Roland G. Henin Read online

  Thirty years later, I find myself driving to Buffalo, New York, to meet Chef Henin at the Niagara Falls Culinary Institute (NFCI). Chef has invited me to witness two of his protégés—Executive Chefs of Delaware North Corporation (DN)—in final preparations for their Certified Master Chef (CMC) exam to be held in one month in Pasadena, California. Since his foreword contribution, Chef Henin and I had begun collaborating on another book project. While Chef refused a biography and balked at being featured, he was open to contributing a few stories. We spoke about once a month. Trust grew. Eventually, Chef suggested interviewing mentees to offer stories about working with him to deepen the perspective. After several interviews, Chef Henin suggested the visit to Buffalo. “If you want to know me and what I do, it would be good for you to observe the practice session for the CMC exam.”

  The drive from Brattleboro, Vermont to Buffalo, New York is approximately four hundred miles.

  * * *

  As I make my way along Interstate 90 West, my mind wanders back … back to 1983, at the Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, New York. I am at the most prestigious culinary school in the nation, at a time when “American Chef” was an oxymoron. An image of a man appears, in a place called the Fish Kitchen … what a silly name for a kitchen, yet this place was no joke.

  Students attended Fish Kitchen just before embarking on their several-month externship. It served as a capstone of sorts—the completion of the first half of their academic journey. Fish Kitchen was also a rite of passage, run by some crazy Frenchman, the Great Chef ROOLLAAAHHND. Tall dude, intimidating. Apparently some big shot.

  At the beginning of the unit, Chef Henin addressed his new students, announcing that if the group performed in a particularly outstanding manner, students could remain after class to ask him questions. Chef Henin taught the “PM” or dinner shift. Now, “after class” was around midnight, and the last thing any young alcohol-driven culinarian wants is to “have the honor” of staying after class to ask questions—questions that wouldn’t even be on a future test!

  Except …

  Except that this was Master Chef Roland Henin. Every student understood what a rare privilege it was to speak with this great man, and that, in turn, offered bragging rights: the later we stayed, the better we looked. Culinary school was competitive, and we used any possible marker available to distinguish ourselves from our peers in order to gain the prime opportunities post-graduation. In the evenings, as classes ended their shifts and students began milling down the halls, everyone would take a moment to peek into Chef Henin’s kitchen. If the lights were still on, they peered jealously at the sacred group who had performed an exemplary job and were duly awarded the opportunity of remaining in his presence to garner sage secrets of the craft.

  What was it about this man? I worked with him for only one month, over thirty years ago, yet he remains as present in my mind as if it were today. Whenever someone asks, “Who was the greatest influence in your culinary career?” Henin immediately comes to mind. Honestly, if anyone asks, “Who is the greatest influence in your life, period?” The same name emerges. How can it be that, after such a brief time, this man left more of an impression in my life than any other teacher, relative, friend, or counselor?

  I often wonder if I have simply romanticized our brief encounter. And now, continuing down Interstate 90, I begin doubting the sanity of making this nearly thousand-mile round trip. What did I expect? That Master Chef Roland G. Henin would present himself as some sage guru? That I would be validated in this long-held fantasy?

  I mean, seriously. How good could the guy actually be?

  * * *

  I arrived in Niagara Falls after 9:00 p.m. and left a voice message with Chef, planning to see him in the morning. He immediately returned my call and said to come over, immediately. When I arrived, the two CMC candidates were finishing up their training for the night. I inquired about Chef. While the candidates cleaned and prepared for the following day, Chef Henin had gravitated into the adjacent kitchen where the NFCI Junior Culinary team practiced. I opened the door to the kitchen. The room appeared dim and quiet, yet active. Young students were stationed at several tables, creating pie shells. Everyone focused downward, their hands busy with the pastry.

