Page 40 - February Banner 2018_Neat

Page 40 February 2018 The Catoctin Banner Newspaper www.TheCatoctinBanner.com Published by www.EPlusPromotes.com

Following the

Trend

by Buck Reed
The Supermarket Gourmet

From the time Homo erectus chef was giving a list of the elements
placed his mastodon rib over the or ingredients with no measurements.
fire he had just invented, we have It was up to each professional chef
been experimenting with how to to learn these measurements on his
cook in the pursuit of the perfect own, as well as the techniques needed
meal. This is not the search for the to produce them. This called for
perfect tasting meal, but the best decades of practice as an apprentice
way to produce the perfect meal. It and then a cook in a professional
seems that these days, almost every kitchen. Today, we can do the same
day there is a new trend, a newly thing online, apparently in a class
discovered ingredient, an obscure named after Auggie. I can hear him
cuisine, an all-encompassing new spinning in his grave.
diet, or some clever technique that It can almost be a full-time job
is thrust into the lime light and, for keeping up with all these trends. No
a brief time, we are held captive to sooner does one pop up, it is quickly
it. The sad part is, unlike fire, these replaced by the next one. By the time
ideas are cast aside for the next big a book or a trendy magazine article is
thing, almost before we can grasp written about the next big thing, it is
them. over and the next one has taken over.
Some of these trends are a flash in I do not even think the internet will
the pans, like Southwest cuisine, and be able to keep up.
others have real staying power, like What once took time and effort
Pizza joints. Others are throwbacks, to learn for the professional can now
like cast iron skillet cookery, to a be “mastered” by the amateur cook
kitchen history that was all the rage during a weekend class. You can
only to be lost and then brought back. spend a couple hours a week in a local
In order to understand these culinary class or spend a vacation in
trends and get the most from them, a foreign country, getting a real taste
we have to look at history. We need of another country’s local fare, as you
to go all the way back to the late learn to prepare it yourself. For the
19th century to Auguste Escoffier professional chef, following a career
and his book, The Guide to Modern path can be fairly typical for everyone;
Cuisine. In this book, he wrote out but for the amateur cook, there are
all the various elements of French many ways to go.
cuisine and broke down each recipe How are you keeping up with
to the techniques, as well as the culinary trends? Do you have a
measurements for each ingredient. chance to try any at home? Let me
Before his book, anyone trying to know at RGuyintheKitchen@aol.
explain a recipe for the professional com.