General Principles

Appears in
top 1000Les Halles Cookbook
Les Halles Cookbook

By Anthony Bourdain

Published 2004

  • About
While you may, for very good reasons, not wish to be one of us, you would do well to emulate professional cooks in certain aspects of your efforts at home. You should, whenever and to whatever degree possible, begin to think like a chef.

The absolute foundation of professional cooking, and the most useful thing I can teach you, is the concept of mise en place. As a cook, your “meez” is your first principle, your belief system, your religion, your Tao. All else springs from this basic relationship with your food and your environment. Literally speaking, mise en place means “put in place,” but it is so much more than that.