History of Culinary Arts and Foodservice

Historical Development of Culinary Arts and Foodservice

• Cooking’s history started when humans learned fire control. Cooking began in early civilizations.
• Food became central in ancient civilizations. Cooking became easier and more varied with grain cultivation, animal domestication, and pottery.
• Ancient Greece (800 B.C. to A.D. 30) was the foundation of European and Western civilization and influenced thought processes, procedures, and creativity.
• The ancient Romans (752 B.C. to A.D. 476) spread knowledge of the arts, including cooking styles, learning from the Greek masters as their empire expanded.
• Empire Building led to using slaves as cooks, so a good cook became a status symbol.
• Hippocrates promoted a healthy diet for optimal health.
• Apicius wrote "De re Coquinara" in the fourth century B.C., one of the first cookbooks for professionals and upper-class households.
• The Western world entered the Dark Ages after barbarians overran the Roman Empire, exploration slowed down, and culinary knowledge was not improved. Manors and Monasteries appeared to serve pilgrims.
• Monks and nuns in cloisters preserved and passed on culinary knowledge from the Romans, saving old manuscripts, copying and preserving recipes, and cultivating the culinary arts.
• The Italians explored the Orient as early as the thirteenth century, where Italian principalities became wealthy merchant states with refined culinary skills and developed the first real Western cuisine.
• By 1500, learning and culture blossomed and spread from Italy, so Royal Households flourished, and the study of food and service was beginning.
• Florence had a strong influence on later French cuisine.

Renaissance (16th and 17th Centuries)

• Italian Court Cuisine developed high culinary skills and table culture, superior to other European regions.
• Catherine de Medici’s marriage (1519-1589) to the Duke of Orleans transferred Italian culinary culture to France, with Medici bringing Italian cooks, chefs, servants, and wine experts
• The use of table forks and food innovations such as artichokes, aspics, baby peas, broccoli, cakes, cream puffs, custards, lettuce, milk-fed veal, and pasta are all accredited to her.
• Pierre de la Varenne, believed to have learned to cook in Marie de Medicis’ kitchens, created mushroom duxelles.
• He wrote "Le Cuisinier François" (1651), and gave French cuisine a national identity, and instructs chefs how to cook.

Le Cuisinier François

• Recorded changes in French cuisine since the Middle Ages.
• Established French cuisine's basic tenets: cooking brings out and enhances natural flavors, not disguising them with spices and seasonings.

Baroque and Rococo (17th and Late 18th Centuries)

• French cuisine reached its first zenith during Louis XV’s reign (1710-1774).
• French Court Cuisine was limited to the king and nobility.
• Chefs and master cooks worked in royal households and nobility homes and wrote cookbooks recording recipes and skills.
• Newly invented recipes were often named after famous people.

Late 18th Century: Restaurant History and Revolution

• French chefs were recruited to work in royal palaces all over Europe.
• This decadent society viewed meals as entertainment rather than nutrition, forcing bizarre culinary creations upon kitchen chefs.
• Modern food service began after the mid-18th century when Guilds controlled food production in France.
• Innkeepers bought menu items from guilds to serve meals to guests.
• Each Guild had a monopoly on food items with guilds such as:
  • Rotisseurs: Cooked main meat cuts
  • Patissiers: Cooked poultry, pies, and tarts
  • Tamisiers: Baked bread
  • Vinaigriers: Made sauces and some stews including restoratives
  • Traiteurs: Made ragouts
  • Porterchapes: Caterers who organized feasts and celebrations.

First Restaurants

• The French claim the first restaurant opened in 1765, by Monsieur Boulanger, a Parisian tavern keeper.
• Inns and taverns served foods prepared by the appropriate guild.
• Boulanger served a variety of foods on premises to customers whose primary interest was dining.
• Boulanger was the first use the term 'restaurant'.
• Antoine Beauvilliers (1754-1817) opened the first 'real' restaurant in Paris in 1782, called Grande Taverne de Londres,
• Former steward to the Copte de Provence, later King Louis XVIII,
• Opened Grande Taverne de Londres in 1782
• He advanced the modern restaurant by offering wealthy patrons an ala carte menu listing available dishes during fixed hours.
• Beauvilliers was the first to combine trained waitstaff, superior cooking, small individual tables, and an elegant setting.

The French Revolution (1789-99)

• The French Revolution significantly affected restaurants. Fine dining was exclusively enjoyed by lords with their own kitchen and personal chef.
• Restaurants grew in popularity when the French population could not afford bread.
• By 1789, looting and riots erupted throughout Paris.
• Aristocrats fled to the countryside, leaving behind skilled chefs and fine wines.
• Along with aristocracy, guilds and monopolies were abolished.
• Public access granted to the trained chefs skills from those who worked in aristocracy's private kitchens during the revolution.
• Some chefs opened restaurants catering to the growing urbanized middle class.

