Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 9

Campbell's: the Ford Pinto?
"It's the elegant soup of the world. It's the Mercedes Benz, the Rolls Royce, the Jaguar of soups."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty, describing the place of consommé in haute cuisine.

Something's missing
"This is turducken without the tur."
-- Chef David Isenberg during a demonstration of how a chicken was stuffed inside a duck along with forcemeat (shown at left). Often, the chicken and forcemeat stuffed duck is then stuffed inside a turkey, but not this time.

Please, be exact
"When it's cooked."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty responding to a student's question about length of time for sauté of breaded eggplant. 

Trade ya'
"We're bringing you some creme brulée. Anything for us?"
-- Executive Chef Tim Grable carrying a tray from his pastry and baking class into our kitchen classroom. In exchange, we sent over a big bowl of freshly made tabouleh. 

Paging Chef Merlin
"Water is magic."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty reiterating that a little water can go a long way toward curing the ill of a sauce that's too thick or a veggie that's about to brown when it shouldn't or any other of a long list of stove-top issues.

Battle of the bulge still on, but I'm winning for now

Still no weight gain for me -- in fact, a self-impressive 3-4 pound loss -- after six weeks of culinary school.

As has been said to the point of cliché, given a situation in which one must literally eat his homework and his in-class work, putting on pounds would seem to be part of the program. Executive Chef Tim Grable of the California Culinary Academy warned us about the issue at the beginning of the term, as shown here.

The scale read a hair over 180 pounds this morning. On Sept. 28, the first day of class, it hovered at 184.

Bigger tests are yet to come. In Culinary Foundations I, we didn't cook every day, and with one or two exceptions, we consumed only bits of what we made, adhering to Chef Grable's admonition to "taste, don't eat."

Starting Monday, in Culinary Foundations II, we will be cooking nearly every day, over a four-hour span. That will increase the challenge.

And, yet to come, in the early spring, is high potential for falling off the wagon: Baking and Pastry class.

Post Script: Any reader who interprets my small weight loss over six weeks as a sign that my cooking isn't all that good won't be invited to the next feast of braised short ribs with a wine sauce, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans in béchamel sauce.

Cooking and chemistry: What's the connection?

If you are a disciple of Shirley Corriher or Harold McGee, the cooking-chemistry connection is as plain as, well, as plain as how the heat of cooking makes proteins unwind and rebind.

We students of the California Culinary Academy had the great pleasure of hearing Corriher, "the grand dame" of food science, according to Academy Chef Tony Marano, and McGee elucidate prosaically in an hour-long session today at the Academy.

Corriher is a Vanderbilt University educated biochemist; McGee is a California Institute of Technology and Yale University graduate. Both have written much-relied upon books on the science of food.

They were most loquacious and most gracious in discussing their specialties in terms we all could understand. As Executive Chef Tim Grable said in thanking them for appearing, it was difficult to tell who liked it more, the faculty or the students.

A few gems from their conversation with us:

* "Salt suppresses bitterness," Corriher said, so when it is called for even in sweet recipes such as for pastries, it is meant to push down bitterness and thus exaggerate sweetness. So it shouldn't be used necessarily for its own flavor but rather for what it does for other flavors.

* Mold on fresh berries -- straw, blue, black and rasp -- can be minimized by dipping them in water at 120 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 seconds or so once brought home from the market, McGee said.

* If boiling vegetables, use salt in the water to help keep them nutritious by counteracting the osmosis that occurs in a search for salt balance between the interior of the vegetable and the water, McGee said.

* "McGee says fruit is nothing but a pretty wrapper for water," Corriher said. "I'm still trying to find where I said that," McGee laughingly retorted.

Exposure to such luminaries is a bonus for students at the Academy, and we look forward to other appearances by people atop the lists of experts when it comes to food science, culinary arts and other "foodie" issues.

(Photos show Corriher and McGee signing their books for students at the end of today's session.)