Restaurant owners and chef’s ongoing struggle to find and develop modern relevant and reliable cooking skills!
I have seen this over and over again, - perceive similarities with the nouvelle cuisine movement 25 years ago! Modern contemporary movements aren’t following historic traditional doctrines. Trade schools delivery and the established national trainings and assessment packages are solid in all theoretical aspects of cookery but not flexible and very effective if it comes to the delivery of practical skills. However the basic practical principles and methods of cookery are the backbone of our industry. They are the same and unchanged for hundreds of years and I am faithful that they are not going to changing any time soon.
What I mean by that is simple cooking. Well simple, if trained...
Chefs need to learn how to crack an egg...
...and fry it, - scramble it soft silky and buttery,- poach it perfectly the yolk oozing nicely over wilted spinach,- and holy Escoffier make an soft centred filled omelette,- what is about a airy flavourful sabayon or meringue, hollandaise the heavy classic, emulsified modern light sauces and foams. All these beautiful things are never going to change because the egg is not going to change; teach train and understand the principles what temperature is doing to this egg and the rest of cooking is a piece of cake. Whether you cock old fashioned or modern contemporary, we have to learn the basics and then apply them to any cooking style.
Just one more thing,-if young chefs understand those principles and guidelines the crossover to multicultural cuisine and dishes from other countries are fairly easy to understand as well cos the kitchen around the world using the same eggs.
... and that is just cracking an egg;
