daughters and weddings (and WH miscellany)

Until Alice Waters and other notable American chefs successfully lobbied President Clinton to appoint a White House chef who would cook some American, state dinners at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue featured French menus and French ingredients (thanks to Jackie O). Even Paul Bocuse found it "ridiculous" that the White House chef was not American, but typically ... European. But the reality was, just as opera singers, for example, cannot avoid studying the Germanic roots of classical opera (Die Zauberflöte / The Magic Flute, Der Ring des Nibelungen / The Ring of Nibelung, etc.), so too did ambitious American chefs flock across the Atlantic (de riguer) to seek out stagiare (apprenticeship) positions in French kitchens. (N'est ce pas?)

When French-born White House executive chef Pierre Chambrin tendered his resignation, the Clintons accepted and hired California-born, Culinary Institute of America alum, Walter Scheib.



Granddad was not a chef, but likewise chose to travel Europe, though from the other side of the world. Growing up in Taiwan when it was a Japanese colony. he was one of few Taiwanese to be chosen to study at the prestigious Tokyo Imperial University. Even then (before WWII), Japan apparently had close relations with Germany, and after Granddad graduated from medical school, he head to Europe, including a stint Germany, where he learned and still sings German songs. His focus was on medicine – and visiting different hospitals and clinics, and seeing how they were run. Granddad later returned to Taiwan and opened his own clinic, and became a well-known Ob-Gyn doctor.

At one particularly grand and large wedding of the youngest daughter of three from an affluent and prominent Taiwanese family, Granddad was seated at the head table, with the bride and groom and their parents. The casual observer might have wondered who my grandparents were, not being immediate family.

Mom told me later that the bride's parents had always wanted a son. When the friends had their first daughter, they decided to try again. Then they had another baby girl a little over a year later. Though they were disappointed, they were nevertheless happy. The final time, though, was an "accident" five years later. The friends had decided that two kids were enough, even two daughters. And to have a third child and, well, a girl …. They approached Granddad about an abortion.

According to Mom, that’s when Granddad told them: “Keep the baby. If you don’t want her, I’ll raise her.”

So they had the baby, but also kept her as their own. But they never forgot how Granddad had changed their minds.

Pupu platters from Abbey's wedding at the Museum of Modern Art, La Jolla (San Diego):



  
Wedding menu ... and Chinese wedding pastries.

Chilled Spanish Gazpacho

Topped with Roasted Shrimp and Basil Guacamole, Gourmet Tortilla Tuile Garnish over the Top

Beet Orange Salad

Organic Greens, Laura Chenel Goat Cheese, Toasted Almonds, Balsamic vinagrette, Artisan Levain Bread and Plugra Butter

Wild Striped Bass

Braised fennels and Nicoise Olive Tapenade, Herb Roasted Fingerling Potatoes and Fava Been Succotash

Hudson Valley Duck Breast

Fanned and Served with a Port Wine Demi Glace, Organic Spinach lightly Sauteed with caramelized Garlic and Chili Oil, Thyme Scented Baby Turnip Wedges

Vanilla Gelato with Raspberry Coulis

Chocolate Shavings, Garnished with a Piece of Kransekake 

WHITE HOUSE executive chefs

- Rene Verdon 1961-1965, French; hired by the Kennedys "to infuse White House dining with French elegance" but resigned when Lyndon Johnson demanded he cook "Texas-ranch style". (C'est la vie ...)

- Henry Haller 1966-1987, Swiss; most famous meal may have been President Nixon's last: one poached egg with corned-beef hash followed immediately by one letter of resignation.

- Jon Hill 1987-1988; first American to serve as White House executive chef, but lasted all of four months before being resigning citing personal reasons ...

- Hans Raffert 1988-1990, German; did not enjoy the Reagans' penchant for "tryout dinners", preferring, instead, to stick with classical menus for state dinners (consistent with the Bushs' own desires, though not his American-born assistants).

- Pierre Chambrin 1990-1994, French; claimed to have been fired for being fat and speaking with a heavy French accent. (Au revoir!)

- Walter Scheib 1994-2005, American.

