The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America - Hardcover

Ruhlman, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805046747 ISBN 13: 9780805046748

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., 1997

Synopsis

The eye-opening book that was nominated for a 1998 James Beard Foundation award in the Writing on Food category.

In the winter of 1996, Michael Ruhlman donned hounds-tooth-check pants and a chef's jacket and entered the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, to learn the art of cooking. His vivid and energetic record of that experience, The Making of a Chef, takes us to the heart of this food-knowledge mecca. Here we meet a coterie of talented chefs, an astonishing and driven breed. Ruhlman learns fundamental skills and information about the behavior of food that make cooking anything possible. Ultimately, he propels himself and his readers through a score of kitchens and classrooms, from Asian and American regional cuisines to lunch cookery and even table waiting, in search of the elusive, unnameable elements of great cooking.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Ruhlman has written extensively for The New York Times. He is the author of Boys Themselves. He lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

Reviews

YAAThe Culinary Institute of America is known as "the Harvard of cooking schools" and many of this country's best-known chefs are graduates. Ruhlman enrolled as a student with the intention of writing this book, which begins as a chronicle of the intense, high-pressure grind of classes and cooking. However, it turns into an engrossing personal account as, his every effort critiqued, the author determines to become a student and not just impersonate one. YAs will enjoy Ruhlman's anecdotes about his instructors and his classmatesYsome of whom are still in their teens. The appendix offers a chart showing the course work for associate degrees. This will appeal to anyone aspiring to a career as a chef as well as to those interested in food preparation, presentation, and the restaurant industry in America.APatricia Noonan, Prince William Public Library, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A writer enters the Culinary Institute of America, the Ivy League of cooking schools. Ruhlman (Boys Themselves, 1996) began a love affair with food after an uncle passionately detailed in a letter a potato he'd been served years before at a New Orleans restaurant. Ruhlman entered the CIA with that perfect potato in mind. The CIA, as exacting as the agency with which it shares its abbreviated name, requires students to arrive with a set of freshly sharpened knives and to be familiar with videos such as ``Shucking Oysters'' and ``Calf Slaughter.'' Ruhlman enters the school with some trepidation, particularly as the first day's soup stock is made with 120 pounds of chicken bones. The actual work of cooking is demanding--students get burned, they must begin work at dawn to prepare for lunch, and they are expected to learn thousands of recipes--but few drop out. Cooking represents a measure of both science and excess--one teacher regales them with a mythical meal of ancient Rome: a cow stuffed with a pig stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a truffle wrapped in foie gras; only the truffle was eaten. Students are expected to work in restaurants during the school year, and Ruhlman effectively captures their excitement and exhaustion as they learn about the real world of cooking. But Ruhlman is not as fine with the details as a cook needs to be. He calls a Reuben a grilled cheese sandwich, and his response to a teacher's impassioned lecture on Alice Waters's ethic at Chez Panisse--which he sums up as ``if we screw up the earth, we'll have rotten food''--is needlessly glib. While his insights into his teachers and students are often interesting, the book has little to say about the art of cooking and even less to say about how it all tastes. An attractive mise en place, but one that lacks the simple artistry of that long-remembered potato. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

After reading this title, boot camp and law school will seem like child's play. Ruhlman enrolled in the prestigious and expensive Culinary Institute of America (CIA) to get both material for a book and a culinary education. However, the drive and commitment required from day one, the demand for speed and precision, the pressure and perfectionism of the job?all hilariously and touchingly told?immediately erase his writer's detachment. But the tale goes beyond Ruhlman's anecdotes; he describes the curriculum with objective detail, so the reader also learns how a chef makes a flawless stock (and repairs a flawed one at a moment's notice), organizes the cooking station, prepares gourmet meals for crowds, and attains excellence and recognition. The short chart at the end shows the course work for the CIA's associate degrees. An enjoyable read, recommended for most collections and required for aspiring great chefs.?Wendy Miller, Lexington P.L., Ky.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805046747
• ISBN 13: 9780805046748
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320