Molecular Gastronomy Domine

Alice Waters let me down this week. It’s not the first time, won’t be the last, I’m sure. I was listening to a riveting episode of a podcast called Freakonomics Radio entitled ‘Waiter, there’s a Physicist in My Soup!’ The podcast revolved around the no longer quite so new trend of ‘molecular gastronomy’ and the work of physicist/cookbook author Nathan Myhrvold, whose monstrous tome ‘Modernist Cuisine’ will be hitting the shelves sometime soon. Alice, it seems, was brought on to ‘balance’ the conversation but she, I must admit, left me wishing for more.



I first encountered ‘modernist cuisine’ while working in San Francisco, when I started to hear rumblings on the fringes of the culinary world about a Spanish chef, Ferran Adria, who was making waves, winning awards, changing the game. At first blush, I was enamoured, he seemed to represent a next logical step for folks like me, folks who wanted to push the creative boundaries of high end cuisine. Millennium, where I worked at the time, also relied heavily on unusual techniques to translate our vegan concepts for a mass audience. I read about Adria’s deconstructionist ideas and began to incorporate them into my own dishes—rethinking everything from tamales to bouillabaisse...I found myself asking “what is it about this dish that makes it specifically ‘this’ dish?” and in the answers, often, I found lots of room to play.



I also read about Heston Blumenthal, owner of Britain’s The Fat Duck, perennial ‘second best restaurant in the world’ (placing, for many of the last several years, just behind Adria’s ElBulli in the British magazine Restaurant’s prestigious annual poll) and another proponent of high concept technique. Other names appeared in connection with this movement, Herve Thís, Nicolas Kurti, José Andrés, and my personal favourite, Harold Mcgee, a food scientist who made a name for himself by debunking old wives tales (like the one about how searing the meat ‘seals in the juices’) with a combination of accessible writing and meticulous attention to detail as well as to the scientific method.



I liked these ideas about deconstruction, about re-imagining what was possible with food, even about pulling techniques from one discipline (like pastry or Asian) to another. Savoury ice creams and sorbets became common (at least in our world), foams and whips, intentionally broken emulsions, layering hot, cold, raw and cooked foods in new ways to achieve unusual and even incredible results. In many ways what we were doing was adding value to ingredients, providing a justification for our prices in the same way that our choice of plates, linens, décor and even our music helped to ease our patrons into a more ‘high dollar’ kind of mood.



In the next few years, I read about and was a witness to even more elaborate techniques; flash freezing with liquid nitrogen, sous-vide cooking (poaching foods for hours or days in a water bath inside vacuum sealed bags), dehydrators, vacuum infusions, using blowtorches and various chemical reactions with calcium chloride, sodium alginate and other pharmaceutical sounding ingredients to achieve new textures, new flavours, and new presentations. Edible printing on edible paper, smoking a chocolate cake in a pipe...The weirder the idea, the more likely it was that one of these molecular gastronomy types had tried it.



It was fun, but over time, I had to ask myself, “Is this real food? Is this important?” It certainly felt important, to be a part of the ‘new cuisine’, but the more closely I examined it, the less important it seemed. My chef, Eric Tucker, always kept a good head on his shoulders about that stuff. He liked to cook pretty close to the mark—he had a wild streak, for sure, that would come out at wine pairing dinners, for New Years Eve or for other special events; and he certainly indulged my whims and those of the rest of the kitchen staff, investing in foaming canisters and the like, things like agar gelatin and xanthum gum; but Eric was, at heart, a farmers’ market kind of guy. He liked the best produce around, the most unusual and fun ingredients, new varieties of basil or peppers, white asparagus from this guy, stinging nettles or wild cinnamon cap mushrooms from that. He favoured ethnic preparations, traditional dishes with a history of comfort. Where I found that I reveled in the possibilities of experimenting with various meat substitutes to replicate or expand on the meat dishes of fine cuisines, he seemed to seek out traditional recipes that had never had a meat component to begin with, or if it did, it was something we could easily replace with a minimum amount of distraction.



