What Concept Was Auguste Escoffier Attempting to Develop Through His Work?

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Besides, while serving food, he incidentally came to know the importance of our sense of smell. According to textbook (p64), “neuroscientists estimate that up to 90 percent of what we perceive as taste is actually smell”. He was the first chef to understand the importance of the sense of smell and use the smell while cooking. Actually, Escoffier’s diverse recipes came from his habit of smelling food.

Finally, he invented the menu because he perceived that everyone had their own desires of what to eat. He intended to let his customers order what Escoffier already had been thinking. For example, he used chef’s tasting menu as an educational tool to alter consumer’s tongue. He strongly believed that people could learn how to eat even if they were adults. His imagination turned out to be true. This is because according to textbook (p 70) “If we think a wine is cheap, it will taste cheap.” It means our taste is so changeable that new experience can easily remake it.

By following his intuition and taking experiences seriously, he could invent lots of different dishes. “No theory, no formula, and no recipe can take the place of experience”. This sentence is what Escoffier said at the beginning of his cookbook (p74). Also, he already knew that evaluation of tastes was totally personal, and studies of tastes can be done by exploring individual’s perspective. Unlike the opinion of the scientists of his time, who saw the tongue as an outcast, he studied and believed the diversity of tastes. When all other people ignored, denied, and even threw away veal stock, what he attempt to do to develop through his work was follow and believe his belief and experiences. There were no other secret for him to success. The secret was constant exertions, thinking over how people taste food. As a result, he became famous as "the king of chefs and the chef of kings". (Culinary institute, n.d.)

Reference

Lehrer, J. (2007). Proust was a neuroscientist. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Master chefs. (n.d.). Retrieved from Culinary institute: http://www.culinaryinstitute.edu/about-us/tradition/master-chefs.html