Day twenty-nine: When is a vegetarian not a vegetarian?
Posted on | August 10, 2009
My day started with an incredibly interesting fact. Then me and my trusty knife slashed our way through oranges and croutons and fruit salad. Then there were tastings and critiques done at a breakneck pace. And, finally, songs.
Yep. Typical day at culinary school.
Lemme tell you all about it.
“In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport.”
~ Julia Child
I got to school early because the husband had to be at the office early which meant an early drop off. I would have liked to have used the time before class in the kitchen (bah! I would like to spend all day in the kitchen), but, as always this term, there was a class in there so I was out of luck.
So I ate three peanut butter cookies (my weakness) and was invited by a fellow student to compare scars.
She showed me a wicked-looking burn. Best I could share was a five-inch long cat scratch that looked evil, but was barely a centimeter deep.
Welcome to culinary school.
“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”
~ Calvin Trillin
Closer to nine o’clock, I walked that long walk down the hallway to the lecture room (labeled as the “Dungeon of Knowledge”). Now, most of the lecture focused on the live fire sessions we are doing this week. But there was some talk about restaurants and we got this fascinating fact:
If one person has a bad experience at your restaurant, they will tell 12 people
Those 12 people will tell six people.
Those six will tell three.
And those three will tell one person.
That’s, what, twenty-three people? Twenty-three people pre-disposed to think poorly of your restaurant. That’s bad.
Now, the instructor did not say this, but it dawns on me that people tend not to eat alone. So if it is a table of four, you get to quadruple those numbers.
Very bad, indeed.
We were told that the key way to deal with this is to give the customer good food. What is good food? Food that is as close to the pan as possible.
Because the longer food sits, waiting to be served, the more likely the sauce will break, the meat will overcook in its own internal heat, the fish will dry out, the fried food will go limp, and so on.
Interesting stuff.
We were also told there are two types of people in this world: Guests and hosts. People in the restaurant industry are hosts; people who want to serve. Guests are people who want to be served.
Shit. I’m a guest. Totally.
“You can’t hurry love
No, you just have to wait
She said love don’t come easy
It’s a game of give and take”
~ The Supremes
Yesterday, if you remember, we did lunch life fire where we prepared tons of food to order. Today, other teams did it (we’ll do it again tomorrow; every team does it twice). So, the first thing we did is help the two teams that were firing with their last minute prep.
I figured the pressure would be off when I helped with the prep, but, in fact, it was increased. See, if it was my food I was making and I screwed it up, well, then, I can take the heat. But if it is someone else’s food and I screw it up then they take the heat. And I’d feel awful if that happened. Hence the pressure.
So here’s what I did for my fellow students.
First, I made my famous garlic croutons. They are incredibly easy, but always good. Want the secret? Toss them with olive oil and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Use lots of garlic and salt, probably more than you think. And toast them on a rack in a sheet pan in the oven. They don’t come out greasy or soggy, just crisp and rich and tasty.
Second, I helped make a fruit salad, dicing mangoes and pineapples and cantaloupes and strawberries and on and on and on. It was a lot of work, but it made a great salad. So great, that out of approximately twenty dishes, this was my favorite. Which reminds me, I’ve got to get the recipe and make some for my husband.
Third, I supremed six oranges. Now, I had never supremed an orange, but I had seen Jacques Pepin do it once on TV. In case you don’t know, a supremed orange (and now, of course, you understand my quote!) has the skin and pith removed, then the segments are cut out between the membranes (the skin, pith, and membranes are discarded). Very pretty; very tasty. Not difficult to do, but it is time-consuming. Thanks Jacque Pepin.
“Health food may be good for the conscience but Oreo’s taste a hell of a lot better.”
~ Robert Redford
Then, while my fellow students cooked, I critiqued their food. Here was the criteria for each dish (eight dishes plus sides and garnishes and sauces):
- Appearance and plate presentation
- Temperature
- Aroma and taste
- Cooking methods and techniques
- Overall thoughts on the dish
- Possible improvements
The temperature of the food was nearly always cold by the time we got to it. And that had an impact on aroma. So that was tricky to judge. But, while many of the dishes were seriously undercooked (think burgers burned on the outside and raw on the inside) and poorly plated (soup with dribbles down the side), some were wonderful, such as the wonderfully refreshing fruit salad.
And here’s the odd part. For the required vegetarian dish, the questionnaire asked if it was a complete protein. The vegetarian dishes all were. But it did not ask if they were actually vegetarian.
Which they probably were not.
See, the groups all used cheese as their protein source. Cheese is very often processed with rennent. And rennent typically comes from cow stomach.
Flesh, of any sort, is decidedly not vegetarian.
Now, cheese can use a non-animal based rennet. But unless you know for sure that your cheese uses the non-animal type of rennet, you may very well be giving your vegetarians a non-vegetarian meal. Which is a no no.
So when is a vegetarian not a vegetarian? When they eat at our restaurant, whether they know it or not.
Which is concerning.
Finally, when the cooking and critiquing was done, we washed what turned out to be half an hours worth of pots and dishes and cutlery. And that is half an hour with one person rinsing, a second scrubbing, a third washing, a fourth sterilizing, and a fifth putting items away. Which equals two and a half people hours. And, just for the sympathy vote, I would like to bemoan my raw hands with their ragged cuticles and split nails, thank you very much.
And it was a lovely scene: Joking and teasing and spontaneous bursts into song.
It was camaraderie incarnate.
Comments
5 Responses to “Day twenty-nine: When is a vegetarian not a vegetarian?”
Leave a Reply
August 10th, 2009 @ 7:11 am
Found an excellent, thoughtful examination of the rennet question here : http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/12/is-cheese-vegetarian.html written by a farmer. As a devout omnivore, I never considered cheese to be anything but wonderful. Moral debate! Who knew?
August 10th, 2009 @ 10:37 am
I was going to link to that Serious Eats article too.
For vegans, I think there would definitely be an issue with the cheese. For vegetarians, I think it would depend on the person. To be safe, when I make food for a vegetarian I usually ask for clarification as to what they are and aren’t willing to eat.
August 10th, 2009 @ 4:59 pm
If I’m reading it right, your bad service effect model is actually much worse:
1 person tells 12 who each tell 6 who each tell 3 who each tell 1 = 1 + 12 * 6 * 3 + 3 = 220 people per person per bad experience. For a 4-top, you’re looking at almost 900 people who have heard about your bad service. Especially in today’s connected world with Twitter and blogs, that number may actually be higher.
August 19th, 2009 @ 5:49 pm
Oh I ffel for your fingers! I did dishes in a bakery for 3 months while learning BOH. Man I didn’t think my hand would ever recover. I finally found a Sally Hansen product that was green, goopy stuff that really helped my nails return, even while continuing to do my fair share of clean up. If I find the name of the stuff, I’ll let you know.
April 14th, 2010 @ 7:54 am
bruleeblog,
Vegans don’t eat cheese or anything that comes from an animal (milk is used to make cheese, so we don’t eat it no matter what the rennet comes from). If we eat cheese, it’s usually a gross soy cheese.