I'm currently reading Beaten, Seared and Sauced: On Becoming A Chef At The Culinary Institute of America and this passage struck an immediate chord with me. Why we need to always pay 100% focus and attention to what we are doing and what we are cooking. Not being a shoemaker and banging stuff out.
There were eight of us at a table, and most had ordered the duck with raspberry sauce and scalloped potatoes. We began eating. It was dreadful. The duck had been destroyed with heat, and then destroyed some more. It was desiccated and leathery, flavorless and tough. I watched as the others ate and screwed up their faces into expressions of complete distaste.
I took another bite, then sawed at the duck, and started getting pissed off.
“Whoever did this,” I said, “is a jackass.”
“Yeah,” Adam said. “This is pretty shameful. I can’t eat this.” He pushed it away.
“I agree,” Lombardi said. “What would happen if you took it back to the kitchen and told them it sucked? Would they give you another entrée or something? Isn’t that actually the responsible thing to do in this case? Shouldn’t they know how bad it is?”
I took one more bite. I started gathering steam. “Fuck that. How could they not know? But seriously—what were they thinking? What were they doing?”
“Fucking it up, obviously,” Brookshire said.
“Okay, listen—” I started. I heard Brookshire mutter, All right, here we go …
“No—listen. Consider a duck—”
Someone said, “Consider that you’ll be screwing up the duck in a few weeks, so don’t throw stones too hard.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “Who doesn’t love a duck?”
People at the table next to us turned to look.
“They’re cute, they’re cool to watch. They’re tasty. And—damn—this duck once walked around. It was happy. It enjoyed itself. And look at it now. This creature truly died in vain. A pointless, useless death.”
Without getting into a whole philosophical, or ethical debate about animals, or anything else we cook. I would just like everyone to reflect on that passage and focus a bit more about what you're doing when you're dropping a steak in a pan, cutting tenderloins, or even just trimming some fat. Do the best you can, to the best of your abilities for the sake of the animal.
It is important.
It matters.
Even if no one else will know except you.