Authors: Kyung-Ran Jo
Tongue (15 page)
Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you
.
—Genesis 9:3
THE DAY I’M PROMOTED to chef de cuisine I buy a pair of shoes with a pearl in the bottom of each sole. At work I wear flats or sneakers, but heels are fitting for special days. These are designed so that you would never know there was a pearl nestled in the soles if you didn’t flip the shoes over. I feel great when I walk in them, knowing that a pearl follows my every step. As a gift to myself, there is nothing better. I wish a day as special as these shoes would come to me. As chef de cuisine I have to oversee the kitchen and be responsible for almost everything that happens. Being promoted within five months of coming back to Nove is very quick, even for me. Yet the staff seems to think I was the right choice. I might have been seen as a threatening presence. But I never left the kitchen and my knife was glued to my hand and I did chores people hated to do. I came to work early and prepared all the ingredients for the stations and made sure everything was perfect. If I missed the last train after working in the test kitchen, I napped on the cot in
Chef’s office without bothering to change my clothes. I wasn’t exhausted or tired. Like someone born in a kitchen, I cooked all day and I thought only about food.
The kitchen feels familiar and comfortable, more than ever before, much like a small universe rotating in an orderly way or a small house made just for me. The rattling of dishes and the
psst-psst
of steam and the crackling of food in pans and the bubbling of water: The sounds around me are like the rhythmic reverberations of a mysterious bell. The perfect order of each person working at the stove and the cutting board, chopping and frying and boiling and plating in unison, is consistent and beautiful, an intricately choreographed dance. I remember Grandmother saying that the door to the kitchen should always be open. This lively clatter seeps into the dining room from the open kitchen, filling it with a happy, musical ruckus. I especially like the busy noisiness of Friday nights, when we have the most customers. My entire being is elated as if I’m eating food with too much saffron. I see the true beauty of all ingredients. It’s been thirteen years since I started cooking, but only now am I beginning to know what I’m doing. The ends of my fingers are alert, like I’m the world’s best safecracker. I think I’ve regained balance in my life.
Once, during my cooking classes, as we made the mayonnaise for
poulet roti
, one student grumbled playfully that she didn’t understand why she had to stir egg yolks at a constant speed, causing everyone to laugh. I explained why, seriously. Otherwise the molecules will become unstable and the mayonnaise will separate. There is balance in taste, too, and an unbalanced taste can’t captivate the eater. In order to create harmony, you have to think about balance, and to get balance in the kitchen you have to follow seemingly insignificant but crucial rules.
The new prep cook was fired within two weeks because of his failure to follow the rules. He put garlic, which has to be
chopped and sliced and minced by hand, in the food processor behind Chef’s back, but was caught when Chef came into the kitchen unexpectedly in the early morning. In Italian food, garlic is as important as the indispensable tomato. We inevitably use a large amount throughout the day. To maintain the freshness and the sharp scent of garlic, you can’t freeze it or chop it before it’s needed. You lay the knife flat to smash cloves of garlic, never using a food processor. As soon as you put garlic in a machine, its scent disappears. Chef’s rule is that people who can’t be bothered to handle garlic by hand don’t have the right to cook. Garlic, especially roasted, shiny, brown garlic, sweet and creamy, is one of Chef’s most favored ingredients, used in almost every dish at Nove. Whirring it in the food processor behind Chef’s back is worse than stealing wine or meat. Very rarely does Chef personally fire someone. But there are no exceptions if it has to do with violating the most basic rules of the kitchen. When he does fire someone, Chef is firm and cold and detached. That new cook, who was about to take out a garbage bag leaking liquid, ripped off his uniform and left the premises. He might have thought, All this over stupid garlic. But we all know Chef was right.
We decide to hire two more cooks, including a saucier. We have twenty applicants, about half of whom graduated from the American CIA—the Harvard of cooking schools—and the Italian ICIF. If educational background were the only factor considered, I wouldn’t have the qualifications to become chef de cuisine. During a break on a Sunday afternoon, Chef and Manager Park and I conduct interviews. I don’t want to participate but Chef insists, as if he knew we would notice different qualities and open up a good debate. Of the twenty applicants, I like A and B, Chef focuses on C and D, and Manager Park picks B and D. So Chef and I chose completely different applicants.
Patience is the most important characteristic of a cook.
