Clint Eastwood as USMC Gunnery Sergent Highway in Heartbreak Ridge may have said it best: "You improvise, adapt, overcome!" And it may be the unofficial mantra of the United States Marine Corps, along with their unofficial motto "Semper Gumby" (Always Flexible), but its good advice for anything you do in life. It can be especially important as a cook. You never know when you are going to be thrown a curve ball when your cooking for others. One of the most common things you may encounter is people with special dietary needs. It could be as simple as someone not liking certain ingredients, or more specific dietary needs such as someone being pescatarian, vegetarian or vegan. Or it could be a medical issue such as a diabetic or a food allergy. With food allergies you have to worry about your cooking knocking them dead, literally!
Recently I did a demo dinner with an awesome family in Michigan. One of the clients was a vegetarian. While I like to poke fun at vegetarians, having one as a client is a regular occurrence. I knew I would have one at the event but sometimes you get surprised with this at the time of the event. And when this happens you have to think on your feet. Improvisation is as important to a cook as it is to an actor or a musician. You might be able to run to a nearby store and grab some new ingredients or you may need to use what you or the clients have on-hand. As this demo dinner was based around an Italian main dish, I wanted to keep with the theme and make another pasta. I was already using spaghetti and had garlic, onion and canned tomatoes on-hand so I made a quick tomato-basil sauce. The clients were happy, every one enjoyed the food and the demo dinner was a success.
To be good at improvisation you need to keep your skills up and be flexible. Sometimes you can't rely on having a cookbook with you. I regularly spend time just reading cookbooks and cooking magazines. I take mental notes. Sometimes I even write ideas down and keep them in my knife case. I'm not really trying to memorize whole recipes, just get ideas for recipes. I like to combine multiple recipes together, at times, to come up with something different. It takes time, but after a while you will learn what things go together and can come up with your own recipes.
Food allergies are something entirely different to handle. I always ask the clients during the consultation if anyone has an special dietary needs or allergies. Dealing with a vegetarian at the last minute is much easier than a food allergy. With food allergies you may not even be able to cook any of what you had planned as just the presence of a certain food may be a serious issue for the person with allergies.
The morale of the story is to do your homework. Whether its being familiar with different diets or food allergies or just having a few tricks up your sleeves in the event you get surprised at the time of the event.