Introduction

Individuals and families increasingly rely upon food prepared outside the home for meals and light refreshments. This has made it necessary for the hospitality industry to be concerned and informed about food values and the need for good nutrition. Many customers are aware of the link between the food they eat and their health and fitness, and are prepared to question chefs and service staff about the ingredients used in dishes.

A range of factors influence people's decisions about their food choices, including family tradition, access to food ingredients, convenience, income, advertising and special occasions. Religious and cultural influences also play an important role.

In order to encourage Australians to live a healthy lifestyle, the Dietary Guidelines for Australian Adults were revised by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) – refer to the NHMRC website for further information.

The workings of the human body are complex, and a healthy body needs a wide variety of foods containing a range of nutrients. In Australia, energy is measured in kilojoules (kj) and is a calculation derived from the consumption of foods containing carbohydrates, proteins and lipids. Energy is also measured in calories; 100 calories equals 400 kilojoules. Vitamins and minerals do not provide energy but play an important role in the repair of cells and tissue and the absorption of nutrients in the body. Water is essential to life.

Introduction

The importance of the pastry and dessert section of a food service cannot be over-emphasised. The dessert course must match the menu in style and variety, and should leave a positive impression on the diner.

There are many advantages in selling desserts and pastries. Young professional chefs are very interested in making them. They are excellent items for display and give diners a chance to eat with their eyes before ordering. Selling a meal that includes a third course increases the average amount the guest spends. It also makes a very good contribution to the food-cost percentage, because the margin of profit in this section is often greater than for main courses and many appetisers.

The specialised nature of pastry work demands accurate measurement of ingredients and a mastery of techniques in order to bake a perfect product. In contrast to the preparation of dishes that can be adjusted along the way, mistakes in cake and pastry making are not easily rectified. It is imperative, therefore, to follow a recipe diligently, use the correct ingredients, mix them correctly and bake them at the right temperature.

This chapter and the one following are arranged to introduce you to the basic preparations and to show two or three variations. There is plenty of reference material available to expand this list, once a good standard of work has been achieved. It is important to plan ahead for the production of these dishes, as it is more economical and time saving to make a larger quantity than to start every item from scratch every day.

Introduction

Through out the culinary world, there is a large and varied supply of high-quality poultry. Poultry holds a valued place in the culinary arts and, in most instances, can be readily purchased. Due to the regulation in the farming of these animals, you can be assured of the highest quality, providing you deal with licensed suppliers who follow all hygiene, occupational, health and safety responsibilities as set down by law.

Due to the strict hygiene regulations that abound in today's cookery world, it is quite important to form a good rapport with your supplier, to help you obtain and produce consistent and high-quality products for your customers.

This chapter aims to assist you in developing the knowledge and skills to prepare, cook and serve poultry and game dishes. These food items are an important part of the menus and may feature in a number of courses; therefore, many aspects, including terminology, purchase points, handling and storage, quality points, cooking methods and service are important for any chef.

Classification of poultry

The term ‘poultry’ refers to all domesticated, feathered birds that have been commercially reared for human consumption. The classification includes chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese. Guinea fowl, pheasant, pigeon and quail are considered feathered game, but in Australia are domesticated birds grown for the restaurant trade.

Due to its comparatively low price and its availability, poultry ranks quite high as a primary product being offered on today's menus, in comparison with beef, lamb and seafood.

The food service

Kitchen organisation differs in almost every establishment. About 75 per cent of establishments employ fewer than 10 cooks, including 42 per cent with three or fewer cooks. Consequently, because the hospitality industry mainly consists of small establishments, non-cooking activities make up a significant part of the job. In the smallest kitchen, a BYO restaurant for example, there may be only three people: a head chef (usually the owner), an apprentice and a kitchen-hand.

In former times there were large staffs, called brigades, with a high degree of specialisation. They were organised into sections, with a chef de partie, or cook in charge of each section – the sauce cook (chef saucier), roast cook (chef rotisseur), fish cook (chef poissonnier), vegetable cook (chef entremettier), soup cook (chef potager), larder cook (chef garde-manger), sweets cook (chef pâtissier) and relief cook (chef tournant). Each section had its assistants, called ‘first’ and ‘second commis’ and apprentices. Today, the kitchen is smaller; chefs are required to be multi-skilled and work across many sections, but the total staff is still called ‘a brigade’.

While the large kitchens of five-star hotels may reflect the traditional system (the kitchen brigade), the majority of establishments have a much smaller team. The Australian Culinary Federation has identified six levels in the organisation of contemporary kitchens. These levels take into account experience, expertise and responsibility.

