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Modern Brigade System vs Classical Essay

Decent Essays

Nayeli Hernandez
Foundations
7/9/13
The classical brigade system vs the modern brigade system

Before the the french revolution great chefs were employed by houses of french nobility. With the revolution and the end of the monarchy, many chefs, suddenly out of work, opened restaurants in and around Paris to support themselves. At the start of the french revolution, there were about fifty restaurants in Paris. Ten years later, there were about five hundred. Another important invention that changed the organization of kitchens in the eighteenth century was the stove. This innovation gave cooks a more practical and controllable heat source than an open fire. Soon enough commercial kitchens became divided into three departments: the …show more content…

The system of organization he established is still in use, especially in large hotels and full-service restaurant. The process of simplification and refinement is ongoing, adapting classical cooking to modern conditions and tastes. A generation after Escoffier, the most influential chef in the middle of the twentieth century was Ferdinand Point. Point simplified and lightened classical cuisine. He was a perfectionist who sometimes worked on a dish for years before he felt it was good enough to put in his menu. Point insisted every meal should be "a little marvel." Point's influence extended well beyond his own life. Many of his apprentices, including Paul Bocuse, Jean and Pierre Troigros, and Alain Chapel, later became some of the greatest stars of modern cooking. They, along with other chefs in their generation, became best known in the 1960s and early 1970s for a style of cooking called nouvelle cuisine.Reacting to what they saw as a heavy, stodgy, overly complicated classical cuisine, these chefs took Point's lighter approach even further. They rejected many traditional principles, such as the use of flour to thicken sauces, and instead urged simpler, more natural flavors and preparations, with lighter sauces and seasonings and shorter cooking times. In traditional classical cuisine, many dishes were plated in the dining room by waiters. Nouvelle cuisine, however, placed a great deal of emphasis on artful plating presentation done by the chef in the

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