American Chef : Cuisine and <i> Moi</i>

The sun rises over Marseille. I am terrified. At 8:30 a.m., I am to be in the kitchen of Le Petit Nice, where I, a young American cook with spotty French, am about to begin work. Or, to be exact, I am about to begin the French rite of passage for cooks, the stage . All I know about my new life as a stagier , or apprentice, is that the hours will be long and the pay, well, zero. It’s possible that I could spend most of my two-month stay in the basement peeling potatoes before I’m allowed in the kitchen, where the chef might very well crack me across the head for any culinary violation.

Why put myself through such an ordeal? At 15 I entered the restaurant business and realized right away that to excel I’d have to follow the path of cuisine : work my way up from the bottom, all the while gathering knowledge, honing skills, kissing a bit of proverbial butt and, ultimately, studying with the masters when--and if--the time should ripen.

Eleven years later, with a smattering of French in my repertoire, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Oddly, the terror abates as the hour approaches.

Practicing my opening lines in French, I thread my way through the labyrinth of cobblestone and pastel back streets that are Marseille. In due time I reach Le Petit Nice, the city’s only two-star restaurant.

Its white stucco balconies float over the royal blue Mediterranean. Through large windows, the stainless-steel and the white tiles of the kitchen are visible, creating a fishbowl effect. I enter.

The room is empty and silent save for the low hum of the ice box. A man dashes by, but before I can speak my opening lines, he disappears. After 15 anxiety-ridden minutes, I spot a tall cook wearing whites and sporting a waxed handlebar mustache. I take a breath and recite my lines: “ Je m’appelle Gavril Lourie. Je suis arrive pour fair un stage. “

He barely stops what he’s doing, glances up at me, and says, “How’s your English?”

Caught off guard, I reply, “Pretty good, I guess.”

“Oh, you’re American!” he says, introducing himself as Uwe, a German employed at the restaurant as a poissonnier , or fish chef.

Great. I had come to France to work and speak with French chefs, and first thing I know, I’m speaking English with a German. This must be Europe.

Down in the changing room Uwe informs me that, contrary to the usual practice in most American restaurants, in France all cooks are responsible for buying and cleaning their own whites. In other words, it’s going to cost me an additional $100 to work for nothing.

The coat, Uwe says, loaning me one of his, has to be buttoned up on the right and all the way to the top, no American informality allowed. OK.

After a quick tour of the kitchen, he puts me to work for a few hours julienning cucumbers and zucchini. Although I have brought my own knives, Uwe makes me use a giant German knife. Uptight about making mistakes, I do the job, it seems, too well.

“Relax, kid,” says Uwe, “they don’t have to be so perfect!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I start to notice the other cooks going about their duties and am surprised by the international makeup of the kitchen--Japanese, English, German, Italian. The staff lunch is eaten in silence.

And it’s godawful. Cold mixed vegetables from a can. Cheap, fatty salami. A salad of unwashed, undressed chicory. Craziest of all, coffee and soda are forbidden to the cooks. Some restaurants, I’ve heard, pay their stagiers , and some, it is rumored, are even fed well. Not so here. Perhaps this is the famous French stinginess?

At 3 o’clock, after the counters are scrubbed, the stoves cleaned and the floors mopped, we all go downstairs to change. In my naivete I ask, “Are we done for the day?”

“Ha!” they all laugh. “Be back at 6.”

Thus I learn that my workday begins at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 11:30 p.m., six days a week, Sundays off. By having everyone work six days a week, the owners avoid the expense of a second shift.

At 6 on the dot, I meet Pascal, the strapping young Provencal who, as sous-chef, runs the kitchen in the absence of the chef. He shakes my hand with a fleeting glance of acknowledgment and then nods back to the chopping block, where I concentrate on not seeming overzealous--I don’t slice the vegetables too perfectly. I survive Day One.

Famous for elevating the seafood of Marseille to the level of haute cuisine, Le Petit Nice attracts an eclectic mix of international elite, from Neil Armstrong to Catherine Deneuve. American executives descend from helicopters to consume lavish meals, only to vanish four courses later in a whir of rotors.