Introduction

Meat is one of the most costly commodities used on menus. Few meals are served without meat in at least one – and sometimes two – of the dishes. Meat portion sizes tend to be large, so the cost of this menu item needs to be carefully controlled.

Meat quality

Meat quality is influenced by many factors, including the breed of the animal, its age, sex and conditions of slaughter. Recent advances in meat handling include electrical stimulation of the carcass just after slaughter, hot boning and rapid chilling, as well as vacuum packing (sometimes referred to as Cryovac®).

Cold shortening is a process that causes muscle fibres to contract in meat, resulting in toughness if the muscle is chilled rapidly before rigor mortis sets in. Cold shortening can be prevented by two processes, electrical stimulation and tender stretching.

Electrical stimulation is the application of an electric current to the carcass soon after slaughter. This speeds up rigor mortis, so that when the carcass is chilled, rigor mortis is already complete. This means the muscles are set and cannot contract as the carcass gets colder.

The tender stretch technique physically restrains and prevents many muscles from cold shortening during the rigor mortis process. In this technique the split carcass is suspended from the eye of the aitch bone, or in the case of the whole carcass it is held by the pelvic girdle. Hanging a carcass in this way prevents muscle contraction and can maximise tenderness in the rump, thick flank, topside, silverside, striploin and cube roll, which are valuable primal cuts.

Introduction

Soups are preparations derived from a large variety of ingredients. Thick or thin, they should be delicate in flavour, natural in colour and light in texture. The possible range of different soups is unlimited for both hot and cold, clear or puréed varieties. Soups find a place on menus in all sectors of the industry, even in warm climates. Perhaps more than other sections of the menu, soup preparation has been influenced by the availability of dried soup mixes. The range of flavours includes oriental styles that can be reconstituted quickly and have consistent quality if made up correctly. They may be improved by reconstituting with stock instead of water and by adding fresh garnish to enhance the flavour and appearance while following the suppliers’ instructions concerning the volume of liquid required to make up the soup.

Classification of soups

Perhaps because of the time involved in preparation, soup is often not well made. It takes time and supervision, and great care with seasoning. As the first course a soup can set the mood for the rest of the meal. Following are the standards required in making soup, together with a contemporary classification.

This classification of soups is not important to the guest. It is useful only if it indicates to the chef the ingredients required, a method of preparation and a procedure for finishing the soup.

Liaison

This is a mixture of egg yolks and cream that can be added to soups and sauces at the finishing stage. The liaison enriches and lightly thickens the soup or sauce.

Plutarch's How to study poetry opens a window on to many aspects of reading practice in the Graeco-Roman world; we hope that this edition will not only make this work better known and more accessible, but that it will also encourage modern readers to reflect upon the presuppositions which they themselves bring to their reading, and upon the history of those presuppositions.

The origins of this edition are as follows. For several years DR had intended to produce an edition and had prepared a draft commentary, but felt unable to complete the task. RH has taken over and expanded the whole. DR's notes have either been simply reproduced or subsumed into new discussions; except on a couple of occasions or when textual suggestions are involved, no attempt is made to distinguish between the contributions of the two editors. Most of the Introduction is the work of RH. In keeping with the style of Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics, we have also tried to foreground our understanding of what the text means, rather than the names of earlier scholars who have helped or hindered its exegesis; an important debt, however, to the edition of Ernesto Valgiglio (Turin 1973) should be recorded.

Particular thanks are due to Andrew Dyck, Pat Easterling, Doreen Innes and David Sedley. Michael Sharp and Elizabeth Hanlon of Cambridge University Press have been supportive and imaginative as ever.

Plutarch

P. was a native of Chaeronea in Boeotia where he lived most of his long life (c. 45 – c. 120 AD) as the head both of a leading local family and of an informal philosophical ‘school’, modelled to some extent upon the Academy at Athens and devoted principally to Platonic philosophy and related learning; in his youth P. had studied in Athens under the Platonist Ammonius of Alexandria. P. also served as a priest at Delphi, and his three surviving ‘Pythian dialogues’ (Moralia 384d–438e) attest to his deep concern with, and knowledge of, the rituals and underlying theology of the oracle. Apart from his intimate familiarity with the intellectual life of Athens, P. also made, it seems, several visits to Rome and was on good terms with a number of influential Romans. Through one of them, L. Mestrius Florus, P. received Roman citizenship as (probably) L. Mestrius Plutarchus, and to another, Q. Sosius Senecio (consul 99, 107), he dedicated the vast enterprise of the Parallel lives, the works for which he is best known.