I also met a lot of farmers in this period, working with Eric, and as his sous chef, I found myself fielding several calls a day from various purveyors, farmers, producers, foragers, characters and even outlaws. Eric would have a line out on huitlacoche, an edible fungus that grows on ears of corn, and months later would receive a call and have to drive to a parking lot in the suburbs to trade brown paper bags of infected ears for wads of cash like some kind of mid level drug dealer. Shifty types would appear by the dumpster late at night with some weird variety of peach they had scaled a fence to secure. These farmers and foragers had no interest in molecular gastronomy, they were interested in botany, maybe a bit of biology; it was a science, to be sure, of a different sort.



I also discovered some other chefs who were adding value to their food through entirely different means. Technique, yes, but technique informed by a combination of traditional methods and the new science. Chefs like Alice Waters, Patrick O’Connell, Paul Bertolli and Thomas Keller. Chefs who added value the way Eric did, by shopping well, seeking out the best of the best, and also by honouring the generations of technicians who had gone before.



Molecular gastronomy is exciting and fun and is not going anywhere anytime soon; as long as there are people out there who are willing to pay for a value added experience, for flash and bang, for a bit of excitement. But my interest in its merits, over time, has certainly begun to fade. As it has, I feel, with the gastronomic community as a whole—this past year’s winner of Restaurant magazine’s prestigious best restaurant in the world award was a restaurant named Noma in Copenhagen that specializes in the ultra local and the pure. Noma’s Chef Rene Redzepi is an almost literal bridge between the two worlds I am attempting to describe; he has trained with both Ferran Adria and Thomas Keller. His award, in my mind, marks a fork (knife and spoon?) in the road of our collective culinary journey. His restaurant points to a path that doesn’t lead away from this new cuisine; it leads through it.



I believe that some of the techniques and approaches pioneered by molecular gastronomy will stick; some already have; food and cooking, after all, is science. In that regard, it’s just a new name for an old idea. Many of the grand techniques developed by great chefs over time were simply the best science they had to work with in their day or were the result of the same experimental techniques of trial and error (and/or happy accidents) that drive mainstream science today. Escoffier would have welcomed a physicist in his kitchen in much the same way as our top chefs do today. But I don’t think that molecular gastronomy will subvert, supplant or replace our existing cuisine as a whole, either.



So how did Alice Waters let me down? Alice, in a word, is a highly important symbol for the organic and local foods movement. Some would say that she has been the engine of change. Yet when she spoke on this show about her love of simplicity, of her annoyance with high concept technique, she honestly came across as a Luddite. And possibly even a little bit dotty. I, at first, blamed the edit—the hosts of the show have worked with Myhrvold in the past, and I can’t help but feel that this episode, while fascinating, was also a bit of a plug for his upcoming six volume widely acclaimed (even before being published) new encyclopedic treatise on all of the techniques developed so far in this new and fascinating world of high concept ‘modernist cuisine.’ Myhrvold was certainly the focus and Alice just didn’t read as well in this show. I felt annoyed that she didn’t ask (or didn’t get to ask...) what seemed to me like the most important questions, the ones that keep me up at night, the real reason that I don’t think molecular gastronomy will be changing the way we eat on the whole anytime soon. The questions that I would like to ask are these: “Is all this important? Does this really matter?”



Does tapioca starch infused seaweed caviar help to feed the hungry? Does smoking chocolate cake in a pipe help to clean up the environment? Does three-quarters of the world living on less than two dollars a day in any way benefit from seawater foam or bacon ice cream? I don’t know. Granted, those folks aren’t eating at Chez Panisse either (Alice Waters’ famous culinary Mecca), but at least some of the food science that I associate with the movement she has come to symbolize, the science of organic and sustainable farming, of biodiversity, of local foods, of clean, healthy and community building food sourcing, of finding harmony between our food choices and the things in which we believe; at least those ideals have a chance of changing something more than how exciting our expensive meal will be tonight. I guess that’s why I felt like she let me down. But that’s OK, because I can always just ask those questions myself, right?