All of the tall glass windows in the dining room are filled with the sight of the Mediterranean, the notable exception being the one on the far right that looks out onto the island prison of the Count of Monte Christo, the Chateau d’If. The service is so swift and unobtrusive that the customer almost feels as if the sea is magically offering its bounty directly.

On the other side of the dining room doors, however, I am up to my elbows in fish blood. Scales fly into my hair. The low-tide stench of fish guts adheres to my hands and nostrils. For the sake of speed, fingers are the tools recommended for the removal of the unforgiving gills, which can do nasty things to your hands. Next, with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, I must remove, one by one, the copious, tiny bones from a mountain of rouget fillets.

Despite everything I had envisioned, on Day Two I am put in sole charge of cooking the fish that will actually be served to paying customers. Pascal, the sous-chef, barks out orders. My brain swims with foreign fish names-- loup de mer , rascasse , morue . . . . I make as many mistakes as there are varieties. I am scolded. It seems I am having trouble getting the hang of the proper French way to prepare fish. They like their fish rare and their vegetables well done, just the opposite of most Americans. With every fish I cook, Pascal bangs his fist on the table and mutters, “Too cook, too cook!”

Of all the pieces of equipment in the kitchen, the sous-vide , or vacuum sealer, is one of the most unexpected--and attractive. It is a suitcase-sized box with a windowed lid and a few controls on the outside. After a morning of fish cleaning, the fillets are wrapped in butcher’s paper and placed in a special plastic bag. One end of the so-called cryovac bag is connected to a hot sealing rod, while the other is fitted around a tube. With a great whoosh the air is sucked out of the bag, which is sealed at the same time. The bags of fish are iced down until served.

As the order is called by the chef, I pull out a bag of fish from the ice, cut out a portion and voila ! The fish is as fresh as the moment it was cut--technology to accommodate a most earthly delight.

On my third day, the chef de cuisine, Gerald Passedat, returns from a trip to Italy. It was his grandfather who founded Le Petit Nice in 1917. Lean, 30 years old, described in the French guidebook Gault-Millaut as a playboy, Passedat has a classic Gallic nose and an aloof air about him. His lordly manner makes the atmosphere in the kitchen even more tense, if that’s possible.

The stagiers nobly break that tension by cracking jokes and knocking off each other’s toques by hurling pieces of wet bread. After our usual dismal lunch, the chef asks for a small plate of diced raw sea bass for his chat. “ Chat -shimi,” I pun to Akiheko, one of the Japanese stagiers.

Out front, a customer orders lobster. The maitre d’ takes the order sheet and presents the dupe to the chef, who calls out “ Homard !”

That’s my signal. I grab the keys and a pan, race out back, down the alley, through the restaurant garden, and into the garage where I fumble for the lights (the French have a very different sense of where such fixtures should be placed). In the room that houses a tankful of lobsters from Brittany, I try to fish out a nice one.

But the lobsters aren’t cooperating. They keep jumping out of the long-poled net back into the tank. Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, I know the orders are pouring in. Finally, I am able to snare one of the crafty crustacea, and I zip back through the garden and into the kitchen. I throw the thing alive and kicking onto its back, hack it in half, pluck out its heart and douse its flesh with olive oil, Provencal garlic and thyme. Its muscles twitch as they are sprinkled with salt and pepper.

At a nod from Passedat, into the oven it goes. Once-cooked, twice-dressed, ready to be served. A punch in the shoulder and a wink tells me that at last Pascal is pleased.

Dejeuner is supposedly French for lunch. But the American experience of a diet Coke and a frozen yogurt does not even remotely resemble the daily occasion that takes place on the Continent. In France, commerce and trade politely but definitely are brought to a halt so that the French citizenry might indulge in its inalienable right to an unencumbered, uninterrupted mid-day repast.