Otherwise you won’t be able to get through days of doing the same thing over and over again in a narrow kitchen. The kitchen staff is a small, friendly army. Sometimes it’s good to be an individual, but you also have to be able to work with others. Both Chef and I believe that the head chef has to keep a clear head at all times, be meticulous and steady. All applicants submitted an Italian recipe they were most confident in making. A and B’s recipes revere the simple and the basic, and C and D’s are individualistic and creative. Chef says A and B are overly plain and unimaginative, and I argue that C and D ignore the basics and are show-offs. I stand my ground even though I know Chef has a good eye for these things, and Chef digs in his heels. Finally, in the spirit of compromise, we choose B and D. They won’t have a hard time fitting in: Neither is the product of a formal culinary education, but both have the most experience. It’s an accepted wisdom in the industry that you can teach someone to cook but you can’t teach them personality. So it’s not a bad choice if the cook loyal to the basics and the creative cook have gentle souls. Still, I feel defeated.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING this fine Sunday?”
“I don’t know what to make with this,” I smile embarrassedly.
“With what?”
“A carp.”
A hearty laugh reverberates through the phone. It’s been a while since I heard Uncle laugh. Uncle can make phone calls to the outside twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays. I’m off today but I still came in to work. Because we ordered a larger than usual shipment of perch and croaker, they threw in three carp. I start to get nervous when people don’t order seafood dishes, leaving the fridge filled with fish. Like steak, fish is expensive but easy to cook. The simpler the dish, the better its taste. But I need to cultivate a different recipe, something other than baking and frying and steaming.
“Try baking it stuffed with garlic and herbs.”
I smile. Grandmother’s recipe. I already cleaned out the innards because I was thinking in that direction. Grandmother
didn’t like the sourness of lemon, but it should be added to minimize the fishy taste and accentuate the fresh scent. “Do you think so? Or do you think I should pan-fry it in olive oil and plate it with artichokes?”
“That sounds good, too.” To make me laugh, Uncle loudly smacks his lips into the receiver.
This is not the time to tell him about Paulie. Uncle asks me if I could come visit next week. Visiting days are Fridays, but that’s when the kitchen is at its busiest. I tell him I can. I feel uneasy leaving the kitchen, but this is the first time Uncle has asked me to come visit him.
“Is something going on, Uncle?”
“Will you bring me a washcloth?”
I’m surprised.
There are certain things you can’t bring to the hospital. Obviously disposable razors or knives, scissors, nail clippers, clothes hangers, lighters, matches—and also things like blankets or long ties or belts. Even rice cakes aren’t allowed, because you can choke on them.
“No, it’s not what you think. I don’t feel clean when I shower. They don’t have those here.” Uncle laughs.
Glad that Uncle knows what I’m thinking, I place the carp on the chopping block. I only hear Uncle’s voice but I think I understand. I think he really just needs the washcloth. “But I don’t think that’s possible yet, Uncle,” I tell him, laughing, and hang up.
If someone close to you is an alcoholic, you can’t sympathize with him. Instead you need to practice restricting your own confused feelings, understanding that you feel the way you do because you’re near an alcoholic. And you can’t ever try to deal with an alcoholic by yourself. I wasn’t able to do anything for Uncle, but he was gradually trying to get better. And the family-therapy sessions gave both of us new hope. Alcoholics’ families
often deny that an alcoholic is among them and unconsciously try to keep the patient in a codependent state, in an ongoing alcoholic haze. So the family is sometimes the victim or the onlooker or even the wrongdoer. The therapy sessions allowed us to understand each other’s positions. But hearing the word
co-dependency
was like stepping on a nail. The important thing is that Uncle is starting to change—a change different from the transformation I’ve undergone.
Uncle, who had been passive toward the treatment program, now plays badminton and Ping-Pong with the other patients and joins calligraphy and origami sessions. I wonder if Uncle is adapting to his environment so he can remain in the hospital, instead of completing his treatment. Once, I asked him in a suggestive tone, Don’t you want a drink? As if I would have given one to him if he had wanted. Uncle, lost in thought for a while, shook his head.
Of course I want to sometimes, but if I have the urge to drink I have a conversation with myself
. How, I asked.
I ask myself, What would happen if I don’t quit now?
