Culinary Arts/Introduction

Culinary arts, in which culinary means “related to cooking”, are the cuisine arts of food preparation, cooking, and presentation of food, usually in the form of meals. Table manners ("the table arts") are sometimes referred to as a culinary art. The ultimate goal of this art form is to create a dining experience. Expert chefs are responsible for producing this experience by preparing meals that are as pleasing to the eye as they are to the palate. To do this they are required to have knowledge of not only food science but also nutrition, diet and even a little psychology.

This book is about the fundamentals required to create that experience. We are going to explore the chef’s knowledge and techniques. A domestic chef, i.e., a non-professional culinary enthusiast, is unlikely to reach the level of a professional chef but we can learn enough to make our everyday dining an experience. This is one of those times where it is not about the destination but about the trip.

We will not be concerned too much about the professional environment except to see how that translates into making our kitchen functionally professional. Professional kitchens have a large staff with each person performing a definite set of tasks. In the domestic kitchen the meals are usually prepared by a single individual or at most a couple. Being a domestic chef means being literate in all the tasks that must occur to prepare the experience.