Restaurants: Vive les Surgel

Many a man groans and bears it when he comes home to find a TV dinner in the oven. Not Pierre Franey. The first time he found frozen dinners in his house at Valley Stream, N.Y., recalls Franey, “I was furious.” His gall was on account of Gallic upbringing. Born 46 years ago in Burgundy, Franey began an apprenticeship as a kitchen boy at 14, learned to cook at Paris’ Drouant restaurant (two Michelin stars), reached his culinary peak as chef of New York’s Pavilion (which would undoubtedly rate three stars if Michelin graded U.S. establishments). Like Friend and Fellow Chef René Verdon, who quit the White House last year after he was ordered to use frozen vegetables, Franey had always had a Gallic horror of anything surgelé.

Profitable Freeze. Yet he is also a reasonable man. In 1960, Franey left Pavilion to become vice president and top chef for the Howard Johnson chain of restaurants (785, plus 18 Red Coach Grills). Howard Johnson has been carefully moving into the profitable field of quick-frozen “gourmet” foods for its own dining rooms and for retail sales in supermarkets. Franey, therefore, forgot his French fury long enough to think about improving on the TV dinners his wife had bought.

He discovered that fresh meat holds its flavor better than does meat that was originally frozen at the packing house, then frozen again after being added to a recipe. Also, spices have to be limited in frozen foods because they grow stronger when a dish is thawed and reheated. When friends -raved over a dish of Franey’s sweetbreads in champagne sauce, without realizing that it had been frozen, Franey and his staff of 15 Howard Johnson chefs went into the quick-freeze business in earnest. Today Howard Johnson, along with its fried clams and charcoal steaks, turns out 24 gourmet dishes in one giant kitchen. Such meals represent a growing part of the chain’s $200 million annual sales.

Franey’s workday in his commissary kitchen at Queen Village, N.Y., would make a traditional French chef goggle. Howard Johnson mainstays are still thefrankfurter (20 million served last year) and the hamburger (15 million); Franey not only approves the quality of the ingredients for these French-frightening delicacies but has added his own touches to them. Principal touch: less fat, more lean. He also oversees the clams and the steaks. Last week Franey was busily processing 100,000 lbs. of Thanksgiving turkey.

Potential Fare. Thanks to Franey, the menu at any orange-topped Howard Johnson restaurant around the U.S. now includes Welsh rabbit, chicken stroganoff, veal scallopini, lamb curry and seafood thermidor. “We’re upgrading gradually,” says Franey. “You have to keep the average American in mind. But maybe some day we’re going to serve caviar at Howard Johnson’s.”

Still, a Pavilion chef would shudder at the Johnsonesque proportions Franey uses. His beef-burgundy recipe calls for 2½ tons of cubed beef, 60 gal. of burgundy wine, 600 lbs. of mushrooms, 700 lbs. of onions and 465 gal. of sauce. It serves 13,000.