I nodded earnestly. There are three levels in the treatment process—detox, rehabilitation, and social adaptation—and Uncle seems to have arrived at the second level. But why does that make me feel unsettled and empty?
If I could talk to Uncle’s wife one last time, I would ask her if she really loved him. I don’t understand why she killed herself but I think I could cook for her now. I pour an inch of olive oil into the hot pan to fry the red carp. For the sauce I mix together white wine and fish stock. When I make something for the first time, I get tense but I don’t falter or hesitate. I sweep sliced artichokes into the same pan to crisp them. I season them with salt and pepper. I plate the carp and garnish it with the artichokes. I drizzle the sauce over it.
No. Something is missing. When you make a dish for the
first time, it’s important to have a feel for it. I stare at the carp and nod. I find a jar filled with nuts and take out some almonds. With the side of my knife, I tap the almonds to peel them and slice them in slivers, as if they are garlic. I place the white almonds around the carp’s eye. I pick up the eyeball that I took out before putting the carp in the pan and nestle it back into its place. Food lovers don’t even glance at a fish dish if its eyes are missing. The almond garnish spotlights the white of the carp’s eye. It’s bright and clear, fitting for a dish made for a dead person. Try it, Aunt, I say, my voice faltering. Many creative, imaginative women suffer from anorexia. If I had been closer to her I might have been able to help her over time, as I did with Munju. But she chose a more dramatic method, an ending fitting for a creative and imaginative woman. I look down at the dish. The fish’s eye is fresh and alien-like, asking me, How can you see anything, the way you’re stumbling around in the dark?
I’VE RECEIVED OFFERS to write a cookbook several times, both from Mun-ju’s magazine and from other publishers. I would have enough for a book if I compiled all the recipes I’ve published in women’s magazines and food publications. I refused every time for two reasons: I believed that there was no such thing as a unique recipe, and even Chef hadn’t written a cookbook. If I had a chicken I would be able to make a hundred dishes with it. To highlight only one way to cook a chicken would be ignoring the possibilities. You have to be able to cook a chicken according to your mood and intuition, and the side dishes and the ingredients to be stuffed into the chicken have to change with the seasons. Anyone could write a book about a basic chicken recipe, and that book probably exists anyway. But more importantly, Chef is the one who developed my palate and helped me grow beyond it. It would make me uneasy if I were to write a cookbook before he did—it wouldn’t be ethical. I might have thought differently if I still had my cooking classes. It would have been a way to promote the classes and K as a chef,
and at the time I wasn’t thinking of Chef unless I was using his methods for a recipe in a magazine or in class as if I’d come up with them on my own.
Anyway, now I don’t have time to think about a cookbook: It’s more practical and invigorating to think of a different chicken recipe. Chef, on the other hand, is considering that very idea. Before dinner service, he calls me to the office and asks if I could help him write a cookbook. Even someone you think you know well can make you flustered. It’s as if he secretly told me a broken tree branch will come back to life if I blow on it. I don’t believe this and neither does he, but the sad thing is that I consider his proposition for a moment, even as he watches me with pitying eyes. Now I feel more than flustered. I feel deflated. Could it be that all he wants to do is write a book on food? I’m not being creative or open-minded. It’s not a good attitude to have when I’m cooking. I ask, frowning, Why so suddenly?
Years ago, Chef told me that Apicius is always mentioned in books about the origins of cooking. He was a first-century Roman chef who wrote the oldest surviving cookbook,
On the Subject of Cooking
, and was the first cook to really incorporate eggs in dishes. At the time, Romans were fighting ennui. Epicureanism was in vogue, and the eater and the cook desired to break boundaries by creating dishes with pig’s nipples and genitalia or stuffed winter rats. Cooks had to satisfy the finicky tastes of their patrons, patrons who were ready to eat anything different. Apicius worked to create an ingenious dish that had never existed before. Finally, after completing his book, he killed himself. He exhausted everything he had, just like an artist. Afterward, other cooks named Apicius appeared and similar cookbooks were published. I still remember vowing, as I chopped leeks in skills class, that I wouldn’t be one of the later Apiciuses. People change. Everything changes. There’s nothing remarkable about Chef changing. We’ve never spoken about it but we’ve been supportive
and nonjudgmental of each other. But I don’t want to do this. Anyone else can do it; it doesn’t have to be me.
