Day 1: CIA Boot Camp 9/24/2007

Wow, what a day – orientation at 6 AM and no slow down for the next 16 hours! Today was spent learning and perfecting knife skills that we inflicted on onions, garlic, celery, carrots, potatoes, mango, oranges, grapefruit and apples. Probably 30% of the class, myself included, cut themselves or had a near miss in the first five minutes of “production” (working in the kitchen). I was saved by a fingernail, which is thinner now, but was in the right place at the right time. Nerves and really sharp knives are not good bedfellows! After taking some deep breaths and getting focused, the mishaps faded…

We were given a tour through the kitchens and pantries on the campus and it really came through how much hands-on experience the students get. The CIA is on a beautiful campus that was a Jesuit seminary until 1969, when the CIA purchased the property. With 2700 students, over 40 kitchens, 130 faculty, and tuition of about 30 G’s a year, it’s an impressive operation. But the most amazing thing about the CIA is the totally immersive environment. Even for the one week boot camp program, we are required to wear full chef’s uniforms at all times, including tokes (hats)!

The school is structured like an ongoing hotel food service, with kitchens that specialize in all types of cuisine, banquet functions, logistics, table service, meat preparation, fish processing, etc. Students rotate through each kitchen or function for anywhere from one week to six weeks, while taking academic classes. The system allows little waste – all food or ingredients prepared by students in any of the kitchens is either used by other kitchens at the school or consumed in the cafeterias or restaurants. For example, bones from the meat prep classes are used in classes to make stock, which in turn is used in classes for making soups, which in turn is consumed by the students. And check this out: students are required to eat from all of the kitchens on a rotation basis as well, so that they learn how different cuisines taste!

We were divided into teams of 3 people each, and assigned two main ingredients to use in a lunch menu for this coming Friday. Our team was assigned quail as the ingredient for an appetizer and pork loin for the entrée. Plus, the menu needs to incorporate at least two vegetables and a starch. After spending a few hours in the CIA library, which houses the largest collection of food-related books in the country (after the library of congress), I was able to generate two pages of concepts. Not too sure about that quail, though …

As part of the boot camp, we eat at each of the four on-campus restaurants that are open to the public. These are real restaurants, charging full rate for their food. Every role at these restaurants, whether cleaning tables, waiting on tables, kitchen prep or chef is filled by students of various experience levels. It’s impressive to watch the students putting what they’ve learned into action. My first hand experience: the Italian themed Ristorante´ Caterina De’Medici held up well tonight. Good food and good service!

More tomorrow!

– Chris

Salt, Part 2: Saltiness Is To Godliness

Salt was extraordinarily important in biblical times, and great power and wealth accrued to those who controlled the supply of salt. Wars were fought over salt and battles could be won or lost based on the ability of an army to procure salt and use it to preserve meat to feed the troops. During the last supper, Judas spills a bowl of salt, a precursor of the evil to come. Today, we superstitiously throw salt over our shoulder to ward off evil. As part of their pay, Roman soldiers earned a ration of salt called a ‘salarium’, the precursor to the English word ‘salary’. If the Roman soldier in question happened to be a not so good soldier, he ‘wasn’t worth his salt’. Jesus even referred to his disciples as the ‘salt of the earth’.

The ability to preserve meat with salt helped ensure survival when a harvest was lost or sources of protein were scarce. Maybe even more importantly, it allowed extended exploratory and military missions to be conducted in places where food was not so easy to find. Without salt to preserve traveling food, Columbus, Magellan and the other great explorers wouldn’t have ventured far from home.

– Chris

Salt, Part 1: What’s Up With Salt?

Click here for the whole series!

My oldest son brought home his high school chemistry textbook after orientation classes a few weeks ago and inadvertently launched me on a new research project. While thumbing through the book, I noticed the decomposition formulas for sodium chloride (salt) out of the corner of my eye. That particular paragraph described the behavior salt in solution, and it got me wondering: Why is salt so important to unlocking flavor in food? And by the way, how do we even taste salt? Can we really put sodium and chlorine in our mouth and not get sick? A month and quite a bit of research later, some of the answers have been found. Interested? The answers are coming on the installment plan – check back each week for the next chapter!

– Chris