The Professional Chef
by The Culinary Institute of America
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Book Reviews of The Professional Chef
Book Review: It was a gift recommended by a graduate of the C.I.A.
Summary: 5 Stars
Our son has a passion for cooking, he's rather proficient at it but most all of his knowledge is homegrown by assisting me (his father) who in turn had come under the tutorship of my father who was a renowned pastry chef and all around great cook.
In WWII he was the private chef for Gen. Omar Bradley stateside with the rank of T5. Upon hearing of a new unit comprised of elite Canadian and U.S. troops which was being developed to blanket Norway to disassemble the infrastructure of the country in order to cripple the Nazi mobility and communications post invasion. Much to the dismay of Gen. Bradley, (my father being a first generation Franco-American) volunteered to this Special Forces Unit which trained in every aspect of invasion from cold weather skiing to para-trooping behind enemy lines and the disciplined art of hand to hand combat. This unit was to be known by the Germans as the "Black Devils" or as it was knows in the States and Canada; the "First Special Service Forces" (FSSF).
To discourage him from transferring out, the General indicated to him that he would have to relinquish his stripes an return to being a buck private if he were to leave and join the FSSF. Without hesitation, my father agreed and went on to be not only the field mess Sergeant but also instrumental in due to his fluency of French and Italian which had him being the default interpreter for Colonel Fredericks who would later attain the rank of General. He performed both of these duties for the unit where he kept the troops well fed in some of the most battled locations such as the Aleutian Islands, Anzio Beachhead, Monte La Defensa, Monte Casino, Rome, Paris, Monte Carlo and eventually to Norway where he and his comrades in arms received each a personal commendation from the King of Norway for liberating the country of the German war machine. This elite unit would go on to suffer casualties of better than 80% of the troops assigned to it and birthed the programs we know today as the "Rangers", "Green Berets", "Navy Seals" and so forth, all special forces in the US Military were conceived and patented after this bunch of elite ragtags with one vision in mind and that was to succeed in every mission assigned to them without regard for their personal well being and in which they were 100% successful in accomplishing.
Okay, yes, I digress to a subject which you may conceive as not fully pertinent to the subject of the book, but it's not only my pride which percolates whenever I think of cooking and my father, you see, it goes much deeper than simply cooking. The preface of this review not only deals with cooking but with the character of an individual of which his grandson, my son; the recipient of this book, follows in his footsteps in giving of himself and his time by volunteering every week at a homeless shelter where he prepares fantastic dishes from some of the most menial ingredients afforded him, Spam may be King in Hawaii, but it has been reborn into a New England delicacy by careful preparation under some of the master chefs who authored this book.
In order to be able to prepare fine cuisine for people who otherwise would never have the opportunity to partake in some of these dishes, he requested this book from us for Christmas in order to enrich his God given talent in the better art of food preparation and presentation. Along with gift certificates he received from us, friends and other family members, he was able to procure the 'Pro-Model' Kitchen-Aid stand mixer and has been quite successful in wowing his 'client base' with dishes which are now being passed on to some of the other shelters where he has shared his recipes and preparation techniques.
A friend and long acquaintance of our son, D.D. a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America recommended this book as: "if you were to get one and only one book on food preparation, it has to be "The Professional Chef", the ultimate text book for the CIA. With my son being a successful person in his own right, it is always quite tough to give him a gift which he would really want, need and use, and thanks to Amazon's next day shipping, and discounted prices, we were able to get this book for him on 12/23 and subsequently have it in our home the next day at a price point which was still less than regular retail at two large brick & mortar large book stores in our area which did not have this book in stock.
Book Review: A New Standard
Summary: 5 Stars
Cookbooks are a dime a dozen. There are plenty of books out there that are filled with their fair share of mouth-watering recipes. What is rare is a book that tackles cooking from a conceptual and technical angle. Books like The Joy of Cooking or How to Cook Everything try to go beyond the typical cookbook and try to be kitchen manuals. But what those books are is cookbooks first, and books about how to cook second. The Professional Chef is culinary textbook akin to what you'd expect from an academic text for teaching a vocation.
As you might guess, the book approaches cooking as a profession. Culinary students will benefit from ample discussion not only of technique and cooking procedures, but also of the various other roles and skills demanded of chefs. For example, the book discusses the various systems and conventions of dividing labor in the kitchen, and describes the differences between an executive chef and a saucier chef. For those in culinary school or thinking about pursuing a culinary career or education, this book is perfect.
But for home cooks and cooking enthusiasts, don't assume that this book is not for you. If you're serious about cooking, even just as a hobby, there's something to be said about the comprehensive approach of learning techniques, terms, ingredients, and procedures in a structured way that proceeds from the simple to the complex--which is exactly what this book presents. It discusses and introduces the reader to nearly ever major ingredient and nearly every major cuisine. It's encyclopedic in the depth and breadth of the information within--much more so than the Joy of Cooking or similar books--and it gives the kind of technical training that one really needs in order to read, follow, alter, and otherwise truly understand recipes in the first place.
The recipes that are included--and there are many--include just about every major dish from every major cuisine. Goulash? Check. Béarnaise sauce? Check. Are dolmades your thing? It's in there. What about an authentic pad thai or summer roll? You'll find those too. What's great is that the text relates dishes so that similar dishes can be seen as progressions or alterations to basic techniques that are being covered. You learn how to braise, then you get various applications of that procedure from around the world. The text presents cooking from a truly global perspective, so students and readers won't find it difficult to tell how a single concept transcends dishes such as pilaf, risotto, cous cous, paella, pilua, or jambalaya and how the minor variations in technique and the focus on particular ingredients, flavors, and textures, makes these individual dishes what they are.
