Free Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson

would have a hard time enjoying herself. “Helga could do this better,” she would sniff disappointedly. And, probably because of its familiarity, Swedish food was never worth the price. “Look at what this costs!” she’d say, pushing the menu away.
    The ultimate luxury for most of the people we knew was peel-and-eat shrimp. Most of the shellfish in the area had been caught in my father’s hometown, Smögen, where it was boiled right on the boat, trucked down to Göteborg, and served with white toast, mayonnaise, and lemon. Peel-and-eat shrimp was popular because of the method of eating it. Proper table manners in Swedish homes requiredthe use of a fork and knife for everything, from fruit to sandwiches, but peel-and-eat was a vacation from all that buttoned-up propriety. The shrimp came out on a big platter, pink and plump, with the heads still on, and each person took a handful to his or her plate. From there, you would peel about ten at a time, then dip your hands in a bowl of water to clean them off. Next, you smeared a piece of toast with the mayo, arranged your peeled shrimp on top, and finished it with a sprinkle of chopped dill and a squeeze of lemon. Once you finished, you’d start the routine all over again. It was that tasty.
    Everyone in Gburg grew up on peel-and-eat, but my family had it more often than most because of my father’s Smögen heritage. Dad taught my sisters and me how to eat shrimp properly, sucking the meat out of the head, much the same way that people from New Orleans eat their mudbugs at a crawfish boil. My mother, Skånskan that she was, had a hard time adopting my father’s approach. She stuck to the tail meat instead.
    Decades later, when I met one of my most treasured mentors, the legendary New Orleans chef Leah Chase, I know that the way I attacked her crawfish was one of the reasons that she took a liking to me. I wasn’t just a European-raised/African-born chef with a big profile and a big head full of highfalutin ideas. No, ma’am. Leah Chase saw me eat and knew that I was a brown-skinned boy who loved good food and also knew better than to waste any of it.
    B Y THE TIME MY SECOND YEAR at Mosesson rolled around, my ambition for food was such that the curriculum seemed not only limited, but a waste of time. I didn’t know where I would end up or what I would cook, but I had a vague sense there was a world of amazing restaurants outside of Göteborg. Without classmates or professors to push me or encourage my dreaming, I feared I would become complacent. We continued to focus on the basic skills, everything from butchering to food-handling safety, and to split our time between lectures and hands-on practice. I enjoyed learning the classic preparationsof herring and appreciated the pride and confidence our older teachers took in teaching us how to lay out a proper smorgasbord, but most of my classmates had no real ambition and their attitude was distracting. They actually threw rotten tomatoes at each other when the teachers turned their backs. It was as if we were in junior high, not culinary school.
    To keep myself sharp, I turned each exercise into a little contest. Could I fill the pastry shells faster than any of my classmates? Could I wash and chop that dill faster than the teacher? Could I finish each squirt of whipped cream with the exact same curl?
    A few weeks into my second year, it was clear that I’d outgrown what the school had to offer. But if I left before the program was over, my father’s disappointment would be too much to bear. I’d already decided not to go to university, a big blow for a man with a doctorate and a deep belief in higher education. If I dropped out of culinary school, even if I dropped out because I wanted something more challenging, my father would see me as a quitter and see any future success as accidental, instead of being the result of the two things he valued most: focus and discipline. The only way out, as I saw it, was an off-site