BlueSky Business Aviation News
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Paula Kraft, founder and President of Atlanta, GA-based Tastefully Yours Catering. 

What’s in a name?

ave you ever placed a catering request only to find that the food or item you received was not what you thought it was going to be?

Perhaps it occurred with a very common item . . . a biscuit for example? Is it a fluffy piece of bread lathered in melted butter and honey (it is here in the south); it’s also something served for breakfast stuffed with eggs, cheese and meat. Or is it a cracker, thin and crisp, or maybe a cookie served with tea? I think that we in the aviation world experience more mistaken names than most other professions, don’t you? But, is a wrench a wrench? (I guess you can see, I am not mechanical).

Food names vary from continent to continent, country to country and even within a country by region. When you place your catering request, you have a picture in your head of what you’re expecting - but without a crystal ball in front of me, I sometimes have to guess what you’re thinking and what you want delivered. It might be a very ordinary item. Something typical of the region or part of the world you’re in. I know it’s confusing, and we, your catering sources, should be able to figure out what you want by where you’re flying in from, or by your accent or by the spelling of your name.

A catering request is an art form - I’ve said this before - and is something that just can’t be thrown together without thought and planning. And most of all, an understanding of what various foods will be called in various places around the globe.

Is Marinara a similar recipe the world over? Unfortunately not. Is a Caprese the same around the world? Again, no, and if you only knew how many ways we, your catering sources, can prepare a Caprese, it would make your head spin. It can be done as salads, as entrees to sandwiches, as omelets, to bite size appetizers. Yes, we are a creative bunch!

So this brings me to why it is important to make sure that I am reading the crystal ball correctly when I take your catering order.

Let’s take a macaroon for example. When I say macaroon, what do you envision? Is it made of coconut, almond or something else? Is it a colorful morsel of delicate airy meringue, or a mound of golden brown luscious chewy goodness possibly drizzled with rich sweet chocolate; or does it resemble a monk’s belly button? I shall explain.

I love trivia - some might feel it’s useless information - but a ‘belly button’ was written in the original notes to describe the finished shape and look of the first macaroons made by Italian monks centuries ago. “Macaroon” means different things to different people which is why the name is important and your visual image is so necessary to convey to the person taking your catering order.

The monk’s macaroons were almond meringue cookies very similar to what we call Amaretti today, with a crisp crust and a soft interior. They were made from whipped egg whites and almond paste. The name amaretti comes from the Italian word for paste, maccarone (mah-kah-ROW-nay), and is also the word for pasta/macaroni and dumplings. Again multiple meanings for the same word which could be easily confused when placing your in flight catering order in different parts of the world.

The Italian monk’s macaroon found its way to France during the French Revolution in the late 1700’s. The modern concept of the French Macaroon was invented by Pierre Desfontaines Ladurée, who had the idea to join two meringues and fill them with ganache. The “original” macaroons combined two plain almond meringues with a filling of chocolate ganache. Today, uniquely flavored ganache, butter creams or jam is filled between meringues of hundreds of dramatic flavored and colored meringues.

Macaroons should be exciting and contain flavors that excite and entice your palette. They should make you swoon and get weak in the knees when you bite through the light, melt-in-your-mouth meringue, through the sultry interior and out through the other side (oops, sorry, that’s the way they make me feel). French macaroons are bite size lightly sweet “sandwiches” that you must experience at some time. Some of these flavor combinations might include Blackcurrant Violets, Salted Butter Caramel, Basil Lime, Anise, Rose and White Chocolate. Of course this
does not exclude the basic flavor combinations like Vanilla, Chocolate, Raspberry and Pistachio for the less daring. A stellar French macaroon is judged for quality by three things:
  • The tenderness of the meringue.
  • The quality of the fillings.
  • The vivid flavors and colors.

During the culinary journey of the macaroon, Italian Jews adopted the cookie for Passover celebrations because it has no flour or leavening. It was introduced to other European Jews and became a popular sweet found in the Jewish diet around the world in many forms and variations.

What started as the Italian amaretti was changed with the addition of coconut. This macaroon is a hearty, chewy, mounded cookie. It may have cocoa powder added to the mix to make chocolate macaroons or even drizzled or dipped in chocolate. A different variation, but, all carrying the same name. Macaroon. Coconut macaroons are more widespread in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. As far as aviation is concerned, the firmer, heartier macaroons are much easier to transport than the fragile almond meringues sandwiched with that yummy filling. If you do order request your catering source to pack the light crisp French Macaroons with care to prevent the outer shell from breaking.

