Of course, you can learn many things online or from inexpensive used books that can be shipped to you overnight. You can be inspired by things you see cooked on TV, YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook. Back in the early ’90s we mostly had books and the sternness of a good chef to motivate our education. Although you should take advantage of all the easily accessible resources you have, nothing can substitute for practice or the presence of a good chef to monitor and guide your development. For this reason, working in fine dining is still a crucial element of your training, even if is not where you ultimately want to plant your roots. It might seem more like boot camp, but doing so is the best source of new knowledge and inspiration. Today there are many good restaurants that have a more relaxed kitchen atmosphere, but the great ones achieve this without compromising on proper technique.
MENTORSHIP
by Barbara Lynch
MORE SO NOW than ever, mentorship is a key resource for the rising generation of young cooks. Our industry is growing so quickly that it seems we can somehow lose sight of where it all begins: with the basics. With the guidance of a mentor, the learning, understanding, and mastering of fundamental techniques provides the essential foundation needed to develop your own style as a chef. In the age of social media, when our work (and our lives!) is visible to so many people and when we in turn are exposed to so much, I urge you not to lose sight of your training as you develop a culinary vision. Do not let yourself be distracted by what might be trending on social platforms, or by what is currently perceived as “in.” Without the solid support of basic skills, a young cook and his or her cuisine cannot withstand the strain of our industry or, ultimately, the test of time. A respect for classic technique and quality ingredients will never let you down.
It was not by sheer luck that Paul Bocuse earned three Michelin stars and has retained them since 1965—the longest of any three-star chef. As a young cook, he trained under three-Michelin-star chef Fernand Point, the father of modern French cuisine, who, while embracing the tenets of classic French cuisine, did not confine himself to them. So, too, Paul Bocuse built on what he learned under Fernand Point to make his own mark. He ultimately pushed the boundaries of traditional cuisine classique and ushered in a new culinary movement, nouvelle cuisine. The natural give-and-take between mentor and rising chef is what drives progress in the culture of kitchens worldwide. It simultaneously feeds our passion for cooking and facilitates the passing of vision from one generation of chefs to the next.
I’ve made it a priority to provide educational resources to my staff, both front and back of house. Together, we create an environment that fosters growth and upward mobility through teaching and mentorship. On all levels and across disciplines, we make ourselves better by learning from each other. Seek out a chef and a kitchen that will provide the same opportunity to you. And, when in doubt, returning to the basics will never steer you wrong. Once you know fundamental technique, your passion can drive you to achieve your dreams. I speak from experience when I say that if I could find success in this way, then you can too.
The one question I’m asked time and time again is, “What has been your biggest life lesson?” My answer remains the same: First of all, I’m still alive so I can’t say for sure yet! But there is always more to learn. As long as I live, I’ll continue to adapt, learn, and perfect.
My best piece of advice to you is do not underestimate the power of mastering basic, classic technique. Do this by passionately paying attention to the lessons from your mentor. From there, learn as much as you can from the others around you as a means for continued and lifelong improvement.
FLAVOR
by Corey Lee
FOR A CHEF, everything is secondary to flavor. Sure, there are aspects of being a chef that are related to design, science, music, and other fields, but our primary role—unique to this profession—is to deliver great flavor.
Since the earliest days, home cooks have transformed ingredients to provide nourishment and calories. Yes, they, too, catered to tastes, but chefs made cooking a profession by dedicating themselves to the pursuit of greater flavor and in the process helped to develop regional cuisines and inspire their continued evolution. If your motivation to be a chef does not come from this core connection to flavor, then perhaps another profession is better suited to you.
I know all this sounds pretty obvious, but even as someone who has been at this for over twenty years, I only truly realized the importance of flavor later in my career. In the early years of my training, I wasn’t working on menu development, and my tasks focused more on the mastery of a technique rather than the delivery of great flavor. When fluting mushrooms, for example, I’d concentrate on the angle of my hand movements or how much force to use—not necessarily on how it would end up tasting.
I took more pride in how quickly I finished my mise en place or how fast I worked a station, but I neglected to dwell on whether a guest might find my cooking delicious. In that sense, I was more of an athlete than a chef. Kitchens can be like machines of organization, training you to be technically proficient, quick, clean, consistent, and efficient. The lessons of flavor come at a much slower pace compared to those of organization and technical execution. And in the hierarchy of a traditional kitchen, working on flavor is the last responsibility, reserved for those at the top of the totem pole.
The trajectory of young cooks today appears to differ from that of my generation. Toiling away for years and years to learn the mechanics of cooking seems to no longer be the norm—a change that is both good and bad. It’s great that cooks at such an early age seem to be more worldly and cerebral in how they view cuisine. But sometimes I worry that there’s too much focus on form and concept at the outset. At a time when images and stories about food often take center stage, flavor is wont to take a back seat. It’s easy to make food look beautiful or sound intriguing with seemingly disparate ingredients or en vogue menu descriptions. The mark of a skilled chef, however, is one who has met his purpose in creating great flavor, and no amount of visual embellishment or alluring introduction can help in this respect. It simply takes a lifetime of practice and learning.
