Category: Entrees

Just Simple Enough

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In his essay, “A Visit to Ferran Adriá’s Workshop,” Adrian Searle compares the work of one of the world’s most innovative chefs, Ferran Adriá, to that of an artist. After reading Searle’s experience in Adriá’s “workshop,” I can’t say that I disagree. Adriá had a lab in Barcelona utilized during the off season where he and a team of talented young chefs would dedicate hours of their time to developing new dishes for the upcoming season at elBulli, Adriá’s world-famous restaurant which closed in 2011. Adriá’s cooking is quite literally a science.

Searle lists a few of the innovations Adriá has so far for the upcoming season, including atomizer sprays to sweeten or salt your food at the table and spray-on sauces and aerosols of wine or chocolate. As if that’s not inventive enough, Adriá is also working with an odour expert to create scents, which perfume a little menu to accompany new dishes. Adriá describes his cooking as conceptual, which Searle compares to the artistic work of Marcel Duchamp, the father of conceptual art. Like Duchamp, Adriá doesn’t view cooking as the ordinarily perceived profession. He is a creator, utilizing the taste, texture, odor, form and color of all ingredients. Continue reading →

Equality for Eaters? — Thai Butternut Squash Soup

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“For a start, most animals who kill for food would not be able to survive if they did not, whereas we have no need to eat animal flesh. Next, it is odd that humans, who normally think of the behavior of animals as ‘beastly’ should, when it suits them, use an argument that implies that we ought to look to animals for moral guidance.” – Peter Singer, “Equality for Animals?”

Singer’s arrogance in his article “Equality for Animals?” is among the multitude of reasons why many omnivorous people despise vegans. Often, their vigilance against all animal products, including eggs, dairy, and honey, comes across as preachy or self-righteous. Many vegans are just as offended at someone delighting in a crispy fried chicken thigh as I am when I see someone wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat or tee. Politics aside, vegans can be a finicky bunch. Continue reading →

The Unspoken Tradition of Chicken Pot Pie

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“Tradition is not reproduced. It is thrown and it is caught. It lives a long time in the air.”    — Leon Wieseltier

In “Cooking the Kaddish,” Susan Gubar references this quote as she reminisces on family tradition. Gubar reflects on memories of her mother’s chicken soup as a way of embracing her cultural inheritance while she teaches herself the mourner’s Kaddish; or, rather as a way of procrastinating learning the mourner’s Kaddish. As Gubar mindlessly goes through the steps of preparing the chicken stock for her mother’s recipe, she repeats the second line of the Kaddish “B’almah dee-v’ra chiru-teh.” As she peels the skin from the chicken, “B’almah dee-v’ra chiru-teh” begins to sink in. With each ingredient and new line of prayer, Gubar is reminded of her childhood. She thinks back on family traditions of Grandma Alice’s German food on Friday nights or Mr. Levy’s battered attaché on Sunday evenings. Gubar parallels the traditional Jewish recipes with the sections of the prayer as she goes along. Continue reading →

Hands-On Ribs

 

Ah, the methods by which we prepare our food and the techniques with which we shovel that grub into our mouths – I have contemplated these aspects of eating at length and come to the conclusion they are two of the more important steps in feeding ourselves. And look how far we’ve come! It seems like just yesterday we were hacking away at critters with sharpened rocks.  Next we were spearing chunks of flesh on sharpened sticks and sticking ‘em in that newfangled fire. Then along came utensils. What game changers! Continue reading →