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12:52 Sep 26, 2011
French to English translations [PRO] Cooking / Culinary
French term or phrase:faites marcher
Hi,
I am looking for the English translation of the expression "faites marcher" said in French restaurant kitchens (to announce that the cooks can prepare the next meal). I cannot find it anywhere, please help! Thanks!
" ... Between breakfast and luncheon the head cook at the Hotel X would receive orders for several hundred dishes, all to be served at different times; he cooked few of them himself, but he gave instructions about all of them and inspected them before they were sent up. His memory was wonderful. The vouchers were pinned on a board, but the head cook seldom looked at them; everything was stored in his mind, and exactly to the minute, as each dish fell due, he would call out, ‘FAITES MARCHER UNE COTELETTE DE VEAU’ (or whatever it was) unfailingly. He was an insufferable bully, but he was also an artist. It is for their punctuality, and not for any superiority in technique, that men cooks arc preferred to women."
Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell, Chapter XIV http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79d/chapter14...
"Undoubtedly the most workmanlike class, and the least servile, are the cooks. They do not earn quite so much as waiters, but their prestige is higher and their employment steadier. The cook does not look upon himself as a servant, but as a skilled workman; he is generally called ‘UN OUVRIER’ which a waiter never is. He knows his power — knows that he alone makes or mars a restaurant, and that if he is five minutes late everything is out of gear. He despises the whole non-cooking staff, and makes it a point of honour to insult everyone below the head waiter. And he takes a genuine artistic pride in his work, which demands very great skill. It is not the cooking that is so difficult, but the doing everything to time. ..."
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Answers
14 mins confidence:
you can start it
Explanation: This is what we said in the restaurants I worked in in the US but there may be a jargon phrase that we weren't aware of.
emiledgar Belgium Local time: 02:31 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English, French PRO pts in category: 65
Explanation: This is the common expression for ask chefs to begin preparing food in the UK, otherwise known as calling food away. Starters away, mains away, desserts away etc for table XX.
"Mains away chef, table 1!" for example.
http://website.tevalis.com/Messaging-facility.html
Kitchen staff will also be alerted when courses are required through our course away messaging which allows for quick communication with kitchen staff using starters away/mains away/deserts away/coffees away allowing for an increased speed of service during busy service periods.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 8 hrs (2011-09-26 21:44:24 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
http://www.onehungrychef.com/2008/11/small-fish.html
As meat comes on order, I start to cook it immediately, so that while the customers are eating their first course, their steak is cooking and resting in a warm place. When they are “called away,” that is, ready for their mains, the meat has become perfectly tender and moist, and no one has to wait too long for their meal. Subsequently, on top of calling dockets, plating hot entrées, and directing the waiters, I was now trying to keep track of a dozen or so steaks on my grill.
Table by table the starters went out and, suddenly, or what seemed like suddenly, there was nothing. The printer had stopped, we had all the entrées out, and all the steaks were resting. And not a single table had been called away...
...These, at any rate, were the thoughts firing around in my brain in those free-fall seconds before it all began to happen. Tick, tick-tick, tick, tick. “MAINS AWAY 616! MAINS AWAY 201! MAINS AWAY 314!”
Jeux de Mots Germany Local time: 02:31 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 43
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