In hindsight, I think I only started to come into my own as a chef once I truly realized the power of flavor and shifted my cooking to make that more of the focus. I now concern myself with compositions led by flavor and address presentation later. At Benu, I’m able to experiment with different ingredients and techniques—like those lent by Cantonese dried seafood or Korean lactic fermentations—and integrate them with my classical training to yield new flavors.
This has helped me evolve as a chef and connect with my native culture in a greater way. The latter was unplanned, but not surprising given that flavor is intrinsically linked to the identity of an area or culture or time. The ability to transcend taste and tap into something lasting makes flavor such a powerful tool. And for me, this is when our profession is most impactful and the potential of our work limitless.
One of the most exciting things about being a young chef is that you so have much to learn and discover. Reflecting on my own early years, here are some more practical pieces of advice:
Invest some years into working in one place. It’s good to travel and stage, but being comfortable in a restaurant and getting past the natural learning curve that comes along with being in a new environment helps you get to a place mentally where you can really work and think about flavor. I worked for Thomas Keller at the French Laundry for nine years, which allowed me to delve into the repertoire or even a single dish, working on improving its flavor from one season to the next, from year to year. That kind of meticulous process requires commitment and discipline, but I think it’s worthwhile for all young chefs at some point to commit years to a single kitchen.
If you work in a professional kitchen, the chances are you’ll be tasked with making the family meal one day. Don’t just brush it off as a side job that gets in the way of finishing your mise en place. I’ve never met a great chef who couldn
’t quickly whip up something delicious for the staff. One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing a cook with a fancy résumé who can’t make a simple, tasty dish.
Cook at home, and eat the entire dish from start to finish. I’ve found in general that, whereas poor amateur cooks tend to underseason their food, poor professional cooks tend to overseason because they’re only tasting a spoonful at a time. Eating what you cook and season in its entirety is a different experience and will help you understand how flavors build.
Try to explore the flavors of cuisines that are foreign to you. If there is a culture of people who enjoy a certain flavor profile, then there must be something to learn from the history and evolution of that cuisine.
When dining out, go beyond simply identifying the ingredients you taste, and ask yourself, “What was done differently to coax these kinds of flavors from the ingredients?” Understanding the variables in the cooking process that yield different flavors allows you to cook more intuitively.
Although food is universal, learning about flavors in an analytical way can transform the act of eating something familiar into a completely new experience. A fruit you’ve had a hundred times suddenly becomes another taste in your toolbox of flavors with the potential to inform your own cooking. Enjoy this time as a young chef! You’re participating in a great tradition, and I look forward to tasting the even better flavors that the next generation creates.
INGREDIENTS
by Eric Ripert
I STRONGLY BELIEVE that without quality ingredients, we can’t have great cuisine. Even if you are a culinary genius, if you start with mediocre product, you will ultimately have a mediocre dish.
In French cuisine and Western cuisine in general, recipes are based mostly on fresh ingredients, whereas in some countries in Scandinavia and Asia, such as Korea, they use products that have been fermented. Even so, that process always begins with high-quality ingredients. Often, especially with game or meat, we mature them for weeks; however, once again, we use top-class products.
Cooking is artistic, a craftsmanship that I believe is a great exercise in mindfulness; therefore, nothing is more rewarding than to use the best and freshest ingredients of the moment. Nothing is more exciting than going to the market during the summer and smelling the basil, the sweetness of strawberries, fresh tomatoes at their peak, and so on. It’s a great pleasure to cook with those ingredients at their best and to share them with an audience that is delighted by their qualities. You don’t eat a tomato salad in January or coq au vin in August; it just doesn’t sound (or taste) right. Ingredients at their best pay homage to the season and should be exalted during that time.
At Le Bernardin, we understand that seafood is very delicate and very perishable, so we dedicate all our efforts and passion to elevating the qualities and virtues of the fish. A few extra hours of mishandling and the product’s flesh can be damaged and the quality reduced. We are very cautious with—and focused on the quality of—the seafood we receive. When we buy shellfish like oysters and clams, we make sure that they do not smell fishy, that they are clean and heavy, which means they are alive and full of juices. We make sure our lobsters are alive, and we always check to ensure that their bellies are very plump, full, and firm. We avoid lobsters that have a mushy or cotton-like consistency. When assessing our whole fish (the only way we purchase fish at Le Bernardin), we look for bright eyes and bright red gills, and we make sure that when we poke the fish, the flesh rebounds quickly. If the fish has scales, they should be dense and firmly attached to the skin. The final test is to open and smell the belly of the fish, which should never smell of low tide but of fresh ocean. In our loins of tuna, mostly yellowfin for sustainability reasons, we look for color—not brown, which means old or mishandled, and not too red, as that will impart a bloody flavor. A light ruby flesh is the best. Ultimately, the most important test for fresh seafood is, ironically, having no “fishy” smell. Another important factor for us is sustainability. We do not serve endangered species of fish, and we aim to support all efforts to preserve healthy stocks and respect the balance of the marine ecosystems.
