TYKE WITH A TOQUE

The reporters are all scribbling. “The most important thing in cooking is to have your own style,” Adam Shatz, 13, is saying, when his mother taps him on the shoulder. “Look Adam,” says Adam’s Mother, “it’s Michael McCarty.” She turns him so he can see the great chef. Adam squares his shoulders and walks manfully over. Adam’s father snaps a picture.

“I read the article on you in Connoisseur,” Adam begins, and then asks a few business questions. Primary among them is “Do you get John Dory from New Zealand?” The two are deep into a heavy discussion of the relative merits of Atlantic and Pacific fish when Adam’s mother notices that Jeremiah Tower is also in the room. She steers her son in his direction, and before long there are four chefs surrounding the young prodigy. His proud papa is still snapping away, and all the people at the American Institute of Wine and Food’s Conference on Gastronomy are peering into the little group to see what is going on.

Adam Shatz is 13 years old; he has had his own successful catering company in Longmeadow, Mass., for three years. “He likes to do things that are different,” says his mother, “where he can distinguish himself.” Stage mothers were once all the rage, but now it’s time to bid farewell to the movie mama as we make room for the latest breed of pushy progenitor--the stove-top parent.

“I began by working for a three-star restaurant in Hartford,” says Adam with the extraordinary poise that is characteristic of this kid. “One of their customers told the chef that my soup was better than his.” His career in the restaurant lasted a single day. Why so short? Adam looks annoyed. “You know there are child labor laws in this country,” he says reproachfully. Buoyed by the success of this brief cooking job, Adam went on to do a cooking show on cable TV, to write articles for the Springfield News, and to open his own catering company.

These days Adam’s company, Le Tresor (“I’m sorry I gave it a French name,” Adam admits, “but Shatz means treasure “), caters one party a month during the school year, more during the summer. Asked to cite a typical menu, Adam says that he never cooks a dish more than once, but ventures that he might start with a potage of 12 vegetables with an herbed cream, followed by sea scallops with poached vegetables in a thyme beurre blanc. “Then I might do a ragout of chicken with watercress sauce and truffles. I’d end with chocolate torte or a raspberry honey almond parfait cake.” The charge? “Oh, about $25 a person,” Adam says airily.

Adam claims that he has never taken a cooking class, but he admits that he does a lot of reading. “I started with Julia Child, then went to James Beard and Marcella Hazan. Now I feel you’ve got to learn what you like to cook for yourself.”

When it comes to likes and dislikes, this young man is rarely at a loss for words. To Bradley Ogden, chef at San Francisco’s Campton Place, he says, “I read about your breakfasts. I like breakfast, it’s an American meal.” And yet he informs Michael McCarty that he is not too thrilled by the idea of sticking to local products. “I don’t think you should be too patriotic. Why use Oregon white truffles when you can get better ones from Italy?”

In response McCarty looks at Adam’s mother and says, “You’d better get this kid a restaurant by the time he’s 18.” She probably will.