I normally try and write my daily update after class. I sit down in the cottage and hammer it out on the laptop. I then come over to the main house where there is wi-fi and upload it over a glass of something cold. Even my later posts are normally written earlier in the day. Not today though - today has been long and exhausting.
The once compulsory alarm is becoming obsolete. I woke up just before seven today and immediately knuckled down to my daily stretch routine. By twenty to eight I was rasping along the country roads on my way towards gardening class. By ten to I was leaning on a fence reluctantly watching some pigs rutting. By five past I was suppressing an involuntary gag as the 70ºC heat of a compost heap was demonstrated to the assembled masses.
Today is a theory day, and we are looking at cheese. What’s so special about cheese? Well, obviously it’s not meant to be taken literally; it refers to all dairy products. The milk of the cow offers us a plethora of delights and at each stage of creation a fascinating bi-product appears.
In eastern cuisine almost every part of the animal is consumed. In the west we are accustomed to using the parts of things we find most desirable and discarding the rest. There are thousands of crabs in the ocean with no front claws or, if they were pulled off long enough ago, small stumps may have grown back, but they still can’t feed. That is because mankind prefers the white meat and unscrupulous fisherman rip off their claws and throw the bodies back. We are lazy, wasteful and unimaginative. Except when it comes to dairy, where we excel ourselves.
Milk comes out of a cow. If you like whole milk, you drink it like that. Otherwise, it goes into a separator, which is around a dozen thin funnels all spinning together. From one tube comes milk, from the other, cream. Let's start with the cream. You can use it in cooking as it is. You can whip it and it thickens and you can cook with it or chill it or eat it. If you whip it a lot, like I did yesterday, you are on your way to making something else. You are making butter. If you whip it, or churn it, enough, two things emerge - butter and buttermilk.
If you take the milk and cream and add the right bacteria, you get yoghurt. If you take whole milk and add rennet, something interesting occurs. Rennet is an enzyme found in the lining of cows’ stomachs. Its function is to break down the milk. Add it to that milk later and it coagulates, splitting into curd and whey. Break down the curd and you have something else. You have cheese, and with it come a myriad of possibilities, each of them wonderful. A morning of this and I am certain that I will devote some portion of my life to the making of cheese.
Something is lurking at the back of my mind though. It’s not the tiredness, nor the hunger, nor the cheese. It’s not even the afternoon’s wine lecture and tasting. It’s the fact that as soon as school is over I am heading home, getting changed into my whites and spending the evening in the kitchen of a very local and extremely reputable hotel. I am excited.
The afternoon passes by without any major incidents, save a very nice Chablis and a wonderfully peppery Syrah that cried out for food to help it. I thought of Simon Hopkinson’s steak au poivre recipe from Roast Chicken and Other Stories the second the first drop passed my lips. Oh well, tough shit.
I decide to have a shave and put on a clean uniform. As I step out I realise my shoes are encrusted with strawberry ice cream and brown crabmeat so I give them a quick wipe. I pick up my knife roll and stroll on over. There will be around 50 people in tonight. There are four people in the kitchen, and about fifteen different dishes to be cooked between them.
I begin by chopping some onions and spuds for tomorrow’s soup. Then I am asked to cut chateau potatoes. A chateau potato is cut with seven sides, each one a perfect arc from tip to toe of the potato. Each one of equal size. It is impossible. Think knife skills and you think chopping an onion or herbs in fast-forward. Pick up a potato and a paring knife and try it for yourself. I whittle a few spuds to nothing before I start to develop the feel for what the knife is doing. My confidence grows. As it does so, the natural equilibrium intervenes, and my spuds start resembling half finished Rubik’s cubes. I throw in the towel having not produced a single one that will pass for service tomorrow.
We move on. I watch and talk to the chefs in turn. They each have their area to work in and a broad responsibility for a number of dishes. Watching them work is mesmerising. There is no shouting, no crashing of pans, no swearing. Just control. I am tempted to say effortless, but it is evidently not. You can see the concentration, but you have to look very closely. It is a natural state. They look up at the board as the orders are scribbled on it, and take their cues. Things are plucked from fridges and pans, seasoned, cooked. Clocks tick round inside heads. Plates appear and dishes assemble themselves simply but magically. It is enchanting.
At the end of service I sit down and enjoy a course myself. A Roasted Cod with Lobster and Beurre Blanc is just being sent out, and I can’t help but ask for the same. It is cooked to perfection and the sauce seems to hover over it while the sweetness of the lobster balances out the meaty fish.
One of the chefs did the same course as me a year ago. He recommends going straight into a kitchen to seal in the knowledge I am gaining. I think about it. I watch the others and ask myself - could I do it? Honestly? I think I know about stress and pressure, but really? I’m not sure. Before I leave I ask the head chef if there is any day when I can come back and make myself useful. There is - this Thursday. There is a big function on and according to one of the chefs it will be "a shitfight." Now that sounds right up my street. Maybe the blessed Cheesemaking can wait a little while longer after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment