I really don’t know…
The Daily Sauce reported Monday on the graduating classes of two local technical schools culinary programs: Clyde C. Miller Career Academy and North Technical High School.
Calling them chefs aside (tsk tsk), the two schools faced off in the First Annual High School Culinary Cook-Off.
The North Tech team devised a three-course menu featuring pecan-encrusted goat cheese on a bed of greens with diced apple and charred tomato vinaigrette; shrimp risotto with roasted grape tomatoes; and pineapple-glazed pork loin with sweet potato hash and pineapple salsa. Miller’s team countered with a mixed spring salad with smoked salmon, dried cherries, carrots, tomatoes, blue cheese with an apple and pear vinaigrette; a roasted chicken and garlic skewer on spinach pesto; and pork tenderloin stuffed with chorizo and Boursin cheese, roasted garlic mashed potatoes and a spring vegetable medley.
First, congratulations to the students. While technical high schools are common place in other countries, for some reason in America, they’ve never taken the same kind of hold. Here we’d rather cram the square peg into the round hole than let a student actually excel at something they enjoy. Here’s to not getting crammed!
As for the high schools, would it be too much to perhaps teach the students about seasonality? That’s a lot of tomatoes for April.
And, getting admittedly nit-picky, how many times have you been to a restaurant in St. Louis and cringed at the seasonal vegetable medley? Invariably what you’re presented with is the exact same squash and carrot mixture year round. Notched up with a few dried herbs and garlic there is only one word for it: lame.
Plus, as mentioned yesterday, I’ve been to the farmers markets, I’ve seen the spring produce currently available in our region, and they are simply leafy greens and asparagus. Ramps if you’re lucky.
So if any of you North Tech or Clyde C. Miller students read this, don’t do that as you progress in your careers. Heck, if you’re in the industry now and you do this, stop! Medleys, regardless of mentioning their season or not, are cop outs. Period.
If you want to be taken seriously as a fine restaurant, present a unique starch and veg that are actually appropriate accompaniments to the other flavors in your dish. And if you call something seasonal at the very least try to be in the right ballpark. I mean, it’s one thing to buy cheap asparagus from California when it’s growing in its natural cycle and simply not as abundant here, but it’s an entirely different one to serve asparagus year round just because it’s in season somewhere.
And North Tech won incidentally, but that’s not a shocker with that everything-but-the-kitchen-sink smoked salmon dish coming out of the Miller kitchen.
4 Responses to “I really don’t know…”
While you were critical of the menu choices those tech school kids presented, you also offered strong encouragement.
Maybe you and perhaps a few of your chef friends should volunteer, as mentors, between now and the next Cook-Off.
Your suggestions would improve their offerings and their knowledge, you would help all of them become winners, and the St. Louis restaurant industry would win, too!
By Idea4You on May 16, 2008
What a nice gesture that would be. Too bad most chefs don’t have enough time to spend with their own children let alone volunteer. If there were just more hours in the day!
By Annie on May 16, 2008
We had an intern this past semester from the Clyde C. Miller school culinary program.
I would recommend to other restaurant owners and chefs on this board to look into that. She was as good as any L’Ecole student we’ve had.
By Kathy Becker on May 18, 2008