The Union Club of Cleveland’s Lawrence McFadden, CMC, GM/COO, stresses the importance of chefs traveling to experiencing authentic ingredients and cuisines.
Unlike other professions, a chef cannot just read about flavors or technics in order to understand and apply them. Without tasting the philosophies from the source, it’s nothing more than theory.
Alain Ducasse’s recipe bible had an interesting format. The recipe method was omitted, leaving only a list of ingredients and measurements. In most hands, it was just a collection of words, absent around a visionary final dish.
Similarly, our Chef was making a green tea mousse just last week when he pulled out his phone and located the recipe while the pasty cook stood by his side with pen and paper ready to document.
Ducasse behaved in much the same way, verbalizing the procedure while a cook wrote down the method and—most importantly—documented the results. The recipe bible came to life and secured the timeless journey of the chefs that came before it.
Our Chef is a direct disciple of Ducasse. His phone holds a global collection of recipes from vacations, stages, and past employment. And our Union Club cooks are now learning recipes that are not always found in books or on the internet.
This recipe collection came front and center when our first chef at the club mentioned he wanted to try a rotating global menu on Thursday nights. His ideas was to to describe culinary locations where cuisines are gaining popularity in the US. Having tasted firsthand the green curries of Thailand and the Pho of Vietnam, his idea certainly had merit. But it fell short as he had not been to any of the countries he wanted to promote.
I shared my experience of tasting fresh curry leaves versus the dried leaves on the Trader Joe’s shelves. Our conversation hit a bump when he mentioned curries and I asked, “Are you going to do red or green curries?” His response was simply that he was not sure of the difference.
This conversation reminds me to always remember the sense of place and to do you do best. But first and most importantly, chefs must honor the source of their ingredients in their original form.
Often, I share with our members that our Master Chef has a list of vendors he trusts and knows will care for their ingredients in the spirit they were grown. Not all great purveyors just hand off their children to any chef or kitchen. Mutual respect plays a huge role in a business relationship.
In the 90s, I worked with Paul Prudhomme when he opened a restaurant (Pop-up) in NYC. He was so authentic that every ingredient was shipped from the unique parishes of his home state, Louisiana. Every day, we opened care packages of local ingredients that looked, smelled, and tasted of his home.
Another example hails from the famed Chef Charlie Trotter who would close his restaurant in the winter for a month. My novice mind assumed he took a break in the winter due to food costs, business levels, or frankly time off to re-charge. Later, after talking with him, it became clear his team would go to the source of global ingredients, learning from the masters’ hands versus only books.
Our members are global travelers. Therefore it is not acceptable to put tacos on the menu without consideration around the proper corn maze, or spices of the region and heritage. Escoffier often said, “Fifty percent of the preparation is the ingredients. The rest a combination of techniques.”
The moral of the story: Chefs must travel if they want to respect the authenticity of the global offerings shared on their menus.
