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WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO GARDE MANGER, CHAUD FROID, ASPIC

3K views 7 replies 5 participants last post by  panini 
#1 ·
#3 ·
Theres a competition on Watermelon.org ends very soon, go win some money. You don't have to be pro carver.


About the old French techniques, my guess is they went with all the rest of the un used French terminology with the advent of Globalism and a million and 1 ways to do everything. Classic French teachings will go by- by in many parts of the world. Can't say I care to eat some Hot Cold tonight lol.

Watermelons however are still awesome haha. That Dragon is epic.

Oh, plus people are lazy, have no stamina, cant stay focused at something for more then 15 minutes. My guess is the Dragon took hours depending how neurotic the Chef is.

Plus were too cheap to pay someone to do something interesting, who's going to learn that on their spare time?
 
#5 · (Edited)
It's a lost art these days.

Back in the day I was Garde Manger for the Hyatt in Chicago's O'hare area. I started on Thursday for Sunday brunch and did the Chau Froid pieces, The chicken salad piled on mirrors with slices of chicken breast neatly shingled over the salads with wine aspic ladled over.

I worked inside the walk-in cooler. It was huge. I had to make one salmon, one chicken, and one ham mirror plus either a basket or horn of plenty ice carving. 

I had a Philipino (sp) employee who could turn out a beautiful eagle centerpiece made from a zucchini.
 
#6 ·
Some of the stuff went away but a lot of garde manger is coming back. Terrines, pates, and charcuterie especially. Most high end restaurants offer in house charcuterie plates and samplings. The aspic and gelatin work not so much on the comeback yet. The Terrines are also starting to trend again and I saw a pate an crute app on a tasting menu recently. Some of it is just to old school but having some base knowledge about technique can help a regular cook move up the ladder with "new" ideas. I can't really say I miss aspic work but I am happy at least that the charcuterie and cheese making is coming back.
 
#7 ·
It's a lost art these days.

Back in the day I was Garde Manger for the Hyatt in Chicago's O'hare area. I started on Thursday for Sunday brunch and did the Chau Froid pieces, The chicken salad piled on mirrors with slices of chicken breast neatly shingled over the salads with wine aspic ladled over.

I worked inside the walk-in cooler. It was huge. I had to make one salmon, one chicken, and one ham mirror plus either a basket or horn of plenty ice carving.

I had a Philipino (sp) employee who could turn out a beautiful eagle centerpiece made from a zucchini.
LOL what about the aspic on the platter? That was SooooOOooo cheesy!
 
#8 ·
Back in the day, there was changing culinary trends. It always seemed to hit the Garde Manger Chef, especially with banquets. I remember the few yrs. I spent in the Big Apple working at a large property in the city with banquet #'s in the thousands. For a while, catering would throw dozens of ice carvings at GM. Some weekends we would have 5-6 functions that required 6-10 pieces each. Then the trend changed to personalized ice carvings with photos inside the block and ice bars to hold champagne or vodka. Ice wine racks. GM had one carver and himself. Every time I took the elevator down and the door opened, those poor guys were always there carving.

Chaud froid, aspic, melon carving was one thing, but when they started with the tallow carvings things got nuts. Clients would send in family statues for the poor chef to copy. The Garde Mangers' ice carver was an older Asian man, He was just a natural sculpture. He did some fantastic pieces. Of course sales loved the compliments from customers and just overwhelmed these poor guys. The Chef would have these statues and carvings line up in the office. It got so bad the Garde Man. Chef asked if I could help him. I said sure. My things usually never changed. From day one, I would go and give the sales people an a-- chewing if they went outside the box. I just had the usual plated/sauced dessert.. Mignardises & chocolates platter and a sugar centerpiece for each table.

I had done plenty of tallow before I moved there. I'm sure you old farts, chefross/img/vbsmilies/smilies/wink.gif, Kuan, know this. I got with the GMChef , who did not know , and I showed him how to make molds with the sculptures he had out of aspic. For those who don't know, you place the sculpture in a large enough container with straight sides. You then bring up some aspic using 8x the amount of dry aspic with the normal amount of water for 1x. When it sets up like a superball, remove from container, and cut the aspic around the piece to separate it in two parts making a negative. Then put the mold together and secure with saran wrap ropes and turn up side down to expose the hole made by the bottom of the sculpture. Melt down some tallow, we always use Australian white, Let it cool a while and pour into the mold. When the tallow sets, you untie, carefully separate the mold and remove the tallow piece. Then just detail it so that it looks hand carved. Simple. You can make multiple molds. The Asian man was completely amazed. He had the biggest smile for 24 hrs. I learned the aspic thing while over in France and Switzerland, they used chocolate instead. Do it in a quasi private place and it never shows. No mold making materials purchased. Just a little increase in dry aspic.
 
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