Working Clean

Jun 15 2018

The word “propre” in French can have two different meanings, depending on its position in a sentence. It can mean “own,” as in “I have my own restaurant” - “J’ai mon propre restaurant.” Or it can mean “clean” or “tidy,” as in “my clean plate” - “Mon assiette propre.”

Working clean - working “propre” - is the first and constant lesson of Le Cordon Bleu.

In a “propre” kitchen, everything has its place.

The setup in the practice kitchen is extremely precise, organized identically each time.

We place our knives in the same place in the drawer, along with a whisk, rolling pin, scraper, and any other specific tools we might need for the particular recipe. A single shelf below our work surface holds our other tools:

• A cutting board.
• Five nested bowls of increasing size and topped by a measuring cup and placed in two trays.
• Four increasing-sized saucepans stacked in a stockpot placed on a large sautee pan.
• A sieve and metal strainer stacked together.
• Two non-stick frying pans and one rounded- and one flat-bottomed sautee pan stacked together.

A four induction-burner stovetop is behind us, with an oven below. We prepare every dish on our roughly 4x4 surface.

Our work must also be done in a “propre” manner.

The chefs tell us “in order to work well, you need to have the right method.” The method for working propre is to “arrange, work, clean, repeat.”

Only one thing is worked on at a time, with only the tools needed for that particular job on the work surface.

If you’re washing your vegetables, you prepare your counter with only a tray of dirty vegetables on the left, a bowl of water in the center, and a tray for clean vegetables lined with paper towel on the right. You wash one at a time, moving left to right: dirty vegetable goes in the water, is washed, and is placed on the clean tray. Trays are then wiped, water is emptied, work surface is wiped.

Then you peel your vegetables - a tray of washed vegetables, a bowl for peelings, your paring knife, your peeler, and a tray for the peeled vegetables. Peel. Bowl is emptied and removed, knife and peeler in the drawer, work surface is wiped.

Then you cut your vegetables - a tray of peeled vegetables, a cutting board, a chef’s knife, a scraper, a bowl for trimmings, a tray for cut vegetables. Cut. Bowl is emptied, work surface is wiped.

Arrange, work, clean, repeat.

Every cooking session continues this way. Never an unnecessary tool or bowl. Never a stray scrap on the counter. Chef is strict, and is unbending when it comes to working propre. An idle fork or paper towel will be spotted from across the room: “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” “What is that?”

“Cuisine is militarized,” Chef reminds us. An elite kitchen is a fast-paced, dangerous place, requiring absolute precision. Working “propre” is about developing reflexes and intuition, so the basics become automatic and the complex becomes the sole focus. If you know where everything is at all times, if the only objects in front of you are the ones you’re actively using, you don’t have to think. You just do.

Working this way is compulsive. It’s infuriating. But after getting used to this structure, I’m realizing how crucial it is.

Working propre is working safe. Without stray knives laying around, you can’t accidentally grab something sharp. Without stray bowls and ingredients lying around, and wiping down your surface after every step, you lessen the risk of cross-contamination. In the frantic chaos of the kitchen, method and instinct are the only way to reduce these risks.

Working propre is working clean. The surface remains clean, pots and pans remain either clean or with the dishwasher. There’s no massive final cleanup - cleaning is part of the cooking process itself.

And ultimately, working propre is liberating. You don’t get lost in your own chaos. There’s no “fog of cooking” obscuring the task at hand. When you work propre, you own your space, instead of letting your space own you. Things stop happening by chance. You become the master of your little universe, you see all the parts and pieces at all times. Your “espace propre” becomes “propre espace.”