Unlike other scientists and cooks, Auguste Escoffier attempted different ways to cook. One of them was to use veal stock which at that time no cooks were going to use for their food.
He focused on what every other cooks didn’t consider such as the tops of celery and the scraps of tendon and oxtail. Also, unlike the tendency to see cooking as a semi-mystical endeavor, he was trying to feel tastes of food and follow his sensations. He especially emphasizes on how we taste food with the tongue. Even he said that the only important thing is the experience of the dish. However, those ways are not the factors of Escoffier.Escoffier tried to make his dishes taste haute by relying on his precious collection of stocks.
Besides, in order to give a depth and density of flavor he used deglazing which was the secret of Escoffier’s success (Jonah Lehrer, 2008). When it comes to the veal stock, there was a special reason why veal stock made any food taste good. It was L-glutamate in veal stock that made food taste better. This was the result of the effort of Escoffier to try to learn how we taste food. One story in textbook explains about L-glutamate. In Japan, dashi has been widely used for cooking like the same way Escoffier used stock for cooking.
When all other scientists kept insisting that tongue sensed only four flavors: sour, sweet things, bitter flavors, and saltiness, the Japanese guy, Ikeda, said there are other flavors that people can sense for cooking. Ikeda tried his best to discover the secret of the taste of the dashi. Finally, it turned out that his secret molecule was glutamic acid, the precursor of L-glutamate which was in the veal stock of Escoffier. According to the textbook (p 62), “our human body produces more than forty grams of glutamate a day, so we constantly crave an amino acid refill”.Endless patience and efforts of Escoffier to take experiences seriously led to discovery of new taste which every scientists ignored but human beings instinctively cannot help but like.
On top of the veal stock, Escoffier didn’t want to make his food with complicated ways. Because he thought food was meant to be eaten, what he focused on was to make food as fast and simple as possible. Service a la russe system showed well what he favored. Today’s course menu is originated from the Service a la russe. He hated seeing cooking as just ostentatious food displays, so that he tried to streamline the design of cooking and to decrease the courses.
These changes of style of cooking led to changes of kitchen organization. He combined all personal sections to cook as simple and fast as possible. Also, there was another culinary method which was to make food be served hot. According to him, “The customers finds that the dish is flat and insipid unless it is served absolutely boiling hot.
” (Jonah Lehrer, 2008) Besides, while serving food, he incidentally came to know the importance of our sense of smell. According to textbook (p64), “neuroscientists estimate that up to 90 percent of what we perceive as taste is actually smell”.He was the first chef to understand the importance of the sense of smell and use the smell while cooking. Actually, Escoffier’s diverse recipes came from his habit of smelling food. Finally, he invented the menu because he perceived that everyone had their own desires of what to eat. He intended to let his customers order what Escoffier already had been thinking.
For example, he used chef’s tasting menu as an educational tool to alter consumer’s tongue. He strongly believed that people could learn how to eat even if they were adults. His imagination turned out to be true.This is because according to textbook (p 70) “If we think a wine is cheap, it will taste cheap.
” It means our taste is so changeable that new experience can easily remake it. By following his intuition and taking experiences seriously, he could invent lots of different dishes. “No theory, no formula, and no recipe can take the place of experience”. This sentence is what Escoffier said at the beginning of his cookbook (p74). Also, he already knew that evaluation of tastes was totally personal, and studies of tastes can be done by exploring individual’s perspective.
Unlike the opinion of the scientists of his time, who saw the tongue as an outcast, he studied and believed the diversity of tastes. When all other people ignored, denied, and even threw away veal stock, what he attempt to do to develop through his work was follow and believe his belief and experiences. There were no other secret for him to success. The secret was constant exertions, thinking over how people taste food.
As a result, he became famous as "the king of chefs and the chef of kings". (Culinary institute, n. d. )
