The Chef Saucier
The Life of a Sauce Chef
For any young chef getting on the sauce section is the ultimate accolade, for years, skinny young chefs bust a gut as an entremetier followed by a sort of promotion with the same money to garde manger and all the time hating the sauce chef because they’ve got the coolest job in the kitchen.
I knew from day one that was the place for me, I loved to watch Chef Barker cooking the main courses, he did it with ease and style and that’s how I wanted to cook, to shrug off the shackles that were blind terror and panic every time an order came on. Cooking main courses, it seemed to me allowed the chef greater creative freedom and cooking a turbot just seemed better than cooking swede. Years later and I view cooking swede every bit as important as cooking a turbot.
Every chef on every section is defined by smell, the entremetier smells of potatoes and onions, the garde manger usually of garlic or cooked meat, the pastry chef, well pastry really and the sauce chef? Most lads who go on the sauce section think they are so cool they could sleep with Jennifer Anniston, well, if they could smell themselves they would know she wouldn’t.
Nothing takes away the smell of a morning filleting whole salmons, dover soles, turbots and monkfish followed by boning out joints of lamb and beef, jointing chickens and game and then preparing all of the garnishes whilst your stocks simmer in the sweatiest part of the building. You can scrub your hands all you like but that smell is there to stay and no amount of deodorant put on in your afternoon break is going to stop everyone from starring at you as you wait in line at the supermarket .
When you are young this is a price worth paying because you can finally tell girls what you do for a living. You can look the fit young waitress in the eye now because you do what the Head Chef does (sort of) Standing on the sauce section gives the young chef an elevated sense of importance, it is from here that the entire dinner service is run. No customers can be seated until the sauce chef says so, the garde manger cannot send a starter without asking, the seventeen year old on the veg is all ears waiting for the call to send the side orders and so on.
I’ve worked in kitchens where I have seen this go to a young man’s head, it did me. If the restaurant manager messed up an order then I was like Satan on steroids, but more about that at a later date. The sauce chef is under pressure from the start of service until the end, there is a lot to concentrate on, food is expensive and time is short so it’s got to be right. The sauce chef is watching every bit of meat, fish, sauce and garnish cooking whilst serving different dishes at different times, calling on orders and supervising service in general. It’s not easy.
Most sauce chefs have forearms covered in burns, I have reminders of every sauce section I ever worked in. It’s 8.45 pm and the pressure is on, you’ve got three industrial ovens full of food all requiring different cooking times, fillets of beef from rare to well done, lamb and duck cooked, rested and served pink forty minutes after ordering, sea bass pan-fried to order and the partridge has had exactly twelve minutes and needs to come out of the oven to rest. Your arm goes into the oven, the pan with the partridge in has been pushed to the back, in the rush your arm sticks to the heat of the pan with the monkfish. The smell of burnt flesh and singed hairs combines with two swear words and service resumes because there are customers to feed and, most importantly, the partridge must not be overcooked. Not because of the customer, because of the sauce chef’s pride, that’s what it’s all about.
Miles,
A marvellous insight into the world of a professional kitchen and confirms my belief that everyone at home should have a stock pot! Here’s another thing that bothers me… how many times do I see friends cooking pasta in a tiny saucepan, all the time of course!
By way of a side order comment here…. I juiced a whole pineapple recently because no one was going to eat it, what a glass of fabulous that turned out to be. Subsequently I have tried to include it in with the other fruits and veg…. so, 2 apples, 1 pear, 2 kiwis, 1 carrot, 1 large vine tomato and sometimes a beetroot.
Cid
January 29, 2008 @ 9:05 am
Cid,
That sounds great! an easy and practical way to get your regular supply of fruit and vegetables. Looking forward to some summer juice recipes
Miles
January 29, 2008 @ 2:22 pm
Miles,
My head is spinning just reading it, never mind doing it.
It also goes to show that we have no idea what jobs are really like until we either do it or we are told what it involves.
Christine
January 29, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
Miles,
Who said that men can’t multi-task?
When watching on TV some of the scenes in busy kitchens when service is called, I know that I would have to get out - the heat and pressure would just be too much.
Cid, you must be a picture of health with all that juicing. Have you experiemented with raw veg. yet?
Elsie
January 29, 2008 @ 5:25 pm
Elsie,
Tell you the truth, I don’t look a picture of health although one of my friends told me today that my body is probably detoxing after
What I would say is that I’ve taken a shine to these mixed juices, they’re nice with a bit of cake… 
but on the veg side… beetroot, carrot and celery are my favourites.
an entire lifetimethe festive bingeThe whole multi-tasking chef image is partly what women find attractive in these talented men I reckon. Are men drawn to female multi-tasking chefs? Only when it’s dinner time I suspect
Cid
January 29, 2008 @ 5:55 pm
Miles,
I used to think that a Sauce Chef did just that, cook all the sauces. Just goes to show! So, when someone asks if you have been on the sauce last night, that can mean all manner of things
Cid,
I applaud your efforts. Whilst I love the idea of juicing, I have been put off by the amount of fruit needed and the subsequent cleaning of the equipment.
I might just have to stick to my fruit cakes, carrot cakes, apple/cinnamon and peacon cake, lemon tarts etc. to get my daily rations
Elsie
January 29, 2008 @ 8:29 pm
Ladies,
I think I’ll just leave you to it-I can’t keep up with you
Miles
January 29, 2008 @ 9:31 pm
I have often likened the work I did as a high school administrator to trying to contain Jell-o. Miles’ description of the kitchen reminds me of this analogy. You contain the stuff in one spot, and then it squirts out another. So, Miles, when we begin to call you Jell-o Boy, don’t take offense. Consider it a grand compliment.
Annie
January 30, 2008 @ 8:54 pm
Annie,
It would be interesting to know how many names I have been called (behind my back) during a twelve year stint as a Head Chef. Compared to those I reckon ‘Jell-O’ would indeed be a compliment!
Miles
January 30, 2008 @ 9:45 pm