The garde-manger: the cold kitchen and its work

The garde-manger is the station of the classical French kitchen that keeps and prepares the cold larder: raw meats and fish held for service, charcuterie, aspics, cold sauces, salads and the cold hors-d'œuvre. Auguste Escoffier gave it its settled place in the brigade system that he organised and set down in Le Guide Culinaire, where the cold buffet and its garnitures are treated as work equal in rigour to the hot kitchen. The station belongs to the tradition of the grande cuisine of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in which the cold dish was composed, glazed and dressed with the same discipline as the hot one.

The garde-manger covers the preparation and keeping of cold foods: the chaud-froid and the aspic made from clarified gelée, the galantine and the terrine, the mayonnaise and the cold sauces built upon it, the marinated and cured preparations, and the cold hors-d'œuvre and salads. Its work rests on a few exact operations: the clarification and setting of gelée, the coating of a cold piece with a sauce that sets, the moulding and unmoulding of forcemeats and the careful dressing of the finished piece for the buffet. Order and cleanliness of the larder are part of the craft, since the station holds raw and cooked food side by side and must keep them apart.

Cold preparations of the garde-manger are eaten with bread, with sharp pickles and with dressed salad leaves, and are drunk with dry white wines, light reds served cool, or dry sparkling wine. Cold lowers the perception of fat and salt, so the cook seasons more firmly and the wine is chosen for acidity and freshness to cut the richness of terrines, mayonnaise and aspic.