BISQUE

Art Culinaire, Fall, 2001

haute cuisine or soup du jour?

From the dawn of stone age implements to the height of culinary technique, man has enjoyed his soup. During the early days of hunters and gatherers the skill of making pottery was learned and passed on through nomadic tribes. The formation of such pot vessels increased the dining repertoire of Mesopotamia man-boiling now an option--hot pots of soupy contents were possible. Archaeological researchers in Switzerland unearthed early forms of pottery, the contents of which, revealed a recipe for a type of berry, wheat, nut, and fish porridge (Acton). In Asia, soupy elixirs were brewed to heal any collection of ailments. Cooking vessels vastly improved during the Bronze Age as the craft of making the vessels took on more artistic qualities. The porridges and soups of ancient Rome are some of the earliest recorded recipes. Pultes tractogalatae or milk soup, a combination of dried dough, milk, and honey, was a staple. Varieties of kale, barley, and vegetable soups enriched with mulsum, a honey-wine, were also among the culinary delights in Pompeii. By the Middle Ages, "porridges" were the rage in Europe. Combinations of oats and milk gradually gave way to fragrant herb and spice gruels of nuts, meat, and seafood. One such dish, le stockfish originated in the late 1400s with the arrival of seafaring traders from Norway who brought with them salted, dried cod. The stew of soaked cod, egg, butter, cream, and a generous amount of oil became popular in the coastal provinces of southern France (Pitt-Rivers 11). Until the 1600s these soup-like meals eaten from bread vessels were common fare. Though chicken was the meat of choice, mainstay potages were studded with beef, pork, swan, stork, peacock, crane, and even whale (Kiple and Ornelas 1211). Originally, bisque was used to describe any highly spiced dish of boiled meat or game (Montagne 99). The 1690 publication of Antoine Furetiere's Dictionaire universal documents this definition:

An exquisite soup made with the several pigeons, chickens, offals, lamb jus, and other good ingredients, it is no wonder it was served on the table of grand Sirs. The word bisque comes from the word "bis cocta" or greyish-casserole, because it is made with many offal tidbits, it is necessary to cook the offals separately before they are combined and cooked together. A fish bisque is made from a forcemeat of carp, carp eggs, carp milk, and shrimp.

The arrival of haute cuisine in the late 800s advanced culinary options creating a well constructed gap between the etiquette and habits of the classes. It was the intention that the food one ate should define his or her social status. As such, soups or sops, as they were also known, became a dish with its own distinction, so did bisque. The term became synonymous with a crustacean fume, and later as any smooth, puree soup finished with cream and butter. Food became cuisine, and cuisine an identity; codification soon followed. Antoin Carema, being the first to construct this sort of reference for his generation, described many of own creations in The Art of French Cooking in the Nineteenth Century. By 1914, the publication Le Repertoire de La Cuisine by Louis Saulnier further categorized foods. Soups were divided into clear soups, special consommes for supper, cream or veloute soups, and foreign soups. Though the peers of his profession had started the process, it was Escoffier who took a pragmatic approach to classifying recipes and techniques. For soups he simply named two: clear soups and thick soups. Clear soups included consommes. Thick soups encompassed creams, veloutes, purees, and thickened bouillons. In Escoffier's view, bisques fell into the "puree" family, a category in which a puree of the main ingredient formed the base, and rice, bread, or starchy vegetables the body. But, for true bisque lovers, not just any puree will do. Like the chowders of New England, or gumbos of Louisiana, shellfish is key. Because much of the flavor in shellfish is in the shell, they are often seared in oil to extract and develop the most flavor possible. Once seared, the shells remain in the pan to simmer gently with stock, aromatics, brandy, and rice; all the while, the broth absorbs these same complex notes of the crustacean. Unlike its low county counterparts, bisques tend to be more refined because of their silky smooth texture, void of chunks, lumps, or bits. The "haute-cuisine" profile is due to the liberal addition of cream, eggs, and butter; items which at one time were not afforded to the masses. But, much has changed to the status of soups in contemporary times, and a whole new family of bisque preparation are shedding their attitude and taking on a more rustic and creative vibe. Today bisques have evolved into any thick, puree of soup, among the many liberal interpretations, tomato bisque, and squash bisque, and even banana bisque.

He is a purist in the true sense of the word. Leery of the fabricated, fussed-over dishes favored by many of his contemporaries. Primary focus for Executive Chef Bruce Sherman is seasonal, though he is a staunch supporter of local farmers, there are some ingredients, like artichokes and mushrooms, which when in season, he xviii ship in. He uses ingredients like celeriac, sheeps' milk camembert, pineapple and quince jam, winter radish; ingredients he considers harder to make interesting. "When using a luxury ingredient, or as the French say 'noble ingredient' such as truffles, John Dory, or foie gras, more than half the battle is done by bringing in these ingredients. It's a lot more difficult to bring in your common ingredients and do something with it to make it noble," Sherman believes. "The thing that differentiates the French three star restaurants from a hole in the wall is that a three star restaurant will bring in pigs' feet and offals and will do something really exceptional and make it an amazing pa latable dish with flavor. That is the difficulty and the complexity of preparing food."