Response:
“Not Young. Not Restless. Still Killing it” The Grid, 1-7 Nov
2012
Read it HERE
The article, written by
David Sax, highlights Keith Froggett, who has cooked at Scaramouche
for 29 years, been it's executive chef for 27, and it's co-owner for
17. Sax intends to contrast the cult of the celebrity chef with
Froggett, who stands in for a bygone era of chefs focused
exclusively on technique. Sax believes that “hot young chefs have
become akin to rock stars, complete with tattoos, devoted followers
(both the diner and the Twitter varieties), and the attitude that
nobody over 30 is doing anything interesting in this town.” After
expressing claiming that no one cares about chefs over thirty, a few
sentence later Sax claims that Froggett is “one of the
best-respected chefs in this city, admired by the old guard and the
young upstarts alike as a mentor, challenging leader, and one hell of
a cook.”
Froggett's
“...long-term, low-key success, and the sheer quality and
consistency of his kitchen, make a strong case for the virtues of
experience and longevity over flash-in-the-pan talent...”
Interestingly, Froggett “rarely mentions flavours or inspiration
when he talks about food. What he loves more than anything is
technique, execution, and consistency, three of the attributes many
young chefs helming their own restaurants often lack.” Young chefs
have the knowledge and ideas but not the skills and experience to
back it up. Young chefs, perhaps, lack the patience to properly
execute dishes night after night.
Sax intends Froggett to
stand as the prime example of the old guard of chefs. Chefs focused
exclusively, and perhaps rightly, on the execution of technique.
However, when Froggett was young, I believe, that he would have
exhibited many of the same qualities that Sax finds negative in young
chefs today. Froggett entered chef's college at 16 and started
working at Scaramouche at 24. At 26 Froggett was running the kitchen
at Scaramouche. These are the same age ranges that describe many
young chef's career's today. Additionally, the chef Froggett worked
under allowed “everyone in the kitchen ... enough freedom to take
risks, but only if their skills were sufficient.” This could,
perhaps, describe many of the freedoms justifiably given to young
chefs today.
The article does not
present Froggett as having worked in many restaurants. From 1979 to
1983 he worked in a number of unnamed kitchens but since 1983 he has
worked almost exclusively at Scaramouche. The young chefs of today
appear to both work and own a number of restaurants of various
cooking styles, seating numbers, and locations. This appears to offer
young chefs a variety of experience and opportunity. The depth and
breath of knowledge that this type of education offers is something
that the older guard of chefs may lack.
While Sax wants to pit
the old guard against the young I view Froggett as the young guard,
aged. He was very young when he started cooking at Scaramouche and
while he may have the benefit of focusing on technique (which young
chefs may not) young chefs of today have the benefit of a breadth of
food knowledge that chefs such as Froggett may not.
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