Jellies are to cold cookery what consommes and stock are to hot. If anything, the former are perhaps more important: for a cold entree - however perfect it may be in itself - is nothing without its accompanying jelly.
Interpretation
Jellies play a crucial role in cold dishes, much like stocks do in hot dishes.
In this quote, Auguste Escoffier emphasizes the significance of jellies in the realm of cold cooking, likening them to the foundational stocks and consommés that are essential in hot kitchen preparations. He argues that a well-prepared cold dish is incomplete without a complementary jelly, highlighting its importance in enhancing texture and flavor, thus enriching the overall dining experience.
In practice
In a culinary class discussing the fundamentals of cold dishes.
The workman mindful of success, therefore, will naturally direct his attention to the faultless preparation of his stock, and in order to achieve this result, he will find it necessary not merely to make use of the freshest and finest goods, but also to exercise the most scrupulous care in their preparation, for, in cooking, care is half the battle.
Of all the items on the menu, soup is that which exacts the most delicate perfection and the strictest attention.
Stock is everything in cooking, at least in French cooking. Without it, nothing can be done. If one's stock is good, what remains of the work is easy; if, on the other hand, it is bad or merely mediocre, it is quite hopeless to expect anything approaching a satisfactory result.
Original, in French: La bonne cuisine est la base du véritable bonheur. _x000D_ _x000D_ English: Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness.
Soup puts the heart at ease, calms down the violence of hunger, eliminates the tension of the day, and awakens and refines the appetite.
Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness.
One day, the people who work in my kitchen stir-fried chopped Napa cabbage to serve with some meat or fish for their own dinner. I got to thinking: 'What if the cabbage was the most important thing on the plate?'
To butcher a pork shoulder is to be forcibly reminded that this is the shoulder of a large mammal, made up of distinct groups of muscles with a purpose quite apart from feeding me. The work itself gives me a keener interest in the story of the hog: where it came from and how it found its way to my kitchen.
Since visiting the abatoirs of S. France I have stopped eating meat.
You have an impeccable argument if you said that Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo are food capitals. They have a maximum amount of great stuff to eat in the smallest areas.
As far away as you can get from the process of mechanisms and machinery, the more likely your food's going to taste good. And that - that is probably the largest thing I can hand to anybody is let your hands touch it. Let them make it.
For me, the cooking life has been a long love affair, with moments both sublime and ridiculous.
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