This mempachi (squirrel fish family) was a courtesy of Jordan Ito, our VP, Leigh Ito's son. He likes to go fishing and will sometimes share his catch with me. In return, he gets a bowl of soup. Since I did this soup on the cruise ship, I wanted to show the cooks in menu development how it is done the way I do it. Like many things over time, recipes get distorted; cooks put their own touches on it, or it doesn’t get passed down correctly. So, a revisit was in order. We had very little going on in Monday's session, which was great, because I had all of them watching me step-by-step and I got to teach the 'why' and 'how' of this wonderful soup and all the possibilities that it could possibly evoke. I think one of the things that struck a cord in them was when I mentioned that everyone can make a fish soup, but it's what you do with it that makes all the difference between yours and someone elses. It is about working and extracting flavors. They had also never seen the entire fish being cooked like that: head, gills, guts, scales, everything all in, then pureed and passed. It made me feel like I was back in Provence--------the only thing missing was the wine with lunch.