Chef Passedat’s jowly basset hound meanders through the kitchen and flops himself down in the most inconvenient of places. Passedat yells and kicks him freely, but when meal time comes around, it is the dog who is served steak, while we get cheval , horse meat. The French adore their pooches, and this accounts for the omnipresence of chefs’ best friends in the kitchens and dining rooms of the country’s great restaurants.

While this may seem unhygienic to an American, the French stove is a shining monument to cleanliness. Made of the highest-quality steel--usually reserved for F-16s and Trident subs in this country--it is polished and buffed twice a day with special sandpaper from Paris.

While American cooks eat standing up at their cutting boards, a knife in one hand, lunch in the other, here we retire outside for nearly an hour of la digestion --bad as it is--on the rocks by the sea.

There’s a sign in the kitchen that reads Vous avez choisi un metier noble --”You have chosen a noble profession.”

In France there is an unmistakable pride in being a cook. Food does not simply serve to fulfill a bodily need; it was here that it was raised to the level of art, with all the endless pursuit of perfection that implies.

But that “nobility” also entails personal sacrifice, as when the chef decides to smoke some sea bass and orders all the windows shut. One of the stagiers , David, has been feeling queasy all day. He now turns blue and has to run downstairs.

“Where’s David?” asks the chef a few minutes later.

“Downstairs. He’s very sick.” replies a stagier .

“Is he dead?” the chef queries sarcastically.

“No.”

“Then tell him to get up here and plate the lamb.” The chef’s tyranny is full-on. David plates the lamb.

There are breaks in the tension and routine. One day I get to go to the market with the chef’s father, Jean-Paul, a thick-set man with graying hair who used to run the kitchen but now spends most of his time out front with the customers. Run exclusively for restaurants, the market is in a desolate industrial zone surrounded by Arab tenements. Some of the vendors are grilling sausages and drinking red wine.

I load our order--fennel, eggplant and thyme--into our van according to Jean-Paul’s exacting instructions for safeguarding the produce. The aroma of Provencal tomatoes is intoxicating. In America, au contraire , tomatoes are seen and not smelled. It occurs to me that the produce is the true star of Provencal cooking.

I am the only American in the kitchen, and I take more than my share of heat when my fellow Americans out in the dining room are gauche enough to order “just a salad” or ham and eggs when they come all the way to this two-star French restaurant.

“Americans have no appetite, they don’t know how to eat!” says the chef with his fist in the air, glaring at me. I have no reply.

But I try to think of one while preparing frogs’ legs, which come to the kitchen neatly plaited by the dozen on thin sticks of wood. They are delivered on ice, but at room temperature they smell like the reptile section of a pet store. Detaching the feet and hips is done with a paring knife; the work is delicate, time-consuming, tedious. I am at a low point, feeling unappreciated and, worse, unaccepted. I grumble insults at the frogs’ legs, which I then flour lightly and saute in goose fat and oil.

After a long day, Akiheko and I retire to a local bar for a bottle of the eternal Japanese elixir, Coca Cola.

Pascal, the sous-chef, dispels the gloom by announcing that he is taking a leave of absence to help with the harvest on his family’s farm near Avignon. He invites the entire kitchen there for a grand Provencal feast.

The following Sunday morning our caravan--a Citroen, a VW bug, a Yamaha motorcycle--streaks down the autoroute at 200 km (120 miles) per hour. At the farm, Pascal’s parents greet us warmly, three kisses instead of the usual two. While Pascal cooks, we sip pastis and eat potato chips. Then the 25 of us go outside and sit down at a long table under the trees. There are dogs, chickens, piglets, goats and children running everywhere.

I slip away from the conversation and find Pascal cooking his version of paella on a camping stove. He shows me some tricks and lets me in on a few secrets. Then he moves about the table ladling out steaming saffron-flavored rice heaped with rabbit, squid, shellfish and peas. We drink the family’s homemade wine out of plastic Vittel bottles. A tarte aux pommes follows the cheese. Native produce may be the star of Provencal cuisine, but the home kitchen is its brilliant agent.

