their ingredients, and
their menus are often simpler now for this reason.
International
Influences
After the middle of the twentieth century, as travel became easier
and as immigrants arrived in Europe and North America from around the world,
awareness of and taste for regional dishes grew. Chefs became more
knowledgeable not only about the traditional cuisines of other parts of Europe
but about those of Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere.
Many of the most creative chefs have been inspired by these
cuisines and use some of their techniques and ingredients. For example, many North
American and French chefs, looking for ways to make their cooking lighter and
more elegant, have found ideas in the cuisine of Japan. In the southwestern
United States, a number of chefs have transformed Mexican influences into an
elegant and original cooking style. Throughout North America, traditional
dishes and regional specialties combine the cooking traditions of immigrant
settlers and the indigenous ingredients of a bountiful land. For many years,
critics often argued that menus in most North American restaurants offered the
same monotonous, mediocre food. In recent decades, however, American
and Canadian cooks have rediscovered traditional North American dishes. The use
of ingredients and techniques from more than one regional, or international, cuisine
in a single dish is known as fusion cuisine. Early attempts
to prepare fusion
cuisine
often produced poor results because the dishes were
not true to any one culture and were too mixed up. This was especially true in
the 1980s, when the idea of fusion cuisine was new. Cooks often combined ingredients
and techniques without a good feeling for how they would work together. The
result was sometimes a jumbled
mess. But chefs who have taken the time to study in depth the cuisines
and cultures they borrow from have brought new excitement to cooking and to
restaurant menus. Today chefs make good use of all the ingredients and
techniques available to them. It is almost second nature to give extra depth to
the braising liquid for a beef pot roast by adding Mexican ancho peppers, for
example, or to include Thai basil and lemon grass in a seafood salad. In the
recipe sections of this book, classic dishes from many regions of the world are
included among more familiar recipes from home. To help you understand these
recipes and the cuisines they come from, background information accompanies
many of them. Cooking and cooking styles continue to change. Technology
continues to make rapid advances in our industry, and men and women are needed
who can adapt to these changes and respond to new challenges. Although automation
and convenience foods will no doubt grow in importance, imaginative chefs who
can create new dishes and develop new techniques and styles will always be
needed, as will skilled cooks who can apply both old and new techniques to
produce high-quality foods in all kinds of facilities, from restaurants and
hotels to schools and hospitals.
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