The Making of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman

Author:Michael Ruhlman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2011-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

The Second-Term Practical

The second-term practical is among the final tests a CIA student takes before departing for extern. It is a cooking test taken during the first week of Garde Manger. A group of six students arrives in the Practical kitchen off the mail room at seven A.M. (if they are P.M. students). The six menus the students may prepare, printed in the handout everyone receives before the test and also posted on a bulletin board, consist of a soup, an entrée (a meat and sauce), two vegetables, and one starch. Before they cook, students answer questions, such as what mother sauce is used in preparing most cream soups, or, what is the protein in ground beef and egg whites? (Velouté, albumen.)

The menu is basic. Entrées include roast chicken with pan gravy, sautéed chicken with sauce fines herbes, and poached salmon with hollandaise—Skills Two food. Soups were straight out of Skills One. This was after all a test of basic methods (sauté, shallow- and deep-poach, braise, roast, broil) employed in a timely fashion. The soup was to be presented after two hours and fifteen minutes, entrées fifteen minutes later. Everything you needed was either on a tray or in the reach-in, and you had exactly the right time to prepare a full meal for two from scratch provided you made no mistakes.

But the practical made most people nervous. If you were late with your food, you failed. If your food could not be eaten—say you misjudged doneness of the roast chicken and the thigh meat was bloody—you failed and would have to pay to retake the test. You cooked in an unfamiliar kitchen for a chef you didn’t know. This was a test and test anxiety went along with it.

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