Not all my lessons are so easy. Back in the kitchen a few days later, Uwe offers me a slice of sauteed lamb’s testicle.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” I say politely.

“You’re a cook, you taste it, you eat it.” He’s right. I’m a cook. I taste it. Not bad.

And if I had any last doubts about being accepted as a cook in that kitchen, they are washed away on my last day, when I hear Uwe say, “Excuse me, Mr. Lourie.” I look up as a bucket of water is poured over my head. It is a French custom to soak anyone who is leaving the kitchen.

I decide to give the tradition an American update and a few minutes later catch Uwe off guard with a bucketful in return. All cooking comes to a stop and the whole kitchen goes berserk as a full-fledged water fight ensues.

Finally, Uwe and most of the staff drag me kicking and screaming to the dish sink, where I am dunked into the filthy water and a torrent of tomato sauce is poured over my head. Then everybody laughs and cheers at the spectacle of my baptism. I smile too, licking the tomato sauce from the corners of my mouth. It could use a little salt.

*

Bouillabaisse is known throughout the world as a grand classic of French cuisine. The mere mention of the word conjures images of quaint old sea towns and the salty old men who work there, steaming sterling platters of the sea’s bounty brought to the table in elegant French bistros brimming with gleaming brass and pressed white linen. But I found that closer to the truth was a dish of boiled fish and somewhat glamorized leftovers. In this version, the fish and shellfish are served with just a little of the broth in which they cooked. Also, the potatoes are cooked separately. You can, however, cook the potatoes with the fish and shellfish and serve the dish as a soup. I actually like it a little better this way (you can take the Yankee out of the States . . . ), though that cooking and serving method is very much taboo in the city of Marseille.

Note: In France, the fish for bouillabaisse would be slightly different. Rascasse, or scorpion fish, for instance, would be considered essential in Marseille. But since it isn’t available here, try Pacific red snapper.

BOUILLABAISSE

4 large leeks

2 yellow onions

4 carrots

1/2 bunch celery

1 celery root

2 fennel bulbs

2 pounds Roma tomatoes

1 monkfish tail

2 small Pacific red snappers

2 red mullets

1 small porgy

1 pound sole fillets

1 small striped bass

1 (750-milliliter) bottle dry white wine

3 cups extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh thyme

1/2 cup chopped parsley

1/2 cup chopped basil

1/2 cup chopped garlic

1 tablespoon saffron threads

3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch slices

Water

Rouille

Begin 1 day before serving. Trim and clean leeks (removing green part), onions, carrots, celery, celery root, fennel and tomatoes, reserving trimmings. Cut vegetables in 1/4-inch dice. Store separately.

Gut, but do not bone fish. In large pan, marinate monkfish, snapper, mullet, porgy, sole and striped bass overnight in reserved vegetable trimmings, 1/2 bottle white wine, 1 cup olive oil, 1 tablespoon thyme, parsley and basil.

Next day, in large non-reactive stock pot, saute diced vegetables, except for tomatoes, in 1 cup olive oil until they begin to soften. Add garlic and remaining 1 tablespoon thyme, then tomatoes and simmer 5 minutes. Add remaining 1/2 bottle of wine and saffron threads.

Boil and reduce to half, add water until there is enough space for fish and 2 quarts liquid. Simmer 10 minutes, remove 2 quarts liquid and reserve.

Remove fish from marinade. Pat fish dry with paper towels. Add whole fish to pot in order of size, largest on bottom, closest to heat. Bring to boil. Add remaining 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil and cook until done.

While fish is cooking, boil potatoes in reserved broth. When done, keep warm in broth.

Serve fish whole on warmed platter with potatoes on side. Carefully skin and bone fish and divide among warmed shallow soup bowls. Divide potatoes among bowls and then ladle over just enough fish broth to barely cover. Garnish with 1 tablespoon Rouille smeared on baguette slices. Makes 10 servings.

Each serving contains about:

660 calories; 137 mg sodium; 108 mg cholesterol; 37 grams fat; 34 grams carbohydrates; 37 grams protein; 1.36 grams fiber.

