Provencal cuisine

How many other considerations, apart from those we have outlined above, are still to be considered when developing a Menu!

The resources available in goods, personnel and equipment; temperature status; the season of the year when the dinner takes place, which proscribes certain meals and imposes others, etc.

Although each of these circumstances, considered in itself, may have only relative importance, it is nonetheless true that definitive success is linked, in large part, to careful observation of the rules they impose.

Finally, apart from ordinary menus for which we have tried to explain the essential rules, practitioners are increasingly called upon, these days, to develop special diet menus.

There are many supporters of full or mixed vegetarianism; patients suffering from albuminuria, diabetes, stomach or nervous disorders. For each of these categories of customers, special menus are absolutely necessary, for the development of which the doctors' indications need to be interpreted intelligently if we want to avoid putting off patients. The same applies to the diet specific to the elderly, and to that of children, whose diet differs from that of adults.

As long as we think about what we have just explained very briefly, we will understand that the composition of Menus is not as easy, as simple a task as many ignorant and inexperienced people readily imagine.

Professional experience of more than half a century allows us to affirm, on the contrary, that this is the most delicate part of the complex task which falls to chefs; but it is certain that to appreciate its full importance, it is necessary to have considerable professional experience yourself.

A. Escoffier.