To throw yet another name into the ring for the macaroon, I found this definition of the petit-fours which points to another word that can be confused in a catering order when your expectation for a sweet is a small iced tiny cake, a petit four.

“Petit-fours is French for “small baked pastries,” although some confections that are included on the petit-fours plate are not baked. Examples include glazed or chocolate-dipped fruit, marzipan, pãte de fruits and nut clusters, among others. There are two styles of petit-fours, glacé and sec. Petit-fours glacées or frais include filled and/or iced petit fours, miniature babas, miniature éclairs, tiny iced cakes and tartlets. Petit-fours secs include small cookies, macaroons, meringues, palmiers and tuiles. The words
mignardises (min-yar-DEEZ), from the French for “preciousness,” and friandises (free-yon-DEEZ), from the French for “delicate,” are often used instead of petit-fours.”

Now to make things a bit more confusing for you, the latest trending modification to the French macaroon was begun by a French newcomer to the macaroon world . . . Chef Pierre Hermé. (He adds a subtle logo to the top of his macaroon).

Chef Hermé takes the Ladurée macaroon one step further into pure decadence, making many with a double filling and combining flavors layering them together. Imagine your vision of a vanilla macaroon with 2 ganache layers . . . passion fruit and milk chocolate all in one treat. So, shall we refer to this as a Hermé French Macaroon to denote a double filling??? But what if it is a single flavor filling like his famous grapefruit juice and Compari, or his rose petal jam inside a rose petal macaroon? Is it still a Hermé French Macaroon? Or should the specific brand also be requested? Macaroons are a delicacy for a sophisticated end to the perfect in flight meal, they are often a better end to a fine dinner than a heavier sweet.

At the moment, the French macaroon is all the rage, but did you request a French macaroon, an Italian macaroon, a coconut macaroon, a petit fours, or just macaroons? For a simple sweet, how could it be referred to by so many names and how could there be there be so many preparations available?

I used macaroons as an example, but everything you request from your catering source can ultimately have this many variables. Know what you want, describe what you want, and email a photo of what you expect so your catering source doesn’t have to rely on their crystal ball to interpret your request.

If you don’t provide the details and descriptive information, then we get to choose - and If we choose or read the crystal ball incorrectly as to what we think you are requesting, are we wrong or are you?

 

Let me introduce myself . . . 

My name is Paula Kraft and I am founder and President of Tastefully Yours Catering, an aviation specific caterer, located in Atlanta, Georgia for over 35 years.

Aviation Catering is a science not taught in Culinary School; it’s a function of experience, experimentation, basic trial and error, with constant feedback from flight crews and clients. It is a two-way communication. It is vital that this information and knowledge be shared throughout the industry. To this end, I have worked as the Chairman of the NBAA Caterer’s Working Group, a subcommittee of the NBAA Flight Attendant Committee, the NBAA Caterer Representative to the NBAA Flight Attendant Committee, for 9 years. 

Currently I am an active member of the NBAA Flight Attendant Committee Advisory Board and the NBAA International Flight Attendant Committee, Women in Corporate Aviation, Women in Aviation International, National Association of Catering Executives, International Flight Catering Association, the International Food Service Association and the International Caterer’s Association.

I have coordinated training programs and clinics for NBAA, EBAA and BA-Meetup conference attendees for over 10 years, created mentoring programs for caterers and flight attendants to broaden their aviation culinary skills, and to assist them in adapting to the unique challenges and constraints found in catering for general aviation. I recognize the need for training and have worked closely with flight departments, flight crews, schedulers and customer service reps at the FBOs to ensure that catering specific training provides information and skills necessary to reduce risk while assisting them in their job duties that include safe food handling, catering security, accurate transmission of food orders, and safe food production, packaging and delivery.

I fell into aviation catering quite by accident. I was the in-house caterer and bakery supplier for Macy’s department stores in Atlanta when catering was ordered for a Macy’s customer which was soon to change my life. After the client enjoyed the catering provided, I was summoned to the client’s corporate office to provide several of the items delivered through Macy’s to the executive dining room. Within a week, I was providing food for the flight department and my first order was for the President of a foreign country (as I was too be told soon after). So, here I am, some 35 years later, still loving every minute of every day in aviation catering.


Got a question?

Paula welcomes your comments, questions or feedback
email: paula.kraft@blueskynews.aero

 

©BlueSky Business Aviation News | 1st December 2016 | Issue #394
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