Rouille

2 dried ancho chiles, soaked 2 hours in hot water

2 sweet red peppers, roasted, peeled and seeded

4 cloves garlic, mashed

5 saffron threads

1/4 cup homemade bread crumbs

2 egg yolks

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Grind chiles and peppers with mortar and pestle. Add garlic and saffron and mash to paste consistency. Mix in bread crumbs and egg yolks, then slowly beat in olive oil. Alternatively: Puree chiles, peppers, garlic, saffron, bread crumbs and egg yolks in food processor. With machine running, slowly add oil to make thick paste. Makes 1 cup.

Each 1-tablespoon serving contains about:

139 calories; 13 mg sodium; 34 mg cholesterol; 14 grams fat; 3 grams carbohydrates; 1 grams protein; 0.16 grams fiber;

*

Fishing for those lobsters, I felt like the centurion who threw Christians to the lions. The tomato sauce is a recipe of mine that combines Mediterranean flavors with a Mexican technique I learned from Santiago Oliveras, a very talented chef at Along Came Mary.

HOMARD PROVENCAL

4 (1 1/2- to 2-pound) live Maine lobsters

Salt, pepper

1/2 bunch fresh thyme, dried overnight

10 to 20 cloves garlic, lightly crushed

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Juice 1 lemon

Charred Tomato Sauce

Firmly hold lobster on back and, using large chef’s knife, split in half lengthwise. (If preferred, lobster may be quickly killed by making cut just behind head to sever spinal cord.) Remove heart (in hard sac approximately quarter of way back from head). Crack open claws.

Place lobsters in shallow baking dish. Season to taste salt and pepper. Add thyme and scatter garlic on top. Pour olive oil and lemon juice on top. Bake at 425 degrees 10 to 12 minutes until meat is just done. Check claws and tail. Serve immediately with Charred Tomato Sauce. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving, with Charred Tomato Sauce, contains about:

419 calories; 621 mg sodium; 142 mg cholesterol; 29 grams fat; 12 grams carbohydrates; 30 grams protein; 1.45 grams fiber.

Charred Tomato Sauce

4 ripe plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped

3 to 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/2 cup fresh basil strips

1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Hot pepper sauce

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Salt, pepper

Place chopped tomatoes and garlic in very hot, ungreased saute pan. Sear quickly until charred, approximately 5 minutes. Add basil, parsley, mustard, olive oil, hot pepper sauce to taste, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Makes 1 1/2 cups.

Each 1-tablespoon serving contains about:

24 calories; 17 mg sodium; trace cholesterol; 2 grams fat; 1 gram carbohydrates; trace protein; 0.10 gram fiber.

*

The method that follows may sound a bit troublesome, but it is really just another job performed daily by thousands of chefs. Be careful not to overcook these delicate appendages. Their flavor is a cross between chicken and fish--very appropriate considering they are amphibians. The two very different sauce recipes represent the classic and the more modern Provencal approaches.

FROGS’ LEGS WITH TWO SAUCES

2 dozen frogs’ legs

Salt, pepper

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Olive oil

Unsalted butter

Classical Sauce

Provencal Sauce

Cut off feet and pelvis from frog legs. Remove any remaining skin and tendons at ankles. Cut in half at knees and scrape down meat away from knees to form small “handles” of bone. Pat dry with paper towels. Season lightly to taste with salt and pepper. Dredge in seasoned flour before cooking so flour will be dry as possible.

Heat saute pan, add 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter. Cook until butter foams. Add frogs’ legs, being careful not to overcrowd. Cook, turning as they begin to brown. Reduce heat. Cover and cook 2 more minutes. Do not overcook.

Remove legs from pan and place on paper towels to drain. Keep warm. Repeat as often as necessary to cook all legs.

When ready to serve, pour bit of each sauce on plate and position 4 to 6 legs on top of sauces. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Each of 6 servings, with 2 sauces, contains about:

472 calories; 372 mg sodium; 109 mg cholesterol; 24 grams fat; 31 grams carbohydrates; 27 grams protein; 0.77 gram fiber.

