Letters to a Young Chef

Eminent chef and restauranteur Daniel Boulud's Letters to a Young Chef became an instant classic upon publication in 2003, a compilation of letters dedicated to one of his many protegés. Chief among the most popular anecdotes is a discussion of how he judges a cook's talent by analyzing how he makes an omelet. Does he beat the eggs with a fork so that the eggs are aerated but not foamy? Does he add diced butter to the egg mixture which will melt when it hits the pan? Does he use a black steel pan and not wash it, but scour it with a handful of salt? And we haven't even gotten to the actual cooking yet. No wonder my omelets never turn out perfect!

The book goes on to discuss various facets of being a professional chef, from befriending your suppliers to traveling (or moving to a large city) to learn cuisines around the world. He confirms that the profit margin on food at high-end restaurants is minimal, however wine and dessert sales make up for those loss leaders. Smart investments in the wine cellar will appreciate over the years, and the margins on those bottles will allow you to offer cheaper wine as well. If you are at all interested in cooking, this is a fun and lightweight read (150 pages).

This isn't directly related to running restaurants, but I was struck by the following tangent on the influence of cultural standards on resource allocation:

The French took dining, a part of daily life, raised it to an art, embedded it in high culture and thereby attracted the economic resources to develop a more refined and expert interpretation of food than anywhere else in the world. In much the same way, French haute couture took another part of daily life and similarly developed it. A dress embroidered with pearls and trimmed with fur is, in some sense, not unlike a saddle of veal studded with truffles, stuffed with chestnuts and glazed with port. It is expensive. It is refined. But it would never happen were it not for a public that appreciated and would pay for it. Cultures make choices for their definitive statements. The Italians lavished everything on developing their opera and the Russians their ballet. The French chose haute cuisine and haute couture. Today these two hautes have globalized, yet kept their French sensibility.

An interesting question: what definitive statements has American culture made? Where have we focused our energy and funding? It's too easy to simply lambast American culture as being gross and unrefined, to lament our national exports as fast food and Walmart. Is it our film industry? Football? Programming languages (almost all have originated in the US)?