Talk To Your Tomatoes

A master chef was telling his protege about a revelatory moment in his own training, back in the 1970's, when he was granted an entry-level position with the great Swiss chef Fredy Girardet...

“There I was at the ‘mountain top’--I had been granted a stage with Girardet in Crissier, Switzerland.   

"Girardet was, at the time, universally rated the greatest restaurant in the world. I was perhaps the first American to get into that kitchen. This was back in ’82 or ’83.

"Having settled into my room the day before, I arrived in the kitchen early. The sous chef showed me around and gave me a station—one cutting board in the Garde-Manger.

"It was just one in a line of cutting boards, all touching each other. The neighboring cooks told me that my station was only as wide as my hips--no more!

“Now, I had promised myself that no matter what they asked me to do I would do my utmost to impress them. The Chef-de-Partie dropped off a case of misshapen tomatoes and an imperious command:

“'Emondez!'

"There was no joking, and I was scared I would screw up.

“So I set about my work with all the precision I could muster.

"I took each tomato and removed the stem with the exact same knife cut. Then I turned each one over and made the exact same 'X' cut on the bottom point. 

"Then I dropped them in small batches into boiling water for exactly twenty seconds. Timing the process with my watch, I next  'shocked' each batch in ice water for exactly three-a-half minutes. Finally, I peeled each tomato with religious devotion.

“Just then I saw Girardet himself approach me. 

"Knowing I had done my absolute technical best, I could barely conceal my pride in a job well done, and I was eager to get the Master’s approval. I smiled.

“Girardet picked up several tomatoes and bent till his nose almost touched them.

"Then he straightened up, his face taut.

“'Tut, tut, tut,' he said. 'You’re not talking to your tomatoes, are you?' Then he walked away.

“I was devastated.  Who the hell talks to tomatoes? The guy is nuts. I got angry. They’re picking on me ‘cause I’m an American. 'They think American cuisine is just hamburgers.  I stared at the tomatoes. I saw red.

“Now, these tomatoes were not like the ones back home. These were all irregular in size. They had incredible aroma. They tasted like tomatoes on steroids compared to before. I kept staring. These had to be farm-raised! 

"I had read that chefs in Europe would travel hours to find the one farmer whose asparagus, or artichokes, or whatever, were the absolute best , and they would buy them for their restaurant.

"Then it hit me. I had been just robotically doing a task. I had not been really looking. Each tomato was a slightly different size, a slightly different ripeness. I had treated them as if they were all the same. 

"I had been handling food. That's all. I had not been cooking.

"At that moment I learned one of the greatest lessons of my life:

‘Almost everything unimportant is in the recipe. Almost everything important is not in the recipe!

“That is how Girardet taught me to ‘talk to my ingredients’--to look with utmost intensity at what I am holding in my hands. To smell, taste, and only then make an informed decision that is personal and deep--like a conversation with nature.”

Top: a 2008 photograph of Fredy Girardet

Below: A picture of the former Restaurant Girardet, now the restaurant of Girardet's protege, Maurice Rochat. The building today looks almost exactly as it did 30 years ago.

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