As well as the Parallel lives, most of which are preserved, we also possess a corpus of some seventy-eight miscellaneous works, several of which are certainly not by P., which are today known collectively as the Moralia; the title is owed to a subset of these works which may go back even to late antiquity, but which was finally brought together and placed at the head of his edition, under the label τὰ ἠθικά, by Maximus Planudes in the late thirteenth century and which has a much richer textual tradition than most of the rest of what we call the Moralia.

1 εἰ μέν, ὡς Φιλόξενος ὁ ποιητὴς ἔλεγεν, ὦ Μάρκε Σήδατιε,14d τῶν κρεῶν τὰ μὴ κρέα ἥδιστά ἐστι καὶ τῶν ἰχθύων οἱ μὴ ἰχθύες, ἐκείνοις ἀποφαίνεσθαι παρῶμεν οὓς ὁ Κάτων ἔφη τῆς καρδίας τὴν ὑπερώιαν εὐαισθητοτέραν ἔχειν.e ὅτι δὲ τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίαι λεγομένων οἱ σφόδρα νέοι τοῖς μὴ δοκοῦσι φιλοσόφως μηδ' ἀπὸ σπουδῆς λέγεσθαι χαίρουσι μᾶλλον καὶ παρέχουσιν ὑπηκόους ἑαυτοὺς καὶ χειροήθεις, δῆλόν ἐστιν ἡμῖν. οὐ γὰρ μόνον τὰ Αἰσώπεια μυθάρια καὶ τὰς ποιητικὰς ὑποθέσεις ἀλλὰ καὶ τὸν Ἄβαριν τὸν Ἡρακλείδου καὶ τὸν Λύκωνα τὸν Ἀρίστωνος διερχόμενοι περὶ τὰ περὶ τῶν ψυχῶν δόγματα μεμειγμένα μυθολογίαι μεθ' ἡδονῆς ἐνθουσιῶσι. διὸ δεῖ μὴ μόνον ἐν ταῖς περὶ ἐδωδὴν καὶ πόσιν ἡδοναῖς διαφυλάττειν εὐσχημονοῦντας αὐτούς, ἔτι δὲ μᾶλλον ἐν ταῖς ἀκροάσεσιν καὶ ἀναγνώσεσιν ἐθίζειν,f ὥσπερ ὄψωι χρωμένους μετρίως τῶι τέρποντι, τὸ χρήσιμον ἀπ' αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸ σωτήριον διώκειν. οὔτε γὰρ πόλιν αἱ κεκλεισμέναι πύλαι τηροῦσιν ἀνάλωτον, ἂν διὰ μιᾶς παραδέξηται τοὺς πολεμίους, οὔτε νέον αἱ περὶ τὰς ἄλλας ἡδονὰς ἐγκράτειαι σώιζουσιν, ἂν τῆι δι' ἀκοῆς λάθηι προέμενος αὑτόν,15a ἀλλ' ὅσον μᾶλλον αὕτη τοῦ φρονεῖν καὶ λογίζεσθαι πεφυκότος ἅπτεται, μᾶλλον ἀμεληθεῖσα βλάπτει καὶ διαφθείρει τὸν παραδεξάμενον. ἐπεὶ τοίνυν οὔτ' ἴσως δυνατόν ἐστιν οὔτ' ὠφέλιμον ποιημάτων ἀπείργειν τὸν τηλικοῦτον ἡλίκος οὑμός τε τὸ νῦν Σώκλαρός ἐστι καὶ ὁ σὸς Κλέανδρος, εὖ μάλα παραφυλάττωμεν αὐτούς, ὡς ἐν ταῖς ἀναγνώσεσι μᾶλλον ἢ ταῖς ὁδοῖς παιδαγωγίας δεομένους.

Editing for publication is a little-known occupation. The common impression is that it consists of correcting grammar and punctuation, which it does, but the job has many other aspects that make it endlessly absorbing. If you are suited to it, editing is the best fun you can have at a desk.

What makes a good editor? Editors share a defining characteristic: they love ideas and words and books. In a world of increasing specialisation, most are generalists. Reflecting the female domination of the book industry, most of them are women.

Two contradictory stereotypes prevail. One is the Jackie Onassis type, who has languorous lunches with celebrity authors and swans about with the literati at the best parties. The other is the eagle-eyed, anal-retentive, obsessive frump who flays inoffensive manuscripts with her punitive pencil. In fact, editors who fit either of these stereotypes don't get far. Editors have been compared to midwives, surgeons and even chameleons, but the most apt simile is inorganic: ‘Good editors may be likened to those crystal-clear prisms which form a vital part of a pair of binoculars. They are not there to alter the view or change the scene, but to make it clearer and closer.’