P i s t a c h i o

A selection of culinary biographies for The Food Encyclopedia, 2006

and a selection of definitions for The Cook’s Essential Kitchen Dictionary, 2005

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Culinary Biographies

Ducasse, Alain (1956 – ) French chef, restaurateur, hotelier and architect of a hospitality empire studded with Michelin stars. Ducasse was born in the south of France and cooked with Alain Chapel, Michel Guérard and Roger Vergé, masters of modern French cuisine. Ducasse earned his first two stars by the time he was 28. At 33, he earned three for Louis XV in the Hotel de Paris in Monaco, having taken it over just under three years earlier. When he opened his namesake restaurant in Paris in 1997, at the age of 40, he was awarded three stars within the first eight months of opening, making him the first six-star chef in history, with the two restaurants separated by 588 miles. In 2000, he opened a second “Alain Ducasse,” this time in New York City, an over-the-top luxury restaurant of only 65 seats, offering a single seating per night. Special purse benches keep handbags under the table and off the floor, the mineral water sommelier proffers a discerning choice of high-end waters for your meal, and white-gloved waiters cut tealeaves at the table for your pot of tea. Here, Ducasse earned three stars, this time within only five months of opening. Ducasse also ventured into the hotel business, buying and transforming two French chateau-style properties, one of which earned two stars. For a time, he was president of the “Châteaux & Hôtels de France” chain. As well as opening a number of other distinguished stand-alone or hotel restaurants, he launched several “concept” restaurants in such lfar-flung locations as London, Tokyo, Monaco, Mauritius, Saint Tropez, Las Vegas and Beirut. He established the Alain Ducasse Foundation, a state-of-the-art training centre that has provided professional instruction for his international brigade of 1,000 since 1999.

Kroc, Ray (1902-1984) American entrepreneur and founder of McDonald’s, the world’s largest quick-service restaurant company. When he met Earl Prince, the inventor of the five-spindled milkshake mixer, Kroc was a paper cup salesman and Prince one of his best customers. Seeing an opportunity, Kroc bought exclusive marketing rights to sell the mixer across the country. In his travels over the next 17 years, Kroc sold eight mixers to Dick and Mac, the McDonald brothers, who ran a busy walk-in restaurant in San Bernardino, California, at a time when the fashion was to be served at your car in the parking lot. Kroc was impressed with the restaurant’s economy and the idea of serving a simple menu at the lowest possible price. In 1954, at 52, Kroc bought the restaurant’s franchise rights. He created the McDonald’s corporation a year later and in 1961 bought out the brothers for $2.7 million. Two years later, Kroc had opened his 500th restaurant and claimed to have sold one billion hamburgers.

Reichl, Ruth (1948 – ) American restaurant critic, author and food editor who returned Gourmet magazine to prominence after taking over as editor in 1999. Despite her academic training as an art historian, Reichl began her professional career in the culinary field in the early 1970s in California, where she co-founded a cooperative Berkeley restaurant. She freelanced as a food writer and critic, and published her first book, Mmmmm: A Feastiary, in 1972. Reichl became food editor and restaurant critic at the Los Angeles Times in 1984. Taking over as restaurant critic at The New York Times in 1993, she departed from her predecessors practice of rating only formal, classical, French restaurants – Reichl would rate the city’s ethnic establishments and grant star status to a noodle house, for example, if deserving. Reichl has published three books: Tender at the Bone: Growing up at the Table (1998), Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures at the Table (2002) and Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (2004).

Trillin, Calvin (1935 – ) American journalist, author and humorist. Six years after graduating from Yale in 1957, Trillin became a staff writer at the New Yorker and, later, a reporter for Time and a syndicated columnist whose pieces ran in The Nation from 1978 to 1985. Trillin has written nearly 20 books, among them three, for which he’s best known, about food,: American Fried: Adventures of a Happy Eater (1974), Alice, Let’s Eat: Further Adventures of a Happy Eater (1978) and Third Helpings (1983). When writing about food, Trillin always mentions his family, such as in poking fun at the home cooking of his childhood: “The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years, she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”

