Answers to life's vexing cooking questions...
What Do the French Hold in Their Hands When They Cook?
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Q. What are some utensils that are used by the French to make food?A. Spoons. Knives. Forks. Occasionally a pot holder.
Seriously, for hundreds of years, great French cooks have produced exceptional results with a fairly limited collection of equipment. They have relied on whisks for beating, spatulas for folding, spoons for stirring, heavy copper pots for excellent distribution of heat, and rolling pins to shape dough. Like serious cooks anywhere, they absolutely depend on good knives — a heavy chef’s knife for chopping vegetables, a paring knife for paring and boning (and many have a separate boning knife) and a slicer, at least. All very low-tech, but in the right hands, capable of turning out masterpieces.
There are, of course, some specialty kitchen tools that have also found wide acceptance outside France. Among them:
- A mandoline is used to precisely cut vegetables in perfect, uniform shapes, including slices, julienne cuts, or waffle cuts. It is more effective than a food processor.
- A Chinoise is a conical strainer used for making perfectly smooth soups and sauces.
- A lame is a small tool with a razor-sharp blade at one end, used for slashing cuts into risen bread dough just before it goes into the oven.
- A rolling croissant cutter speeds up the process of cutting the dough to the right shape.
- And other equipment has evolved for specialized purposes: molds for mousses, flans, terrines, and pates, plates and tongs for serving escargot, slicers for truffles, peelers for chestnuts, etc. The list is long.
But don’t think that the reputation of French cooks is the result of the tools they use, or even the specialty tools they developed as their cooking prowess grew. The rise of French cooking was a combination of many historical factors — the ingredients available, the discipline of the restaurant apprentice system, the royal court, the Revolution, the creativity of many individuals, the sharing (and stealing) of recipes and information, and, in no small part, the love of good food. The same can be said of many other cuisines around the world.
Tools help, but they do not a cook make.
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