Mise en place

I won't link to it in the show notes.

It's called Mise en Place, and it's all about how chefs organize their workstations, organize their kitchens so that they've got everything they need to hand, no clutter, no mess, and that's how a chef can ca- cater for 200 people all ordering different things.

It's because of mise en place.

It's a, it's a discipline which is beaten into them in chef academy or wherever it is they go.

Um, and we need to start working that way.

It's, I think it m- it sounds like it's French.

Uh, M-I-S-E E-N P-L-A-C-E. Mise en place, I think is how you'd pronounce it.

And I never knew e- it even had a name, but it's just something that I figured out when I was making chili one time.

That's really cool.

A Guide to Modern Cookery, Part One by Auguste Escoffier, translated by James B. Herndon, Jr., Chapter Seven, Part One, Elementary Preparations.

Before broaching the question of the numerous preparations which constitute the various soup, relevé, and entrée garnishes, it will be necessary to give the formulae for the elementary preparations, or what are technically called the mise en place.

If the various operations which go to make the mise en place were not at least summarily discussed here, I should be compelled to repeat them in each formula for which they are required, that is to say, in almost every formula.

I should thus resemble those bad operators who, having neglected their mise en place, are obliged to make it in the course of their work and thereby not only run the risk of making it badly, but also of losing valuable time which might be used to better advantage.

Elementary preparations consist of those things whereof one is constantly in need, which may be prepared in advance, and which are kept available for use at a moment's notice.

One hundred seventy-three anchovies, fillets of Whether they be for hors d'oeuvres or for culinary use, it is always best to have these handy.

Orders fly in, plates fly out, the cooks adjust on the fly.

Every bit of that freedom, however, runs on this sense of mise en place, the deeply unglamorous afternoon spent chopping, portioning, and labeling before the first diner and the first order ever arrive.

The prep doesn't restrict the cooking.

The prep is exactly what makes the cooking possible.

They arrived this month with discipline fantasies, right? "I'm going to practice every day now that the kids are back in school.

I'm going to transform my life by the winter." And then by week six of the fall, they'll be grading themselves against that fantasy and seeing themselves coming up short.

How you talk about discipline in class could either hand them the drill sergeant or hand them the mise en place.

One of those will keep them practicing with you into October, November, and beyond.