You know what? So can you.

Go Ask Alice...

I didn’t hear about Alice Waters until after I got to San Francisco. It was a little embarrassing at the time, but in retrospect, it seems appropriate. I wasn’t supposed to be dating, but anyway, there I was, talking with a girl I’d met...well...in a bar, and telling her about my crazy decision to move out to San Francisco (on a bus, with just a rucksack) to become a chef. She seemed impressed, and then said in that knowing mix of world weariness and mild condescension which is unique to big city folk, ‘Oh, you must have moved out here because of Alice.’ I didn’t know it yet, but she was right. My urge was to say ‘Of course’ for fear that a mere legal aide might realize she knew more about this mysterious and apparently important figure than an actual (if a bit naïve) aspiring chef, but (thank goodness) I was honest, and as a result she ended up loaning me a copy of the Chez Panisse Café cookbook.



By the time I actually met Alice Waters, briefly, a few years later, I was finally and well aware of her influence and symbolic sainthood as the de facto founder of ‘California Cuisine.’ I had also thought long and hard about what I would say when I finally met her. My opportunity came after having the honour of serving her a ‘Farmer’s Market’ dinner (five courses, each centered on the product of a single farm) with Eric and the rest of the Millennium crew. She and Cecelia Chiang (whom Alice has described as ‘the Julia Child of Chinese cuisine’) had attended the event as the guest of Millennium’s apparently well connected and always lovable owners (in addition to being the best possible advertising for the vegan diet), Anne and Larry Wheat. After the meal, Eric and I were ushered out to hold court at the table, but before I had a chance to dazzle her with my charm (or pester her with my shameless hero worship, whichever you prefer), she leaned in close with a conspiratorial smile and said ‘Slow Food. It started in Italy, we’re bringing it to California, look it up, read about it.’ I had finally met the inspirational queen of West Coast Cuisine, and she had high jacked my chance to praise her with a teaching moment.



To read about Alice Waters is probably not unlike reading about a Joan of Arc or a Mother Theresa. Her ability to stay ‘On Message’ in the numerous articles and books written by and about her is impressive. From the reader’s perspective, she seems to live the life of a food puritan, always knowing the provenance of every pear, the story of every stonefruit, the very chicken which begat the egg. She sets an example in her every action, or so it would seem. I am fascinated by the disconnect I seem to feel when examining such people; it’s almost as if it would be sacrilege to report on a shortcoming, because they are so important symbolically to the communities for whom they speak.



My first ambition was to be a preacher. I was raised in the Baptist church and I had an excellent pastor, Dr. Dick Maples: a wonderful teacher, a genuinely nice man and a good shepherd. The good Doctor’s charisma was buttressed by his knowledge and wit; some of the best comedy timing I’ve ever learned was in the Sunday morning sermons he delivered. Dr. Maples was also the man I went to in my teen years when I realized I was losing my faith. He was patient and did not judge me. He answered the questions with the best of his theology, pointing out the most positive parts of his faith, and often even changed the subject to the politics of the day, about which we were both pleased to discover that we shared many views. He didn’t push me or browbeat me; he just focused on the positive and tried to be a good example.



Chez Panisse was founded on the principle, inspired by a trip which Waters had taken in France, of serving only fresh, seasonal, local food, and nothing else. The menu was a fixed price, the staff was well paid, the space was crafted by artisans, and the food was prepared by hand. These days, we’ve all heard of such restaurants, or restaurants that have aspired to such goals, but at the time, it was a revolution. The once humble converted home in Berkeley still serves its fixed price dinner nightly in the downstairs dining room with its open kitchen and has even expanded to include an upstairs Café with a more diverse menu, and another stand up Cafe (Café Fanny) a few blocks away; all of which have stayed true to a vision of local, seasonal and organic foods.