- Cristeta Comerford 2005- 2009?, Filipina; first female White House executive chef (sacre bleu!), served on Walter Scheib's staff as an assistant.

the kitchen brigade, and history of food in 5 bullets

Georges Auguste Escoffier - proclaimed the "King of Chefs" by Kaiser Wilhelm II - and one of the most influential names in culinary history. Random stories of Escoffier also have him training Ho Chih Minh as a pastry chef when running the London Carlton.

Though the King of Chef's name in the pages of modern history is less well known than that of Wilhem II, or than that of his legendary business partner at the Carlton, Cesar Ritz, Escoffier did leave the legacy of the kitchen brigade.

With the onset of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Escoffier was called to serve in the French Army, and appointed Chef de Cuisine at the fortress of Metz, which the Germans laid siege to for seventy days. The experience of being cut off from fresh food supplies (and without the benefit of MREs, of course) led Escoffier to study the technique of canning meat, vegetables and sauces. But his experiences in the Army probably inspired him in other ways as well, to include organizing his kitchen staff into "brigades" - the system widely duplicated today in many larger restaurants, and in reference to military organization.

Incidentally, Escoffier was later also a consultant to a shipping company, and created the menu served on the last, ill-fated voyage of White Star Line's RMS Titanic.

All but one of the chefs on board perished, including Escoffier's previous garde-manger et poisson chef at the Carlton, whom a Henry Clay Frick, the steel king of America, had persuaded Escoffier to release to serve as the his personal chef. Escoffier would ensure that obituaries of each chef, with their photographs, were published in Le Carnet d'Epicure.

Only three known, preserved, copies of the Titanic's first-class menu from its final evening exist. The last sold at an auction for 88,500 dollars.

An explanation of the menu can be found here: here.

History of Food in 5 bullets:

- 4000 BC: Sumerians introduce taverns and booze, making Marines retroactively proud

- 2000 BC - 476 AD:  Pursuit of spices propels trade, Pyramids become first tourist attraction, roads built, common currency and lingua franca established, first by the Greeks, and subsequently the Romans.

- 476  - 1600 AD:  "Dark Age" deals international trade a close-to-fatal blow, with roads becoming dangerous with the fall of the Roman Empire, the Church and monasteries fill the "hospitality" vacuum somewhat, until 1350 (-1600), when the Renaissance witnessed a return to safe travel, commerce, and the debated assertion that Catherine de Medici (1519-1589) brought Florentine/Italian sensibilities to what would become French haute cuisine.

- 1600 - 1800 AD:  Industrial Revolution in England and the railroad leads to an explosion in the hospitality industry; across the channel, France becomes embroiled in revolution (1789-1799), at the end of which professional chefs no longer remain in the exclusive service of nobility, in addition to uprooting of the guild system's monopoly on specialty food items, spurring a commercial culinary industry on the continent.

- 1800 - modern times:  Nouveau cuisine, new equipment, cars, Upton Sinclair and safety and sanition awareness, nutrition,  Ray Kroc, Alice Waters successfully petitioning President Bill Clinton to actually put an American chef in the White House (no more French menus!) ... its all COWABANGA.

feeding an army ... with space-age technology

For those who did not know, the MRE owes its evolution to the space program during the 60's and 70's:

"The MRE was originally developed for the military, but it was NASA that nudged it to a higher form of nutrition, and made it more palatable and easier to use .... The MRE was a boon to Apollo astronauts, who were surely tiring of squeezing food paste from a tube." Mark Hawver, Serving Them Right: MREs, Water Purification, Food Prep & Utensils

Indeed, the science behind the retort pouch sounds some like rocket science, but what do the kids think of these "savory, self-contained, cuisines"-in-a-box:

And there you have it . . . MRE: Meals Rejected by Everyone.

c h o w (eponymous)

Alohas - welcome to my food blog. Like the typical, first day of class, occupied by handing out course outlines and other administrative mumbo-jumbo, I suppose I'll start by un-ambitiously explaining the title of my blog, "c h o w." According to Websters:

chow (chou), Informal -n. 1. food, esp. hearty dishes or a meal . . .

