Expat with Kids in Paris: Cooking is a French science

March 8, 2012

Cooking is a French science

"The French approach to food is characteristic; they bring to their consideration of the table the same appreciation, respect, intelligence and lively interest that they have for the other arts, for painting, for literature, and for the theatre. We foreigners living in France respect and appreciate this point of view but deplore their too strict observance of a tradition which will not admit the slightest deviation in a seasoning or the suppression of a single ingredient. Restrictions aroused our American ingenuity, we found combinations and replacements which pointed in new directions and created a fresh and absorbing interest in everything pertaining to the kitchen."
Alice B. Toklas

Is there any better way to be welcomed by a French chef than: "J'ai le plaisir de vous accueillir chez nous, Madame ExpatwithKids." Ahhh, that just set a beautiful tone for the morning to come. Not to mention the view! Imagine cooking up a Chocolate souffle while looking onto the Champs Elysées. Not even Marta or Jamie can beat that. And then they served me a cup of coffee. I am now in seventh heaven and I haven't even started munching on the chocolate!

My partner in crime and I have signed up for another cooking class. If we can handle a Cordon Bleu chef we can tackle anyone. The Lenôtre experience took us to a whole other level. Lenôtre is the official caterer to Paris' rich and famous, they also run a professional pastry school and cookery classes for home chefs, like US! Lenôtre supposedly is the only cooking school offering really advanced non professional classes. Yep, that would be us.

This course was hands-on and very informative. We learnt about ingredients, textures, techniques and temperatures. We went from pasty to creamy to velvety. We experienced mechanic reations and discovered stable emulsions. I had NO idea chocolate could do ALL that.

Did you know you could freeze vanilla beans?

Who knew that Chocolat de couverture is used mainly by professionals because it is a lot more temperamental to work with? It contains only cocoa solids, cocoa butter, and sugar. In order to be properly labeled as "couverture", the percent of actual cocoa butter must be between 32-39%.

How much does an egg weigh? 50gr it seems, 30gr of egg white and 20gr of yolk. After baking with eggs for over 40 years it never even occured to me to figure out how much they weighed. BUT this is a French cooking class, it's science not creative improvisation! Everytime I asked the chef for a possible substitute - if you happen to run out of pistaccio paste for example - the answer was: "Mais Madame...!"

However, so far my experience has taught me that there is a logic to the madness. The end result of all my Parisian cooking class products have been spectacular in presentation, texture and taste, therefore I will play by the rules. I just went out and bought myself the best chocolate de couverture as advised by our chef Gilles. Did I mention it only comes in boxes of 5 kg and it will last me until 2014?

The Mi-Cuit Chocolat with Crème Anglaise Pistachée ...