Great Balls Of Fire!

People have always been fascinated with the cooking of food. Ever since they figured out that fire, besides keeping them warm in that cave, by use of the Maillard reaction, could make that hunk of woolly mammoth taste delicious. Of course, at that time it was the sear and sizzle, Louis Maillard wasn't around yet to name it.  I think it's a sensory thing that builds anticipation. It also could be the hypnotism of the fire. In the restaurant world sizzle and fire sells, especially if it's done at your table. 

People have always like seeing their food prepared and served in front of them. Medieval banquets had presentations of food with servants carving joints of beef and game birds. There were lange portions of meat, sometimes whole animals roasting on rotisseries in the nearby fireplace. The French did things a little different. They had what was called Russian service where everything was brought out on large platters and served onto a plate right in front of you. 

In modern times, upscale restaurants use trollies to bring food to your table. They present and carve prime rib, ducks, chickens. lamb racks, beef wellington and other preparations right at the table. I remember this at Jean Banchet's "Le Francais" back in the 80's. After you were seated and served your wine or cocktail, the maitre d' would assemble all the silver clad trollies and say, "Now let the show begin." And what a show it was. 

Tableside preparation of dishes is not new, like a lot of things in the food world it goes in and out of fashion. There are some spots where it has never gone out. When you think about it, a lot of our food get prepared or served right in front of us. In some Mexican restaurants they make your guacamole in a large molcajete at your table. 

When you go to a Japanese steakhouse, they seat you at a teppanyaki table with the large griddle in the center and then prepare your dinner right in front of you. That is after all the fancy knife tricks and shrimp tail tossing and catching by your chef. In one such place in Hilton Head, South Carolina, our chef managed to catch his tossed knife in the toe of his shoe. He had to be replaced but it was quite a show. People like food as entertainment.

In sushi restaurants they slice your fish and make sushi rolls right in front of you. Dim Sum carts roll through dining rooms of Chinese restaurants to tempt you with their different selections. Some seafood restaurants will bone whole Dover Sole at your table. Steakhouses prepare steak tartare tableside. Just about everyone has had a Caesar Salad prepared tableside. 

And then there is the fire aspect. Baked Alaska or Kasseri Cheese in a saganaki pan is not the same if it doesn't come to your table on fire. We all remember in "A Christmas Carol" the flaming Figgy Pudding. 

When I started my restaurant career in the late 60's and early 70's, tableside service was in its heyday in upscale restaurants. I was taught the preparation and service of a lot of dishes. I worked at four restaurants that did tableside service, the Copper Kettle Restaurant at the Hilton Hotel and Orion's Roof at the New Cavalier Hotel both in Virginia Beach, Virginia, the Golden Pheasant Inn in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and the Inn at Sawmill Farm in West Dover, Vermont. 

We did a little tableside in my first restaurant, the Iron Gate House in Virginia Beach but when we moved to the Greenhouse in Captiva Island, Florida in the early 80's, we evolved into the open kitchen concept. A lot of fine dining had already made the switch. California sort of led the way with Spago, Stars and Chez Panisse. This was the start of the Chef as Superstar and the focus needed to be on them and their kitchens. But that is another story.  

The Golden Pheasant was the restaurant that the waitstaff did the most hands-on cooking tableside. We did Caesar Salad, Steak Diane, Cafe Diablo and Bananas Lady Duncan, start to finish tableside. We also flambeed a Duckling A L'Orange tableside but most of the preparation was done in the kitchen. Most of the tableside items you couldn't do on a busy night. There wasn't time and you need time to do these dishes properly. 

At the Sawmill Farm, we mostly finished things off tableside. We flambeed the Duck and the Steak Au Poivre. We carved the Rack of Lamb and frenched the vegetables onto plates using a spoon and fork. Frenching consists of placing the spoon and fork in one hand and using them like a pair of tongs. Mr. Rodney Williams, the owner, better known as "Bo", was an architect by trade but often worked the dining room at night. He was skilled at carving the Rack of Lamb and a bit of a magician too. One night he was carving a rack and one of the chops landed on the floor, he looked around and then a white napkin went down over it. The next minute, I looked and the chop had disappeared. Then miraculously it reappeared on the plate. Magic! You can't beat it.

All total I have done 14 things tableside. Most of the carts were simple affairs topped with a tablecloth. This way you could top that with a burner if you needed to flame or cook something or a salad bowl to do a Caesar or a carving board if you needed to slice a Rack of Lamb or Chateaubriand. 

            

Some carts specialize in one thing, cheese, pate, dim sum, drinks, desert, carving or appetizers. Some carts are elaborate affairs, with chrome or silver parts.   

   

The carts that seem to attract the most attention are the ones that burst into flames. People love fire. The art of Flambé is where alcohol is added to a hot pan to create a burst of flames. Flambé is the French word for flamed. Part of that art is to not set yourself or your customers on fire as you create that burst of flames in the pan.  

It's important to remember that you are holding a bomb in your hand. A bottle of 151 proof rum or 80 proof cognac is highly flammable and therefore very dangerous. It's sad to realize that people have been badly burned and even killed for the sake of flaming food. 

I was taught to always add the alcohol at the end of the cooking when the sauce is at its thickest. Always take the pan off the heat source, add the alcohol, gripping the bottle by the neck and using your thumb as a stopper over the bottle opening. Then replace the pan over the heat and slightly tilt the pan to the burner. The pan will burst into flame and the bottle of alcohol will be a good distance away from that.   

A lot of American restaurants employ Flambé as a sales tool in their dining rooms. Perhaps no one more than Ernie Byfield in the 30's and 40's at the world famous "Pump Room" at the Ambassador East in Chicago. At his "Booth One", he entertained stars and celebrities from all over with flaming swords of food and flaming tableside preparations. Concerning food and flame his comment was: "The people seem to like it and it doesn't harm the food much." 

Most people think the alcohol is all burned off when a dish is flambéed. This is not true, only about 25% is burned off, so you will still taste the liquor which is why it's added. People pay a lot of money to drink Grand Marnier, Cognac and Rum so they obviously like the taste. 

So what is the effect of the flame on the taste of the food. Most restaurant people agree that the flame doesn't change the flavor of the food. It's done for the dramatic visual effect it creates. It sells the sizzle. In my personal history, if you sell one flambéed duck, you end up selling 10. You can charge a lot more for a flambéed duck than for one prepared solely in the kitchen. People willingly pay for the show. And that it true for anything served tableside. Great Balls Of Fire!  Great Balls Of Cash!