Taillevent (Guillaume Tirel) (1310 – 1395) French chef and author. While working as a young kitchen helper in French royal kitchens, Tirel was given the moniker Taillevent, as well as a coat of arms with three stockpots bordered by roses. He became head chef to Charles V in 1373 and to Charles VI in 1381. Conflicting reports claim that each of these kings commissioned Le Viandier, Taillevent’s 1379 book of recipes considered to be France’s first notable cookbook. Although the literal translation of viande is “meat,” the word refered to all solid foods, including bread, fish, poultry or vegetables. Meat itself was referred to as chair, meaning “flesh.” The importance of Taillevent’s books was the record of using bread rather than flour to thicken sauces and soups, and a liberal use of spices, specifically cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg,

Vatel, François (1631-1671) French royal steward. Although Vatel is remembered as the chef who killed himself because he didn’t have enough fish for dinner, he wasn’t actually a chef. He was a ploughman’s son working for the aristocracy. The only account of Vatel’s demise comes from a letter written by Madame Sévigné (Marie de Rabutin-Chantal), a writer whose work spawned an epistolary genre of French literature. Her detractors point out that the account was second-hand, while her supporters defend her reputation for accuracy. As she tells it, Vatel was at the docks, waiting for his order of fish at 4 a.m., after 12 days without sleep, because of the elaborate preparations required for a visit from Louix XIV. He was already upset that there had been insufficient roast for two tables the night before, only because of numerous uninvited guests. As the first fish purveyor arrived with his small catch, telling Vatel that this was all he had, Vatel misunderstood him to mean that this included all available fish. Mortified that another shortage would destroy his reputation, he went to his quarters, impaled himself on his sword and died — but only after three attempts to reach the fatal goal, as his wounds proved. Not long later, boatloads of fish began to arrive for all sides.

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Dictionary entries for The Cook’s Essential Kitchen Dictionary, 2005

glace – French for “ice” or “glaze.” In cooking, a glace or glaze is meat or fish stock reduced to the consistency of a syrup. It’s sometimes used as the sauce itself, as in demi-glace, used as the base for a sauce, as in Bordelaise, or added to a dish or another sauce for added body and/or flavourful richness. See also glaze.

glaze – to give food a sheen. In baking, egg, milk and sometimes sugar are used to glaze breads, pies and pastry before baking. Diluted jams are brushed onto flans and sweet tarts to glaze them after baking. Vegetables are glazed by sautéing with butter and sugar, and meats, such as a roast ham, are brushed with their glaze throughout its cooking. Glaze also refers to a reduction of meat or fish stock. See also glace.

jerk – a Caribbean spice mix containing allspice, pepper, ginger, brown sugar, cinnamon, thyme, garlic and Scotch bonnet pepper, handed down from West African slaves taken to Jamaica during the 17th century. Rubbed and marinated with the spice mix, the meat is cooked in large, stone-lined barbecue pits, covered with green pimento wood, which smokes easily, imparting additional characteristic flavour. Today, in Jamaica, jerk meats are sold by roadside venders who cook the meats using vertically halved oil drums, most often using dry pimento wood.

leavening – a substance or technique used to lighten the texture and increase the volume of batters and baked goods. The most common leavening agents are baking powder, baking soda and yeast. The former two become activated when coming into contact with liquid, producing carbon dioxide and its resulting pockets of air. Yeast leavens by its inherent live culture, which is activated with warm water, the environment needed to grow, and sugar, the food that sustains its growth. Leavening agents work both before cooking, as in batters for pancakes, fritters and batter-fried foods, and during cooking, as in breads and cakes. Stiffly beaten egg whites take the place of leavening in some recipes, providing its volume before baking, increasing its volume as the egg whites cook. They must be very carefully handled to avoid deflation. The leavening of puff pastry is the result of multiple folding during its preparation, adding numerous layers of its butter-flour-water mixture, so that during baking, the butter’s water content steams and expands between the layers of the dough, and the butter melts into the flour to impart its characteristic flavour. The leavening of choux paste for profiteroles or eclairs is the result of egg yolks beaten into a warm mixture of butter, water and flour. As in a bread starter, flour in warm water will ferment to form natural yeast, encouraged to grow because of warm temperatures and fed by the flour’s natural sugars.

