Cooking In Paris

Blog Post 10

11/127/2022

40O44’47” N 74O16’48” E

It was interesting to come back to France because it was the first place I had been, and now after so many travels, I would see it differently. Most glaring difference was the people. By now I had had the chance to meet people from all over Spain and Italy, so when coming back to the city I had a frame of reference as II had human interactions. Now first of all, you should remember how many tourists come through France on a daily basis. That said, my experience with the parishan was not very nice. Most of the time, not all of the time, my interactions were blunt, brisc, or even mean. This is not a rule as there were many exceptions but just something to keep in mind.

There is a world-famous cooking school called Le Cordon Bleu, but rather than going to one of its myriad locations around the world, we decided to go to the source and learn from the renowned school in Paris.

I took three classes and each had a different theme: the first was a sauces class taught by a very tall chef who could not speak English (this was true for all the chefs, and so there was a translator). In the beginning of the class he would yell at us to say “oui chef” and after three minutes of cutting crabs he would say “five minutes are up get them done,” but he was never mean. The real genius of how he taught came later on. As we learned more and more, he yelled at us less and less, so by the end, we followed his every instruction to the T. He started to open up and tell us stories from his past.

Our second chef was going to teach us how to make chocolate, and unlike the first, he was very calm and slow-paced. Not only that but he had two assistants which did everything for him, and he had mastered the art of using the least possible energy to control his assistants. He seemed to think that with a single flick of the head he could explain how to properly whisk chocolate and when they inevitably got it wrong, he was angry.

In the halls of the school there is a board of all the graduate chefs and out of the dozens that were there, the only diversity was in two women. Unsurprisingly, our third chef, like the first two, was a white man. He was the classic chef you would imagine, and he took so much delight in the final product. He was a pastry chef who won a competition some years back to be the best pastry chef in the world, and even after years of rolling dough, when we were finally done cooking the croissants and brioches, he would lovingly pick up his perfect pastry and pose with it as though it was his beloved baby.

Outside of those golden halls of cooking, Paris had quickly become frigid, so we spent most of our free time inside. We went to the Louvre, and it was beautiful. However, I do have to say that the Mona Lisa was slightly underwhelming, and so was the Venus Demilo. Despite that, there were many beautiful pieces of art, and if you can stand the chilling gusts, braving the streets, you will always be sure to find some small bakery or bookstore. The beauty of the city makes up for the attitudes of the people so I do recommend a trip.