Until October 3, 2004, I had never used the word "chow." But since that day, when I arrived at Quantico, Virginia, and stepped onto the parade deck at Officer Candidate School, food has been referred to as chow.

Chow. Say it to yourself. Now ask yourself this: Is this a word that gives you the same reaction as, say ... cordon bleu. Or saucier, or, I dunno, escargot? Now try it compared to these other words:

Chow.  Patisserie. 

Chow.  Petit four.

Chow.  Ratatouille.

Chow.  Fois gras.

Chow.  Aperitif.

Chow.  Table d'hote 

Chow . . . not a particularly inspiring word, right?

Chow. Fiorentina.

Chow. Soffritto.

Chow. Prosciutto.

Chow. Just doesn't quite ooze succulence, does it.

Okay, okay. Maybe I am cheating a little here. I mean, maybe its not fair to say "Mary Jane" and then "Anna Kournikova" or "Elena Dementieva" and expect you to say, "Oooh, they all sound equally sexy." You just don't throw foreign names around and not fall prey to seduction by the exotic-ness of it all. But what about:

Chow. ... Esculent.

We talk English here. 

And, by definition, "esculent" suggests barely passable fare: "1. suitable for use as food; edible. -n. 2. something edible, esp. a vegetable." And here again we have chow: "food, esp. hearty dishes ..."

Oh well.

But I guess that's the point, or my point. This is a blog for me to post random thoughts about food. I am not a chef, I am not a "foodie," and my opinions won't be driving Michelin 3-star chefs to suicide.

The adoption by the military of the word "chow" may be a reflection of the mentality that food is, simply, "sustenance." No frills, no thrills. Such were days in the field where instructors admonished officer candidates with "chow is continuous" - indeed, I tried to eat from my packs of Meals-Ready-to-Eat (MREs) and random snacks stuffed in my spare magazine pouches, and constantly - though not because I was hungry, but because I was always cold during the Northern Virginia winter, and recognized that I needed calories to burn to stay warm(er). (Having said that, it seems that an increasing emphasis on providing, not just nutritious food, but tasteful food, to American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines -- just witness the private food service 3d-country-national contractors in bow-ties serving icecream at DFACs in Iraq -- a story for another time.) 

So, alohas again. No frills, no thrills. 

Chow. 3. culinary excursions of a non-foodie.

---

SATURDAY, JULY 16, 2005

Loud and Vicious

It's almost 0530. It's still dark out, but you can almost feel the crack of light. OCS candidates have already woken up ("count, off!"), dressed ("put your left boot on now! 20, 19, 18, 14, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1!"), cleaned the squad bays ("scuzzbrush the bulkhead!"), scampered (moonbeams clanking against their warbelts) onto the parade deck for formation ("Report!"), marched ("Road guards! Post!") across the damn bridge to Bobo Hall ("1, 2, 3 attack the chow hall!"), and are now standing in line holding their trays with elbows tight and to their sides, side-stepping through the chow line ("Eggs please, ma'am!").

They will be eating with feet flat on the floor, at a 45-degree angle, backs straight and off the seat rests, bringing their food to their mouths, and not their mouths to their food. There will be no talking unless spoken to first. And then they will reply loud and vicious. Sergeant instructors are yelling. Some candidates will be assigned 300-word "remedial" essays for transgressions such as walking with food in their mouths ("daggon heinous!"). This will probably fall under the subject heading "failure to follow simple instructions." The platoons that finish first will go sit outside in front of Bobo Hall, facing the Potomac. Some candidates make a "head call" (which evolves into social time at OCS). The rest will unfold and sit down on their campstools and bury their faces in their candidate regulations. But really, each is staring at the Potomac as the sun soon breaks the horizon. A precious moment of peace, perhaps the only moment of peace, in a day in candidate land. It's about 0545, and all they can think of is "what the fuck am I doing here?!"

"Aye aye candidates! Aye aye gunnery sergeant! Carry on candidates! Kill!"

Something similar is probably happening at MCRDs San Diego and Parris Island.

While most of our society sleeps, the Corps is making Marines.