james Perfil

The following is my summary of the novel “The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen”

written by Jacques Pepin. I will cover his life from a young boy growing up in France as well as

becoming a respected chef, not only overseas but also in these united States.

Tati, as Jacques mother called him, was born weighing 2 ½ lbs. in Bourge-en-Bresse, an

area of France 35 miles Northeast of Lyon. His childhood years during the second world

war consisted of a second floor apartment. When American soldiers liberated France, he first

discovered milk chocolate when it was thrown from a green tank centered by a white star. The

area and time where he lived limited him, his family, and community to unconventional recipes

with gardens shared by numbers of folk. Sugar was a shortage and sweetener made from things

like beets, cooked and reduced for hours on end. Veal Lung was a precious commodity cooked

with onion and wine barrel sediment during such times of barter. His mother, a waitress and

Father, a cabinet maker, were hard workers to provide a home for their three boys. The summer

of Jacques sixth year, when school ended, his vacation took place on a “real farm”, so he

describes it as. Cows, chicken, geese, horses, pigs, and straight forward meals of very little

variety, and manual labor became a number of his influences. His room and board was paid by

his chores and lifetime lessons were immediately acquired. I believe it to be the very reason his

mother sent him there to begin with. He learned to milk cows, and described the experience to be

more than just delicious, buttery, frothy foam. He claims that very moment that the realization of

food became more than sustenance was evident. Before and after his rural educating experience

he seemed to always share a place in the kitchen. His father played a key role in his influences

with wine making, bottling, and collecting wild mushrooms. Responsibilities were taught to he

and his brothers by chores. Germans were marching their “war machine” hard and his father left to join a resistance in the mountains during late 1943. From time to time he would come home at

night and leave gifts of food and be gone before daybreak. Those gifts of food, a precious item,

have been heavily etched in his childhood memories.

Additional summer vacations like earlier mentioned; taught him bread making, gathering

hay, and the ways of barter were discovered in a strict boarding school, away from home ran by

priests. The memories of food, while there, were not pleasant and in turn led him into the art of

acquiring jams, sausages, or fish puree from various farm children enrolled at St. Louis.

Time past and the war ended. Chewing gum was discovered and his mother, Maman, he

called her, decided to open a restaurant. Although she was no gourmet chef, she had picked up a

few things from looking over the shoulders of a chef she had served for. A year and a half with a

flourishing business went by and due to unforseen circumstances the Pepin family moved to

another town and opened another restaurant where his father served wines and taught Jacques the

art of wine tasting. In the village of L’Arbresle is where he and his brothers first went fishing

with make shift mediums, successfully catching small minnow like fish and attempting to pan fry

them imitating “Papa”, they prepared a meal on the bank using worms and grasshoppers for bait.

By the age of fourteen he had taken an apprenticeship at Le Grande’ Hotel de l’Europe

yet already worked in four restaurants. Cleaning led to “mis en place” and on to preparations.

More than 12 hour days, seven days a week became the unpaid norm for a teenager with high-

hope who ruined consomme by stirring. The day he was assigned to the stove should have been

delightful, but rather a moment of insecurity as he felt doubtful and unprepared. What he learned

in time was, recipes were immaterial and that cooking should be done with the senses instead

of verbal or written instruction. “Commis”, or trainee was his first paying job after a three year

internship. The change in location placed new things on “his plate” including unknown foods and the sources from which they came. Different places and new tastes in food paved way to higher

goals. His confidence seemed to strengthen and gaining respect within his field of study, further

reached that of his own hometown where he may have been, in earlier adolescence, a hero. He

ventured Paris not long after with lead from Roman, a friend whom he had encountered along his

way in the culinary world. Jacques worked under a chef who had learned right under Escoffier.

He was drafted by the French Navy and became a cook at sea. Preparation in numbers entailed

and to everything turn, turn; Jacques Pepin became the Prime Minister’s chef. In a few short years

he returned home and then considered America. When moving to New York he gained more ex-

posure, more experience and soon attended Columbia, learning English and expanding his already

vast knowledge. He worked famous establishments and prepared dinners at La Pavillion for the

rich and ever-so-popular elite of the “Big Apple”. Meeting famous patrons led to a job offered

by recommendation to the Kennedy family and that of world famous Hojo’s owner, Howard

Johnson. He obtained his BA in the year of 1970 eleven years after placing foot stateside.

By way of networking he was allowed to experience coastlines and foods from different

demographics regions in America. Southern food like Smithfield Ham was introduced to him

and cookies called o-r-e-o. Living off the land learning to trout fish, clam bake, and spending

time in his very own garden became his true “American Dream”. Traveling from coast to coast

over the years; teaching, speaking and holding kitchen demonstrations brought the birth of written

books, interviews, television, and a sort of fame fueled by passion, decisions, and risk taking, not

by greed, but built with love of what one does, which was that of himself, Jacques Pepin.

The book is not short of a masterpiece written by a man whose life unveiled through an

arrangement of good timing, dedication, and internal drive. His success was egged on by his

desire and the immeasurable and wonderful forces of human nature.

Hey Thank You!.. sorry not to have answered for a long time. I have been enjoying school, family and a little part-time at a nice mom and pop's joint that has had a name since 1976. Had a nice weekend with the family.

Glad you joined James. I hope you enjoy the recipes here and I look forward to trying some of your favorites!