Auberge du Schœnenbourg

One of my first jobs is shucking scallops. As I am to learn shortly, fresh scallops are purchased three or four times a week and since they are alive, they must be shucked the day they arrive at the restaurant. Like many of the tasks I will do for the next couple of weeks, I’m shown the method used at the Auberge to shuck scallops, and I use that method rather than how I’ve learned elsewhere. After all, I’m here to learn and their methods may be better than the ones I’ve learned in the past!

On my first day in the kitchen I’m handed a 12-kg box of scallops to shuck. I will become really familiar with these 12-kg boxes by the time my stage is over. These scallops also provide the first chance I have to embarrass myself in front of my fellow workers. A sharp edge on the shell of the last scallop I shuck from the box tears a chunk of skin out of the thumb on my left hand. It’s hard to look cool when you can’t stop the blood from flowing. One of the junior cooks takes me over to the supply cabinet filled with various bandages and applies an adhesive bandage to my injured thumb. After about five seconds the blood starts to flow from the bandage so I take charge and wrap my thumb tightly in tape. I figure that if the blood can’t flow to the cut, I’ll stop bleeding. It seems to work.

Each day there are certain daily tasks that someone will perform during mise en place. Although there are minor tweaks to the menu on an almost daily basis, the core of the menu is seasonal. This means that each day there is an informal inventory of all the individual elements required to complete every dish. Even with the modern day conveniences of vacuum packing and freezing, some items have to be prepped almost daily.

Lobsters seem to be a daily visitor to the kitchen. During my stage, four to six lobsters are cooked each day at the start of the shift. Fish are filet and portioned. The current menu includes sandre (a freshwater pike-perch), omble chevalier (a type of salmon trout), rouget, and salmon. Langoustines are separated into heads and tails — the tails are shelled and the heads become langoustine bisque. Various univalves (shellfish) are cooked and shelled.

Periodically, whole beef tenderloins are carried into the kitchen. The tenderloins are trimmed thoroughly and cut into portions. Whole legs of lamb are boned and the meat formed into appropriate shapes for roasting. Whole ducks are partially roasted. The breasts are boned and sliced crosswise into thick, wedge-shaped slices. The slices are arranged with caramelized apples in between, seasoned with ginger and honey, and vacuum packed. For service, the whole package is carefully opened onto a baking sheet and the contents heated in the oven. The duck legs are used for staff meals and the carcass for sauces. Pigeons arrive plucked, but otherwise intact. After prep, all that is left are the skin, the meat, the leg bone, and the upper wing bone — all trussed together with a couple of toothpicks.

Every couple of days, a half a dozen foie gras de canard are cleaned and prepped for a couple of dishes. The methods used here are different from what I’ve seen or read about elsewhere. The chef demonstrated for me the way he wanted the livers to be prepped, but I notice that the other cooks each have their own variation of his methods. I see a lot of this with other techniques, as well. The Chef says to do things one way, but when his back is turned, the staff reverts to whatever method they prefer. One of the few times I see the Chef raise his voice is when he catches a cook doing something different from what he has specifically instructed. One day when we are discussing his manpower layout in the kitchen he confides that one of his biggest problems is getting the cooks to do things the way he wants them done, rather than the way they want to do them. He says that there isn’t the discipline in the kitchen today as there was in the past.