On a long ago day, outside it was May, but inside it
was my first day in the Oriental Kitchen at the Culinary Institute of America
in Hyde Park, New York
Chef Mah gathered everyone at my
station, that’s right, the one with the giant wok. We were the same height, Chef Mah and me. Short. And I stood beside him. But not too close. He smelled like garlic and maybe,
shrimp. He was a Legend at the Culinary Institute. Rumor swore he grew his own
ginger and fermented his own black beans at home in the basement, and that
somewhere in the kitchen, in this kitchen, he kept a sword. Just in case. Of what exactly, I didn’t want
to know.
He cleared his throat and began
speaking to me as I had drawn the fortune of working at the wok, the most
difficult station of Oriental Kitchen.
“What you want look for is movement
on the surface. The stirring of the dragon.”
My seventeen culinary compadre’s and
I watched spellbound as he waved his hand over the huge wok full of hot oil
while underneath the gas flames licked yellow and red and blue tongues against
the bottom of the wok; shimmering the oil as if invoking magic.
My classmates smiled at me, shaking
their heads. Poor Fool. Bon chance.
Chef Mah continued, ignoring the
heat. He leaned over the stainless steel table with his knife raised.
“Szechuan
style mean main ingredient always cook first. First cut one inch piece. No
wash.”
His curved knife cleanly tamed the green
beans into fragments. His intense golden brown eyes told me everything I needed
to know. He lives in constant battle with the oil, the dragon. But the more he talked, the more I felt, was certain, it was my
goose that was going to be cooked today.
“Soak dry shrimp hot water. Chop shrimp,
radish, scallion, and ginger fine. Then ‘ragon juice,” he held up the small
bottle with a bright orange viscous liquid. I truly believe if he had uncorked
it, we would all be consumed in a raging fire. If only, then I might be saved
from the daunting and dangerous task of burning all the hair off my head, arms,
and most likely even the tops of my feet.
He handed the ‘ragon juice to me. “You
in charge fire. Now everyone work.”
He clapped his hands furiously and
disappeared. We had entered the battle.
I had never before looked in the
face of such a behemoth. The mouth of the wok could have held an entire pig,
and it looked hungry. Was it moving
towards me?
“Excuse me, Chef. You didn’t say. What
to do. When. The oil starts moving, then? Whaaa-t?” But by that time Chef was testing
the dough for almond cookies on the calm and cool side of the kitchen.
The soul of Chef Mah lay in this Szechuan dish. I could tell he enjoyed holding it in an
ever passionate and dangerous embrace. Manipulating beans. Managing carrots and
garlic into the szechuan portal. The dish would come through a delicate
membrane, like an osmosis of his mind, will and spirit, to be remembered as Chef
Mah and only Chef Mah. And once beyond the cruelness of hot oil, the dish would
sit quietly and patiently on the table.
On the other hand, the only thing I
had in my mind was how to quietly transform my carrots, radishes, and scallions
into Chef Mah-like fragments. I did not, was not, on my first day of a thousand
year battle, ready to face a dragon.
But it was as if the oil watched
Chef, too, as he walked frantically from eggrolls
to hot and sour soup the oil took in Chef’s tension and
strain. And multiplied it.
I tried to stand as innocently as
possible. Far enough away but ever in the
presence of the dragon. I kept my knife engaged with the
radishes, carrots, and scallions. C’mon vegetables. Fragments, I beg you.
But the oil defied Chef Mah and billowed
across the room to meet him.
I don’t remember ever hearing the
fire alarm, but soon the entire building of 1600 culinary students, even
Jacques Pepin who was the guest chef in Charcuterie that day were heralded
outside.
All except for Chef Mah. He stayed
behind in what they told us was a knock down drag out fight with the fire-breathing
beast. It was no surprise to me who won.
We filed back into the kitchen to
find Chef remarkably calm. He motioned me over to the sideboard to finish filling
won-ton wrappers with the ground pork and water chestnuts. Is this what he had
students do who lost the battle?
Once a few hundred dumplings lined
the sheet pans, I knew I’d have to engage him. I kept watch for his tall white
toque bobbing about. Soon enough his small footsteps approached. Chef Mah stood
by my side, his hands on his hips and said, “You monkey, me rat, together we fight dragon.
Now fall off horse. And get back on.”
He lifted two bamboo skimmers from
the rack nearby and handed one to me. He insisted we cross them like swords and
then slowly we submerged the dumplings in the crackling beast.
 |
| Merci, Chef Warren Mah! |
