Cooking school puts 'Oorah!' on the menu

February 6, 2008

By MICHAEL HILL

ASSOCIATED PRESS

HYDE PARK, N.Y. -- The Marines were at their stations by 0900 hours, knives in hand, ready for a tough new mission. Before the morning was out, they would slice, braise and deglaze like never before.

Their commands came from Phillip Crispo, a chef instructor who had five weeks to test the mettle of these 11 Marines in the heat of the training kitchens of the Culinary Institute of America.

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It was an odd picture -- leathernecks taking orders from a chef. But the reasoning is sound.

The Marine Corps want better cooks. So for more than a year, they have sent select Marine cooks to immersion courses at this lauded culinary school on a scenic Hudson River promontory north of New York City.

With their chef's whites and paper toques, the Marines mostly blend with the other students. That is, except for moments such as when a sergeant answered Crispo with a hearty "Oorah, Chef!"

These Marines already cook for a living. The 10 men and one woman have collectively overseen thousands of meals for troops from Virginia to Iraq.

But they never have been tested quite like this.

"The 16 years that I've done it, I thought I knew how to cook, until I got to this school," Gunnery Sgt. Reynaldo Miranda said while hustling to make beef medallions and rice. "Then the rude awakening came."

Miranda, 34, is based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. He inspects and instructs at Marine mess halls in the East. He has worked under conditions that would make other chefs blanch, including oil barrels cut in half to create makeshift barbecue pits in Afghanistan.

But the Marines know they still have plenty to learn.

"Chef Crispo made a statement that kind of fit me to a T," said Gunnery Sgt. Daniel O'Connell, 35. "He said, 'Are you a cook like you know what you're doing? Or are you just replicating things?' That right there struck me the most, because I replicate."

Truly wretched military meals are a thing of the past -- think of long-ago sailors subsisting on salt beef or the scatological nickname soldiers gave for chipped beef on toast.

American troops in the field now eat MREs, or meals ready to eat, that include entrees such as pork ribs and spicy penne pasta. O'Connell compares modern Marine mess hall food to the stick-to-your-ribs fare at family restaurants. The Pentagon Channel television station even airs a cooking show for the troops called "The Grill Sergeants."

"It's a common misconception that military people don't eat well," Miranda said. "They do all right."

Master Gunnery Sgt. Byron Johnson, of the Marine's food service program in Virginia, said the goal of the training is to provide better food for Marines. He has noticed graduates of the chef course are "more fine-tuned to the flavor, the eye appeal, the garnish."

The Marines are taking classes at the Culinary Institute to earn a ProChef Level I certification, which is recognized in the industry as a marker of culinary skill. Successful graduates learn everything from knife work to menu planning.

"This is a learning curve for them, to take them out of that mass production, or large quantity production, and put them into what we would call fine dining with real attention to details, small portions," Crispo said. "Instead of doing 150 portions OK, we want them to do four portions perfect."

On a recent morning, Crispo told teams of students to prepare a lunch that included either sautéed beef, chicken Provençal or flounder meunière. And at the end of the morning, they must eat their lessons.

Staff Sgt. Jesse Rogers, O'Connell and Miranda negotiate their stations with seasoned ease, occasionally slipping from chef speak to military banter.

"Does anyone need any plum tomatoes?" O'Connell asked as the cooking ensued.

"That's a negative, Ghost Rider," Miranda answered. "The pattern is full."

Crispo is an affable but demanding teacher. When Miranda took out his carefully tied and browned medallions, Crispo leaned in close and critiqued the color, evidence of a flawed searing technique.

"It's good," Crispo said. "It's not perfect."

The chef demonstrates some haute cuisine tips that the Marines will never be able to bring back at the mess hall, including the benefits of adding a dash from a $100 bottle of traditionally aged balsamic vinegar.

Still, the Marines say their sharpened skills will serve the Corps, and maybe help them after they retire. It's still years off, but O'Connell, an instructor at Ft. Lee in Virginia, thinks he might cater after his military career. Miranda might open a bar or restaurant with a military flair.

But on this morning they focused on getting their dishes plated by lunch. Crispo carefully inspected the platters under red heat lamps. Some of the portions were off, he told the Marines, but he liked how it looked.

"Very nice job," Crispo said. "Let's eat."

Ellie