Early 19th Century: Careme and Grande Cuisine

• By mid-19th century, affluent city dwellers developed cuisine bourgeoise.
• Large, grand restaurants in Paris served elaborate meals.
• French cooking changed, incorporating new ingredients, seasonings, procedures, and presentation styles.
• Grande cuisine evolved, an elaborate cuisine consisting of many courses with strict cooking rules.
• Marie Antoine Careme is credited as the founder of grande cuisine, aka Haute Cuisine, which means high cuisine and the “chef of kings and king of chefs."
• He wanted to achieve "lightness," "grace," "order" and perspicuity in preparation and presentation. As well as refine and organize culinary techniques.
• Carême dedicated his career to that pursuit.
• His many books contain the systematic account of cooking principles, recipes and menu making.
• Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), lawyer, was an influential food writer, known for "Physiologie du Goût - Physiology of Taste".

Late 19th Century: Escoffier and Cuisine Classique

• Georges Auguste Escoffier (1847-1935) codified French cuisine and is revered as the Father of 20th century cookery.
• Major developments were replacing service à la française (serving all dishes at once) with service à la russe (serving meals in courses) and developing cookery based on "Le Guide Culinaire".
• Rejecting the general confusion of old menus in sheer quantity, Escoffier emphasized one or two dishes per course.
• The kitchen brigade resulted in a streamlined workplace for simplified dishes and menus.
• Escoffier's "Le Guide Culinaire", is a major work classifying classic cuisine still widely used.
• The main 5 families of sauces still used today were codified.

Mid-20th-Century: Fernand Point and Nouvelle Cuisine

• With many restaurants proliferating, Andre and Edouard Michelin compiled the first Michelin Guide in 1900 to create demand for automobiles.
• The mid-20th century witnessed a trend toward lighter, more naturally flavored foods, thanks to Point.
• Michelin first rating was done in 1926 of "fine dining establishments".
• In 1931 it was expanded to a 3 star system
• Henri Gault & Christian Millau protested Michelin's conservatism by starting the Gault & Millau Guide in 1969, criticizing "the new generation of French chefs".
• Millau invented Nouvelle Cuisine, involving a lighter, inventive cuisine based on natural flavors and innovation.

Nouvelle Cuisine main ideas

• Few simple practices that seemed to correspond to changing tastes includes:
  • There was a trend toward simplicity and the use of fresh products and seasonal ingredients.
  • Alcohol, flour, butter, cream and fat avoided entirely or kept at a minimum.
  • Menus grew and also changed often, to make use of fresh and seasonal products.
  • New kitchen technologies such as food processors and microwave ovens were adopted as well.

The Late 20th Century and the Culinary Revolution

• Molecular Gastronomy studies physical/chemical processes in cooking (Herve This).
• It pertains to transformations in cooking and components of culinary phenomena.

Types of Kitchen

• A domestic kitchen is in a home, for personal use, with equipment for small portions.
• A commercial kitchen is a large area for preparing large portions of food, requiring a lot of space, equipment, and good service.

Work Stations and Work Sections

• Commercial kitchens are organized into work stations and work sections to streamline work flow.
• Related work stations are organized into work sections that share equipment or tasks.
• Work stations contain the tools and equipment needed to prepare a certain dish or type of food.

Kitchen Brigade System

• Executive Chef heads the kitchen and supervises cooking and presentation.
• The sous chef assists the chef, can fill the chef's position, replaced the chef when they are off duty.
• Chef de Partie is responsible for a particular cooking station. Responsible are divided into special tasks assigned to each member of the staff.

Kitchen Brigade System Positions

The main positions in the Kitchen Brigade system are:

• Saucier: creates Sautéed foods and their sauces
• Poissonier: fish and seafood and their sauces
• Rotisseur: roasts, braises, and stews with their sauces
• Friturier: fried foods
• Grillardin: all grilled foods
• Garde Manger: responsible for cold food

More Kitchen Brigade Positions

• Potager: responsible for soup preparation
• Legumier: responsible for vegetable preparation
• Boucher: butchers all meats and poultry
• Commis: apprentice under a station chef

Job attributes

• Attitude
• Skills
• Knowledge
• Experience
• Stamina
• Quality Seeker
• Interpersonal skill

Phases of Kitchen Production

• Game Plan/Action Plan -Planning and review of recipe, ingredient.
• Mise en Place involves preparation of tools, ingredients, and station set-up.
• Cooking -transformation of raw processed foods into an acceptable wholesome and safe finished product ready for service
• Serving - where quality food is delivered to satisfied clientele at reasonable costs under sanitary conditions.