Cuisiniers (cooks) love to look down on the lowly Pâtissier.
Never mind their beautiful sugar sculptures, light-as-air
macarons, or elegant chocolate presentations.
You can’t ask them to debone a chicken or make a sauce Nantaise. Cook without
measuring – mais non! And if you asked them to poach a calf’s brain
for Cervelles à la Grenobloise, they
would run out of the kitchen shrieking in horror. But ask a Cuisinier to make a pâte brisée, a chocolate soufflé, or crank
out some ice cream – no problem. Pâtissiers
may be the artists of sweets, but their narrow skill set makes them a ripe and
ongoing target in the French kitchen.
Today was a seminar on the structure of the traditional French
kitchen brigade. The structure is
generally based on a military brigade with the Chef (Chief) as the leader. Today it would be hard to find a kitchen that
employs every single position – Poissonier
(fish cook), Potager (soup cook)
or a Grillardin (grill cook) separate
from the Rôtisseur (roast cook) and Friturier (fry cook) – you might only
find those in the largest hotels or on cruise ships. But the Pâtissier is still a fixture in many
kitchens and, according to our Chefs, one of the first people fired when
business is bad because one of your Cuisiniers can surely pull off enough desserts
to keep the masses happy.
And the Chefs never miss an opportunity to take a (gentle
and loving?) shot at the folks in pastry.
Some quotes from today’s seminar:
“We accept them (pastry chefs), feed them, but no more than
that.”
“The good thing about bakers is that they usually work at
night so we don’t have to see them.”
“Some of you will be good with vegetables, some of you will
be good with fish, some of you will be good with meat, and some will be good
for nothing – so you can be pastry chefs.”
I must say though – I love the pastry students. They always seem cheerful, they never have
fish guts on their aprons, and they are always happy to share whatever sweet
and delicious things they’ve made in class.
I suppose if I had a cake or a tray of pastries to take home at the end
of every day, I’d be happy to share too.
But I do feel a little smug in the notion that, at the end
of my studies, I will be able to pull together some decent desserts, but the Pâtissiers
still won’t have a clue what to do with a rabbit.
I’m turning into a French chef already…
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