  A chef instructor greeted me with a smile and outstretched hand. I had already interviewed Scott Steiner and looked forward to meeting him. After we made our acquaintances, I asked if Chef Henin was there. He smiled more broadly, gesturing toward the back of the kitchen. I looked over to where a tall man in a long white lab coat stood with his back toward us, leaning over a workstation. Two students were on either side of him, peering in. The tall man said something to the students that made them smile and nod their heads. He patted one student gently on the back and then began slowly walking past the next table, looking at more students’ work.

  Chef Steiner called out to the tall man in the long white lab coat. Chef Henin slowly turned around and looked up. He walked toward me.

  Roland,

  There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t give thanks for all you did to make my career so special. With your guidance and keen eye for details you put me on the right path on a passion I so loved. I have shared your name so many times over the years to my young cooks and upper management, to always do things right and give it your best at all times. I truly feel blessed that you gave me the chance and believed in me. I’ll never forget when you called me in to your office when I was nineteen years old. You told me I had a natural gift for cooking, that I was too young to understand, but one day would. I understand now, as I have seen and taught some young culinarians who are so talented. My best to you, my friend and mentor, and have a great day.

  Jerry

  This letter arrived on August 8, 2015; however, it could have arrived at any time within the past fifty years. Roland Henin has received thousands of such messages, all relating the same sentiment: You changed my life for the better, more than anyone else, and I will always remember.

  Roland Henin is a notable chef—a Certified Master Chef, in fact—one of an elite group in the United States. Since its inception in 1981, only sixty-eight chefs have earned this right. He is also a master fisherman, if one might earn such a title. Seafood purveyor Ed Brown quipped, “The man is half-fish.” But what Roland Henin is most—what he is the greatest at, what matters most to him and makes him who he is—is a mentor. Chef Steve Mengel, his former CIA student, says, “Chef Henin is more of a teacher than a chef … his way is to instruct, inspire, transform … to produce great chefs.”

  Roland Henin is the chef’s chef, the man behind the scenes. Identify a culinary rock star and inquire about his greatest influences: as an apprentice with the Balsams and Greenbrier resorts; as a student at the Culinary Institute of America; as a gold medalist in culinary competitions; or as one of the many culinarians to pass through Delaware North. Chef Henin left his mark.

  This is truly remarkable, when you consider how this man was made. How is it that a man—

  • whose father died when he was young

  • who chose to be estranged from his stepfather

  • who claims to have no mentor in his life

  —became, perhaps, the greatest culinary mentor in America?

  What Chef Henin leaves behind—more than any gold medal or three-star Michelin restaurant, more than any wild kitchen story or life lesson—is mentoring. His legacy is thousands of great chefs—chefs deeply rooted in the fundamentals while harshly challenged to embrace their own unique gifts. Chef Henin is the Johnny Appleseed of this industry. Every culinary venue, competition, and federation is associated with this man. Over the course of fifty years, spanning across the globe, Chef Henin has singlehandedly affected an entire contemporary culinary culture … one chef at a time.

  Chef Thomas Keller coined it best in stating, “There was Zeus, and there was Roland, god of cooking.”

  * * *

  Roland Henin was one in the early waves of European che
fs to cross the Atlantic and bring classical cuisine to American culture. After World War II, European chefs began settling in America and opening restaurants. They brought with them their culinary secrets and cooks from their country. This culture remained insular. “American Chef” was indeed an oxymoron; it simply did not exist. American culture was caught up in fast food and frozen dinners. America was a baby—so far behind.

  The first US culinary school, the Culinary Institute of America, founded in 1946 by Frances Roth, served as a vocational school for postwar veterans to learn a trade. The Greenbrier Culinary Apprenticeship Program in West Virginia opened about a decade later. In 1970, the CIA relocated to its current Hyde Park, New York location. From there, change happened swiftly. Johnson & Wales established its culinary arts program in 1973. The Culinary Apprenticeship at the Balsams Grand Resort Hotel in New Hampshire followed suit in the mid-1970s. Master Chef Ferdinand Metz took over the helm as president of the CIA in 1980, and soon after, opened the American Bounty Restaurant—one of the first in the nation devoted to American cuisine. “Bounty” was one of three student-staffed restaurants to make their debut on the Hyde Park campus in a three-year span.

