We spent two solid weeks learning about two crucial components of classical French cooking- eggs and butter. I made a killer shrimp souffle drizzled with hollandaise sauce as well as a fancy eggs benedict made up of grilled artichokes, spinach and lox. Brunch anyone?
Now we've moved on to bigger and better things, including soups and stocks and poultry. Does anyone remember that commercial in the early nineties with the family dancing around, flapping their arms and singing "I feel like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight, chicken tonight"? This was a favorite in the Irwin household, and we use to sing it whenever Mom made chicken. Well, this week at school I really had to refrain from breaking out into that song the whole time.
Meat cookery has always been intimidating to me, so I was excited and nervous about starting meats in school. What I didn't expect to learn was the history of chicken. That's right...even chickens have a history. So here goes my little history lesson. In the early 1960's, the our country raised and consumed 1.2 billion chickens per year. Today, we produce 14 billion! Because of the huge boost in consumerism, farmers now pack 12 chickens to a cage, and stack 6 cages high. After receiving a graphic description of the slaughtering and industrialization process of chicken (with pictures), I was left feeling slightly nauseated and seriously contemplating vegetarianism. Chef Stephan admitted that he is a pessimist when it comes to the direction our country is going in farming. He said that the farmer's main goal is to get as big of a bird as possible in the shortest amount of time, causing the chickens to be pumped with hormones and steroids and slaughtered before they've even reached full maturity. Another disturbing tid-bit is that 70% of the antibodies produced in the U.S. are put towards the farming industry. And if you think about it, those antibodies eventually wind up in us.
After hearing these grim statistics, it was difficult to be thrown into the kitchen and expected to poach, roast, and braise ten whole chickens. We took turns butchering them and trying to learn where and how to appropriately cut them. Then we worked in teams to learn each approach of cooking them. We ended the day with more chicken then you can imagine. It was fun because for the first time, we actually sat down as a class and ate a family style meal of what we had all cooked. I was very impressed by the end products and learned a lot by others' comments and critiques. Chef Stephan is a harsh judge, but he is also a fantastic teacher and really wants us to understand what we are doing right and wrong.
Next week, we're starting a new repertoire of foods, including moist heat cookery (I don't really know what that is yet) and breads. Stay tuned. I promise to be better about updating!
Mangia bene, stare bene,
Molly
