It makes you want to go back to the canteen! In the videos
from his Tik Tok account “Le cantinier”, Guillaume Delsaux, 41, shows behind the scenes of the preparation of homemade pizzas, al dente pasta, or even mussels and fries concocted for 1,000 students in the kitchen of the high school where he works in Bressuire, in Deux-Sèvres. He loves his job and shows that it is possible, with the support of the Region and a motivated team, he would like to point out, to offer mostly homemade, balanced and tasty cuisine in collective catering.
@lecantinier And do you have any? 🍕 Savoyard or 🍕 2 salmon
The idea comes to him to post short videos based on the observation that the students confuse the dishes. “I made a video ‘if you see that, it’s veal liver, not steak and it doesn’t taste the same’. The concept of “you see that” included in his videos, was born. Since September 2021, he has launched an account specially devoted to videos shot in the canteen and already has 115,000 subscribers. “When my colleagues go for coffee, I make a little video,” he sums up, adding that he always has his (disinfected) phone on him. Convinced that the term “cantinier” will be more popular than that of “school catering cook”, he launched himself under this name even if “the cook in the canteen hates being called cantinier”, specifies the forties.
@lecantinier 3 potatoes and cabbage. | 🤡 #tiktokacademie #canteen @konbini 👀 they film me
Its section “SOS canteen trays”, consists of deciphering a photo sent by students. Undercooked meat, sticky breaded fish, elastic eggs, lawn spinach… He quickly comments on the images received, recalling for example that it is forbidden to serve rare meat in a community “there is a risk of bacteria developing”, warns- he. He has quite a few videos pending on the subject, sent in by young people from all over France.
Film behind the stove
“We don’t do everything homemade, we have to be 80 to 85%,” he explains. We use frozen vegetable bases from time to time and, when we go to make pies as hot starters, the bases are not homemade but the filling is, for example”. Exit also the ready-made veal bottoms which give the same taste to all the dishes. “While it is enough to recover the cooking juice when browning the turkey”, points out Guillaume Delsaux. They are a team of nine people to officiate to feed a thousand starving teenagers every day. He is not in charge of the kitchen and specifies that in this kitchen “the kitchen helpers don’t do all the dirty work, we take turns doing the washing up for a day, for example”.
@lecantinier part 1 “homemade foie gras” do you have any? 🤡 #tiktokacademie
A good atmosphere which contributes to the general motivation, in particular to make the students discover somewhat original dishes. “We are lucky to be able to make two or three choices of dishes every lunchtime, so we can introduce things like beef tongue, wild boar or ostrich for Christmas, welcomes the cantinier. This allows you to discover new flavors. The beef tongue, cooked on site and whose recipe was “well sold”, to young people was a great success.
Half less waste than the national average
The high school students meet there and the cantinier has made a video where he films the small words of congratulations on the napkins, left for the kitchen team. “The better we cook, the less students throw away,” says the cantinier. The less they throw away, the more we save and the more interesting things we can do like foie gras at Christmas. A beautiful virtuous circle. While the French average is 120 grams of vegetable waste per day and per student, the average in his establishment is 60 grams. Many initiatives have been implemented on this theme (weighing of waste, student investment, etc.) and the plates are made up on demand instead of being pre-filled.
@lecantinier part 1 “homemade foie gras” do you have any? 🤡 #tiktokacademie
His idea is also to encourage his colleagues (from the public because in the private sector he finds it more difficult) to ask for more resources to improve the school canteen and its image in France. He would like to encourage vocations in a profession that lacks young minds. His dream: to do a tour of France, in Etchebest version, but not restaurants, canteens, he laughs. “I would take a year of availability, he imagines. It would make me laugh and it could be useful for communities, which are involved in this aspect of course. »
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