lox – brine-cured salmon, sometimes smoked, from the German lachs, meaning“salmon.” Its North American roots as a Jewish favourite began before refrigeration, when salmon arrived from Alaska in brine. Delicatessens would refresh it with a rinse to remove some of the salt and sell it sliced, calling it “lox.” A higher grade of lox is known as Nova, for Nova Scotia salmon that has s been salt-cured with brown sugar and then smoked. Slicing is the test of good quality lox; it must maintain its shape when sliced transparently thin. Recipes for lox are closely guarded secrets, but there is a common general procedure. Filleted salmon is heavily covered in a sugar-salt mixture, sometimes spiced and splashed with alcohol, depending on the desired flavour outcome, and left to cure for about 12 hours. It’s then brined for another 12 hours, then removed, refreshed, “painted” with desired flavours, such as rum and brown sugar, and smoked, if desired. See also smoked salmon.

nouvelle cuisine – a style of cooking that first emerged in the early 1970s, with a fresh-market approach, smaller portions and lighter sauces, served artistically on over-sized plates, a stark change from the rich, heavy sauces, multi-course meals and complex preparations of classical French cuisine. This style was first discussed in print by writers for Le Nouveau Guide, an outspoken publication that took issue with the Michelin Restaurant Guide and their tendency to favor traditional styles. As part of the a new cultural wave famously impacting French cinema at the time, the magazine began reporting on a trend of modern cuisine and the chefs responsible, primarily Paul Bocuse, but also Michel Guérard, Alain Senderens, among others.

organic – a labeling term indicating a specific manner in which food is grown and processed. Farming must maintain and replenish the fertility of the soil, without the use of toxic and persistent pesticides and fertilizers. Processing must be done with a minimal use of artificial ingredients, preservatives or irradiation. Organic farming is now practiced in approximately 100 countries. Australia is the world leader, with 24.6 million acres (10 million hectares) and Argentina is second, with 7.4 million acres (3 million hectares). North America has nearly 3.7 million acres (1.5 million hectares) devoted to organic farming.

piri piri – a tiny, hot pepper, from the Swahili, which translates as “pepper-pepper.” Its origins are often contested, but most historians agree that it was brought back by Columbus from his second voyage and introduced to the Iberian Peninsula. The Portuguese then introduced it to their colonies Angola and Mozambique, where it was named. The pepper’s use spread from there. Although part of many African cuisines, the pepper is best known as a Portuguese ingredient, sold marinated in oil, as a powder, a purée and even as a part of a sardine paté. Best known in frango grelhado con piri piri (grilled chicken marinated in piri piri), the condiment is also added to meat, vegetable and fish dishes. Its heat is rated at 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville Units, the equivalent of cayenne.in

Scoville Units – a measurement [SU] established in 1912 by chemist Wilbur Scoville as a way to measure the capsaicin, or heat, of a hot pepper; the higher the unit, the hotter the pepper.

smoked salmon – perhaps the most popular of smoked foods, originally done for preservation, but since the days of refrigeration, done for mostly for flavour or texture. The salmon first undergoes a curing stage where the salt simultaneously penetrates the flesh and draws out moisture, which hinders the growth of bacteria that would spoil the fish. Cold smoking temperatures range between 70°F and 90°F (10°C and 30°C), producing milder, raw-textured flesh. This process, when used for the duration of a day to several weeks, will preserve the fish by drying it. Hard smoking refers to even longer cold smoking, which produces a jerky, also called Indian-smoked salmon, or squaw candy, which is usually cut into strips. Hot smoking temperatures range between 120°F and 180°F (50°C and 80°C), producing fuller flavours and thorough cooking, when the internal temperature is maintained at 145°F for 30 minutes. The flavours of hot smoking are dependent also on the characteristics of the wood used for burning. Kippered salmon is the name given to salmon that has been scored, dry-salted, painted with a flavouring mixture, usually brown sugar and rum, and then hot smoked. See also lox.