  The next generation of immigrant chefs longing to remain in the states, including our Chef Henin, had options. They could prove their worth not only in the restaurants, but also as culinary educators. Henin explains:

  All the first American chefs were immigrants. There were French restaurants in Montreal, Quebec, New York, Chicago, and also, more ethnic cuisine—Chinese and Italian. In 1967, immigration was more lenient. Still, you had to prove you were a teacher—able to train and contribute. As a chef, I could train others to become a chef!

  From the late sixties to early eighties, Old School chefs founded restaurants in major US cities, hiring only fellow Europeans, even though American cooks were now being trained by their European colleagues in US culinary schools. Mike Colameco, founder/producer of Real Food on PBS, recalls,

  You don’t think of it, these days. It seems like such a long time ago. I don’t want to say “bias,” but there was a hiring practice … you could kind of understand it, in a very myopic way: they were trained in France; they were comfortable working with people who spoke the same language; they had the same cultural traditions and culinary reference points. If you say, I wanna make a certain type of consommé, or I want to do a Dover sole, or a lamb this way, everybody was on the same page.

  The idea of American cooks was still pretty new on the upper levels: the CIA and Johnson & Wales were producing graduates who were good cooks after they got out, or especially a few years out. Regardless, you couldn’t get a job as a CIA grad if you weren’t French, in those kitchens. It is hard to think back on a time when being American [laughs]—no, or being a white male in any industry—was going to work against you.

  In a kind of odd “reverse cultural” discrimination, pioneering chefs like Roland Henin and Jean-Jacques Rachou became subversive radicals in this New World. Civil rights and punk rock sensibility extended beyond the college campus and into professional kitchens. These culinary visionaries didn’t just embrace their new life; they forced open the doors for this first generation of young chefs, desperate to enter into their own culinary culture, and later, to establish their own cuisine. Guys like Roland Henin broke down the walls of discrimination and, quite literally, created the American Chef. Mike Colameco continues,

  The baton passed to us, from them. Now, when I look back contextually, we all stand on the shoulders of these guys. That’s how it works; there’s no other way to put it. We learned cooking from them. We learned the restaurant business from them. By the 1990s, Americans were chefs in their own right.

  With each phone call to his colleagues and each scrap of paper he’d hand to a student, Roland Henin planted an American seed into American culinary soil. The next time you enjoy that hot new restaurant, grab a bite at a gourmet food cart, choose from an array of organic options at Whole Foods, and support artisan culinary crafts from your local farmers market, please take a moment to thank Roland Henin.

  Of course, immediately after you thank him, he will most politely yet curtly remind you to thank the others—ALL the many pioneering chefs who deserve the same respect and acknowledgement: Jean-Jacques Rachou, Eugene Bernard, Fritz Sonnenschmidt, Bruno Elmer, Albert Kumin, Jacques Pépin, Gunther Heiland, Ferdinand Metz, and so many others.

  This book could be about any of these great men (and a few women) who contributed as much to our American culinary terrain. Our mentor would be the first to agree; in fact, he insisted we honor them. It’s simply because of my path—meeting Chef at the CIA and stepping out of the culinary world for the majority of my life—that I know only two of these pioneers, Roland Henin and Pierre Latuberne. Well, three, if you count Raimund Hofmeister, but he’s a bit of a spring chicken compared to the others…. And through these interviews, I’ve come to know many others—the next generation of great chefs who stand on the shoulders of these pioneering giants.

  As Master Chef Roland G. Henin says, “In good cooking … always.”