Classical Sauce

7 to 8 cloves garlic, finely chopped

6 shallots, finely chopped

1/4 cup butter

1 cup finely chopped Italian parsley

1 cup white wine

Salt, pepper

In skillet cook garlic and shallots in butter over medium heat. When translucent add parsley and white wine. Increase heat to high and reduce wine by 1/4, about 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Makes 1 cup.

Each 1-tablespoon serving contains about:

41 calories; 51 mg sodium; 8 mg cholesterol; 3 grams fat; 2 grams carbohydrates; trace protein; 0.09 gram fiber.

Provencal Sauce

5 shallots, thinly sliced

5 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tablespoons butter

4 ripe Roma tomatoes, charred in dry pan and coarsely chopped

1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley

2/3 cup chopped fresh basil

1/4 teaspoon thyme leaves

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Dash hot pepper sauce

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Salt, pepper

In skillet cook shallots and garlic in butter over medium heat. Add tomatoes and cook 5 minutes. Add parsley, basil, thyme, mustard, olive oil, hot sauce and lemon juice. Stir together well. Heat through. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Makes 1 1/4 cups.

Each 1-tablespoon serving contains about:

29 calories; 32 mg sodium; 3 mg cholesterol; 2 grams fat; 2 grams carbohydrates; trace protein; 0.16 gram fiber.

*

“Loupolong” was my nickname at Le Petit Nice because of the sheer quantity of fish I prepared. To bone this fish the way I did is quite difficult, requiring cutting along both sides of the spine all the way down to--but not through--the belly, snipping out the backbone, then carefully removing the pin bones. Foil supports keep the fish upright during cooking . Then the fish is served with its back open and filled with a bounty of Provencal vegetables, topped with glimmering oily black truffles. Spoon the sauce on the platter surrounding the fish. A simpler approach would be to saute two pounds of lightly floured sea bass fillets in butter and serve with the vegetables arranged on top.

SEA BASS THE WAY LUCIE PASSEDAT LIKED IT

(Loup de Palangre Comme l’Aimait Lucie Passedat)

4 (1 1/2- to 2 1/2-pound) sea bass, or trout, coho, salmon or striped bass

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

Extra-virgin olive oil

6 cups Fish Fumet

3 medium zucchini, cut into 2 1/2-inch sections and julienned

10 ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and finely diced

1 English cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into 2 1/4-inch strips

1 bunch fresh basil, cut in strips

Few drops lemon juice

1 large or 2 small black truffles, sliced paper-thin, optional

1/3 cup truffle juice, optional

Season fish to taste with salt and pepper on outside and inside. Rub with olive oil. Place fish, upright, in baking dish with 3 cups fish fumet. Bake at 350 degrees 20 to 25 minutes, or until done.

Heat remaining 3 cups fish fumet, add zucchini, tomatoes, cucumber, basil, lemon juice and 1 cup olive oil. Do not boil. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve fish on warmed platter. Fill cavity with vegetables. Spoon sauce from vegetables around fish. Garnish with truffles and truffle juice. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

306 calories; 470 mg sodium; 95 mg cholesterol; 8 grams fat; 36 grams carbohydrates; 28 grams protein; 4.43 grams fiber.

Fish Fumet

6 pounds lean, fresh fish, fish heads, bones and trimmings

3 onions, thinly sliced

1 bunch parsley stems (leaves will darken stock)

3 tablespoons lemon juice

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 cups dry white wine

Cold water

3/4 cup fresh mushroom stems, optional

Place fish, heads, bones and trimmings, onions, parsley, lemon juice, salt, wine, water to cover and mushrooms in kettle. Bring to simmer. Skim, then simmer uncovered 30 minutes.

Strain through fine sieve. Adjust seasonings to taste. Fish stock may be refrigerated or frozen. If refrigerated and not using immediately, boil in kettle every 2 days to keep from spoiling. Makes 6 cups.

Food styling by Donna Deane and Mayi Brady.