Autrement...

After that long post about Cordon Bleu the other day, I found the schedule of classes pasted in the back of my notebook. The mushroom soup lecture was the first class I went to; no wonder I was confused, so rattled that I forgot to write down the highpoint of that day's demonstration.

The recipe for beef stock which appeared so strangely in the middle of my mushroom soup notes had a wonderful coda. After we had sat appalled listening to the complications of making beef stock -- burning a sliced onion half over an open flame, such a problem for those of us with electric stoves -- Chef Narcesse, putting on his twinkly grandfather face, reached into his apron pocket and pulled out a silver-foil-wrapped object.

"Autrement," he said, drawing out the drama, "il y'a le cube."

We all whooped with relief!

A note about the kitchen apprentices who had made the stock; Chef, of course, did not lower himself to such basics. In the 1970's the French educational system did a big sorting out of the kids at the age of 14. Those with academic talent or aspirations went into the higher grades and the kids who had different talents went into the apprentice system. Chef Narcesse had three or four youngsters of different ages who were learning la cuisine.

Many of us were put off by the way these kids were treated. Chef roared at them and cuffed them. There were days when none of them could do anything correctly, starting from dirty fingernails at morning inspection. Several times parents were summoned by the horrible Mme Brassard for a family dressing down, the apprentice in the middle of a finger-jabbing mob of his elders. The Americans at the school were very sympathetic and tried to catch the boys' eyes to cheer them up. But the boys didn't want to be seen crying.

The pepper grinder episode was classic. One of the younger apprentices was standing by to help Chef as he went through the morning demonstration. He handed a pepper mill to Narcesse, who was in mid-sentence. Chef cranked, cranked again, and then swung the mill straight-armed toward the kid. It was empty. The kid raced into the kitchen and brought back another pepper grinder which Chef cranked, still growling. That mill was empty too.

"If I had done that when I was your age," Narcesse screamed, "I would have been fired and quite properly. Get out, get out, get out." The boy fled in tears. Some of us protested but Chef stopped us: "No. This is his work. He is training for the rest of his life. How can he leave here and embarrass L'Ecole Cordon Bleu?"

Autre temps, autre moeurs.