A chef weighs Elements
David Myers reports.
| More 'Front Burner' articles in this issue |
| Voluntourists say hi, hi birdie |
| Food, Eatalian-style |
| Yellowfin seviche on rye |
| Rhône rising |
| Virtual dining |
| Instant India |
| Sad good-bye |
Los Angeles—I'm in the opening phase of my newest restaurant, Comme Ça, a French brasserie located in the heart of Los Angeles, to go along with Sona and the patissierie Boule (see Birth Announcements, Food Arts, November 2007). With a new cooking team looking to me for direction, Michael Ruhlman's new book, The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef's Craft for Every Kitchen could not have come along at a better time.
Cooks need answers! And Ruhlman's book delivers them. The author begins his discourse by picking the essential ingredients a cook must master. Much like William Strunk Jr.'s Elements of Style, which discusses sentence structure (E.B. White updated and expanded the original 1918 43 page writer's guide in 1959), Ruhlman jumps right into his subject with an opening chapter entitled "Notes on Cooking: From Stock to Finesse." "No preparation comes close to matching the power of fresh stock," Ruhlman states, before riffing on the subject and then fleshing out the chapter with his ideas about sauces, salt, eggs, heat, cooking tools, and finesse in the kitchen. I was left wanting more material to read. I certainly hope to see his future notes on wine and shopping.
The second part of the book is a modern-day dictionary, defining ingredients, preparation, techniques, and the like. There are many books that pay tribute to the history of cooking, but what do you refer to if you want to know what's happening here and now? This book is the definitive guide for clear, sound answers to questions such as "What in the hell is albumen?" It's as if Ruhlman knows exactly what chefs and cooks want to learn, as I was asked that very albumen question last night!
The little stories and asides that accompany the definitions are a stroke of genius because they illuminate and further clarify what he is talking about. For example: "Fat doesn't make us fat, too many calories make us fat. In the kitchen, fat is your best friend." This is wonderful for chefs, who are naturally very visual by nature. If we're taught a technique and given a story to go with it, we're able to visualize it better, which frees our hands to create. Also helpful are Ruhlman's quick answers to a lot of current buzzwords used in the modern kitchen, such as so-called molecular gastronomy and the terms used to produce it. For up and coming cooks, this completely different way of treating ingredients will no longer be misused or misunderstood, thanks to the clarity of Ruhlman's work. Rest assured, there will be many worn copies in my kitchens because I intend to give each of my cooks a copy of this book for Christmas. Simply put, I love it!