  A note about the interviews:

  Interviews are transcribed verbatim and in the speaking style of each participant. Only minor changes have been made for the sake of clarity. Grammatical inaccuracies and informal tone are not meant to disparage the interviewee or offend the reader, but rather, to maintain the integrity of each unique voice. Also, there is some degree of expletive nature. I’m sorry, ladies, but the kitchen used to be a man’s world.

  As the chefs say, take it all with a grain of salt.

  Navigating the River

  “If you live under my roof, you do as I say.”

  “Well, it’s pretty simple. Then I don’t live under your roof.”

  —RGH

  FOOD WAS SACRED

  Roland Gilbert Henin was born on September 22 in the town of Tarare, France, a small village a few kilometers northwest of Lyon. His family eventually moved to Nancy, France, a city in the northeastern French region surrounded by rolling hills and situated on the left bank of the River Meurthe. He was the eldest son of three. Roland’s father was a chemiste who created paints for postwar renovations (a chemistry cook, you might say), while his mother cared for the family and homestead.

  * * *

  RGH: My mom was born in an Italian household. Her family raised their very own rabbits, chickens, some ducks and gooses, two pigs per year, and some goats and lambs (we didn’t have lawn mowers in those days) along with their very own and large garden. They did their very own wines and distillated their schnapps or different eau de vie, along with much canning. My mother was the Kitchen Queen—and slave—tied to the stove for three meals a day, seven days a week. My grandmother from my mother’s side was the Baking Queen. On Mondays, she would bake the breads for the following week, plus all the specialty baking, such as occasion cakes and desserts. My father couldn’t cook a toast to save his life. He could make coffee, but that’s about it. My grandfather raised the animals and butchered them, along with making/fermenting all the alcohols: schnapps, mirabelle, cider, prunes/quetsche (damson plums).

  Such a great growing environment … everyone had their assigned job. I couldn’t wait to be old enough to get the job to scrape the pork and lamb casings that would be used for the sausages, saucisson sec and boudin … maybe eight or ten or so. All my family on both sides raised rabbits for years—rabbits, chickens, a few geese (they are great watchdogs … but a little messy). Once, I raised two pigs and used every possible bit of them for cooking … a lot of fun and a great learning experience, and the slaughtering opened my eyes! I am happy to have experienced this way of life.

  I didn’t have a lot of “playtime,” I didn’t have a bike—I was too busy helping out around the home. But in my free time, I did do one thing. I spent time on the river. I used to just go … no agenda, no schedule. I fished, cleaned, and gutted the fish at the public lavanderie, then went home and cooked it. Those were some of the bes
t days of my life.

  During the war, bombs damaged the farms and food became rare and precious. My father went through the farm country and collected rutabagas, onions, whatever he could find. We had ration stamps—each family received an amount according to their size. We would go to the baker and give him one ticket for one loaf of bread, then a ticket for milk and cheese—seldom butter. All food was rationed, and there was very little available. Food was sacred. You never left food on your plate. If you left it, your plate was served back to you in the evening. There was no waste, nothing thrown away. It was the philosophy of our lives: never ever waste food.

  My father died when I was nine years old, due to inhaling the toxic fumes from the paints he created. My mom had to get a job and as the eldest of three kids, I had to take care of my siblings. She remarried when I was about fifteen, when I began my college training studying accounting. To this day, I still love the numbers….

  THE BIG GUY

  RGH: I don’t remember ever having a mentor. My first job was in pastry, as an apprentice pastry cook. The reason I was there was not because I loved pastry. I had no idea about it. I needed a room and board. I had an argument with my stepfather and left home. I slept the first two nights behind the church because it was the only place … I didn’t want to go to the relative. I had no place to go, and I needed to do something. I bought a newspaper and I looked in the small ads, and it said, “wanted” or “needed” I don’t remember, “apprentice pastry cook. Room and board.” And that’s what I focused on: Room and board. I said, “Well, I can do that.” At the time, I was in my second year at the College Moderne, in Nancy. I thought I could do both. I had no idea how long it was going to be.