Every great chef and cook I know searches for the freshest and highest-quality ingredients, and treats them with the utmost respect. Cooking doesn’t start in the kitchen; it begins with growing, sourcing, and purchasing your ingredients before you begin to prepare them. Paying very close attention to each stage of the process ensures a better dish—and greater pleasure for your guests.
RECIPES
by Dominique Ansel
WILLY WONKA MAY have misled us all. The story of the chocolatier so protective over his recipes that he closed his factory and hired a team of Oompa Loompas who could not communicate beyond their native language taught the world one lesson: recipes were the key.
When you become a chef, you realize how wrong that assumption is. I first entered the kitchen at the age of sixteen, and at the time recipes were a highly guarded secret—kept in handwritten notebooks by the chef’s side. The thought was that if you could only have the book of recipes, you would be able to open your own place and be the chef. Like a magician who didn’t want to reveal his tricks, the chef would give only a portion of the recipe to each cook to prepare. Then, by himself, in secret, he would combine the results. The cooks peeked curiously over his shoulder and tried to see his motions through side glances across the kitchen. The final product was always a delight and a mystery. Maybe, just maybe, if you’re good, the chef will let you know what actually went in there.
I don’t know about you, but I thought that was a most ridiculous way to run a kitchen. It’s not that I don’t respect great and well-tested recipes. But I’ve always known that they were guidelines, not rules. Yes, you should absolutely try to scale things appropriately. And definitely don’t take shortcuts or stray from each crucial step. But if you’re a studious cook, like I was, and carefully make sure to do everything exactly as the recipe says, but still don’t get the right result—well, like I said, recipes aren’t everything.
Try baking the same mix in a different oven; you’ll find that the cooking times can vary drastically. Use a different type of flour and butter; the results will never be the same. Even the weather can play a factor. In the wintertime, for instance, we often have to increase the yeast level in our doughs because the colder “room temperature” makes it difficult for the yeast to activate. I’ve even received a batch of eggs that had lower-than-normal protein levels, and so the egg whites wouldn’t whip as well. A batch of ripe strawberries certainly calls for less sugar than sour ones. Cooking is a bit like predicting the weather. You can see a storm coming, but you have to adjust as you gauge exactly when it will arrive, and you must be ready for it to change at the last minute.
One of the greatest lessons I learned early in my career was that rather than finding out what goes into a recipe, it is far more important to understand why. It takes calibration. Think of a recipe as a guitar: it needs to be tuned before you can play a song. By knowing the effects that each ingredient has on the recipe, you’ll be able to tweak the formula to one that yields the best results. And then one day you create your own.
People ask me all the time if, like Willy Wonka, I keep a stash of secret recipes somewhere. I laugh and point to an opened binder in the kitchen, where all our recipes are kept for easy access. We walk each of our cooks through the process in detail. “I don’t believe in ‘secret recipes,’” I reply. “Take the recipe away from Willy’s hands, give it to a different chocolate factory, have a non–Oompa Loompa work on it—and I guarantee you would not have the same Wonka Bar.”
CREATIVITY
by Grant Achatz
I LOVED BEING a chef de partie. I fed off the adrenaline of a busy night, the more impossible the better. I relished the pressure to be perfect with every cut, sear, and sauce. The repetitive nature of a professional kitchen encouraged me to become more intimately connected with the ingredients and to continually refine the preparation of each dish. What started as
a desire to please the chef turned into a drive to challenge myself. Learning to intuitively “know” was my goal.
As much as I respected the discipline required to be a great cook, I was eventually drawn to the freedom and intensity of the creative process. Following ideas from conception to realization is incredibly satisfying, but devising my own ideas and then watching people interact with them, both in the kitchen and in the dining room, are even more rewarding. I am often asked why we continue to develop new dishes at Alinea since we have enough recipes to rotate through the seasons and makes guests happy. Why did we decide to demolish the restaurant and start over in 2016 after ten years of success? The answer is: if you removed my outlet for creativity, I would be left with just execution.
People like to think the creative process is romantic. The artist drifts to sleep at night, to be awakened by the subliminal echoes of his or her next brilliant idea. The truth, for me at least, is that creativity is primarily the result of hard work and study. The lightbulb goes off unexpectedly at times, a consequence of associating everything else I see, smell, hear, and touch with food. The sudden tempo change in a song suggests a dish that will achieve a similar shift in menu flow, breaking monotony in sequence or flavor profiles. The scent of a woman’s perfume leads me to construct a dish based around the emotionally powerful aspect of smell.
Letters to a Young Chef Page 11