In short, you'll learn things in this book that you might not learn well or at all in any other book. The seriousness with which the text approaches cooking will benefit the home cook and help him or her to excel beyond the Rachel Rays and Paula Dean's of the world, while those aspiring to a future in the culinary arts will gain a solid introduction to the foundations of their chosen craft, discussing both the artform and the science and underlying mechanics of that artform. Everything from choosing equipment to the proper application of heat and a basic understanding of the physics behind it, will be found within these pages. The difference between this book and those aimed at home cooks is the difference between a college-level text on Spanish and a pocket guide of Spanish phrases. You might be able to quickly say "hello, my name is Pablo" or ask where the bathroom is, but you'll never really know the beauty of the language, nor ever really be able to understand it nor be able to say anything that hasn't already been laid out for you in that pocket guide if you lack a comprehensive introduction to the fundamentals. Similarly, cooking is about more than recipes and incomplete knowledge... it's about methods, procedures, applications, techniques, ingredients, and the creative and artistic freedom to navigate within that framework in accordance with one's own style and flare.
Book Review: Consider Labensky and Hause's On Cooking
Summary: 3 Stars
The Professional Chef is a well-organized, fairly complete cooking text and a very beautiful book. It deserves its great reviews. However, On Cooking by Labensky and Hause is somewhat longer (and thus more complete) and contains much more detailed exposition and recipes than The Professional Chef. It is not as flashy as The Professional Chef: If you were in a book store trying to choose between the two in a short amount of time, The Professional Chef would probably command your purchase; however, I own both and every single time I look for information or recipes, On Cooking has much more complete information.
Some examples: In On Cooking, there is a whole chapter on knife skills, as compared to sections in The Professional Chef. On Cooking's recipes include nutrition information and generally consume one or more pages. In The Professional Chef, each recipe consists of a quarter-page worth of information, though many of them are (beautifully) typeset to fill an entire page, so many of the book's pages consist mostly of blank space. The Professional Chef's section on anatomy of eggs and identification of quality and freshness is a very brief affair while On Cooking has tables of information, charts, and illustrative drawings. Furthermore, in On Cooking, the information about eggs in general is located in the same chapter as everything else on eggs, whereas The Professional Chef is organized like a culinary curriculum: one learns about how to select eggs long before learning how to cook them, so the section on eggs themselves occurs toward the beginning of the book, while the chapter on how to cook them occurs at toward the end of the book.
On Cooking is the more expensive and less flashy (but by no means less well-illustrated) of the two but it really is a superior informational resource.
Book Review: Maybe not for experienced cooks
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm a reasonably good "amateur gourmet" and, based on the reviews, ordered this book with a hope of expanding my knowledge. Frankly, if I'd had a chance to see it in a book store, I would have passed it up - at least at full price. Might have bought it at a deep discount, but probably not.
Why? It is probably an okay book for a young student with little "world experience" and not a lot of cooking background but for anyone who has been seriously active in the kitchen for a while it contains a lot of material that I felt was not all that useful. For example:
There is a lengthy section on the cuisines of the world: characteristics, how they developed, primary ingredients, etc. I felt that the descriptions were too brief to be really useful but took up an awfully lot of pages. For anyone who has been reading "Gourmet" or other such magazines for a while, we've seen better writing in more depth with associate recipies we could try.
There was also an illustration section showing great photos of ingredients and describing their use. I guess I really wasn't looking for a page of apple photos, or onion photos, or rice photos, etc. etc.
This seems to be aimed as a text for professional chefs. That part is okay and it does do a good job of explaining techniques in detail and with good illustrations. However, most of the recipies are for 10 servings and the basic stocks, sauces, etc. all make a gallon.
I have a huge Sub-Zero freezer and I have five adult "children" still at home wolfing down meals. Even under my circumstances, this would be a bit much.
Frankly, I get more from my "Cook's Illustrated" magazine plus their on-line resources. Same depth, good explainations about how things work, reasonable portions, and associated recipies that I can actually use.
Book Review: Excellent reference, good assortment of recipes.
Summary: 4 Stars
As a self-taught amateur "chef", I have been very pleased with this useful reference volume from CIA. While professionals may find this a bit rudimentary in its coverage, there is much of value for "the rest of us" who would love to go to culinary school but can't.
The first portion of the book is strictly for food-service professionals, with information on how to operate a restaurant kitchen. There is also a brief segment on the basic science of food preparation. The next portion discusses major cultural influences and cuisines from all areas of the world, including charts that summarize the key ingredients to be found in each culinary "dialect." The third portion, which I found extremely helpful as one without formal training, was an extensive photographic reference of nearly every type of ingredient you might run across in the kitchen, grouped by category.
The remaining two-thirds or so of the book is the recipe section, but it's more than just that. First, there is a detailed teaching segment on how to make stocks and sauces, "les fondes de cuisine," complete with step-by-step photos. This is of great importance since a very large number of the recipes to follow will use the stocks and sauces you make at this stage. From there, the recipes are categorized by the type of food or cooking method, such as meats & seafood, vegetables, braising and stewing, immersion cooking, etc. Each section opens with some helpful illustrated instruction relevant to that type of food or method.
In a nutshell, this book is both an excellent teaching tool for the uninitiated, and a handy reference for the professional. I would add only one caveat: all the recipe sizes assume restaurant use, with 10 servings being typical, so you'll need to adjust accordingly for smaller settings.