But Alice’s Restaurant started as an idea not just to reinvent the restaurant industry (which it has), but to change the way people think about food, or about their relationship with food, with each other, and in actuality, with the planet itself. In fact, it is safe to say that if you have heard of organic food, Chez Panisse is a likely reason. It was not ground zero (but it was close) for the organic movement, environmentalism, or the fair trade movement or even for the sense of community awareness that typified the West Coast youth politics of the heady decade from which it sprang. But it was an institution that brought those philosophies together under one roof with an ambition rarely seen outside of a church, a nonprofit group, or a political party. As such, it did become ground zero for a retooling of the industry for which I have felt my calling: the art and lore of breaking bread, of life through food, of giving and sharing at the hearth and at the table.



Alice Waters is rarely described as a great businesswoman (it took seven years for the little idea to turn a profit, and even then it was under someone else’s hand) or even as a great chef, a title she herself has eschewed. In fact, she was once famously criticized by a prominent French chef who said, ‘That’s not cooking, it’s shopping,’ a quote I have heard her repeat as high praise. Even the night I met her, she was late for the dinner and even answered her cell phone during the meal, an irony not lost on us as Chez Panisse was also famous for being one of the first restaurants to require diners to turn off their cell phones. She is not a saint, as she has often been described, but a human, with all of the flaws which that condition entails. But in the same way Dr. Maples deftly steered the subject away from the Spanish Inquisition or the fate of Ghandi’s soul in our discussions, I rarely dwell on Alice’s shortcomings when I think about her importance as a symbol.



By living her principles and pursuing her dreams to the best of her ability, Alice has helped to create a movement that has gone from California Dreaming to the fastest growing sector of the food industry in North America, and is quietly but assuredly changing the world in the process. But even in recent interviews she has not once rested on her laurels. Her new projects include a foundation, a prison garden program and an idea inspired by driving by a public elementary school in her neighborhood called the Edible Schoolyard Project, which seeks to share her principles with a whole new generation of eaters through hands on involvement in the production of their own school lunches. If that won’t change the world as we know it, then I don’t know what will. Alice is not a perfect person, but she is a perfect inspiration.



Slow Food, a movement started in Italy in 1986 to protest the building of a McDonald’s at the base of the Spanish Steps in Rome, has grown to become an international advocate for traditional foodways and recipes, biodiversity through heirloom seeds and livestock varieties, organic and small production agriculture, even wine and cheese-making; or, in more general terms, an advocate for the preservation of the pleasure of taking our time and appreciating life, food, and the act of sharing. Instead of dividing its membership into producers and consumers, it uses the terms producers and co-producers, thus implicating all of us in the process of change. As she predicted when I met her, Alice Waters did bring Slow Food to the US; in fact, just this year she helped to coordinate the largest celebration of American food in history; her ‘Slow Food Nation’ event boasted an attendance of 50,000 people in downtown San Francisco around a victory garden in the Civic Center Plaza.



I had a chance to dine at the Café during my San Francisco years. It was a treat, so simple that at first glance it seemed almost unimportant; but under scrutiny revealed many truths: care, attention to detail, sincerity, honesty, belief in the product and its importance. A chicken dinner became a little prayer on a plate. Ultimately, I did not become a preacher, but I did follow my heart. I did listen to that still and quiet voice inside me that said, ‘go forth and do good works.’ I often ponder the nature of what it means to be good. I think, in my heart, it is to think in terms of the community over one’s self. It is to do what is best before what is easy. I never did become a preacher, just as most boys never become astronauts or firemen, but I did find my faith, and through the organic movement and our restaurant, my voice. As for Alice Waters, I mentioned that I had thought long and hard about what I would say when I finally met her. I would have said thank you.



On the inside flap of the Chez Panisse Café cookbook, Alice is quoted as saying: ‘[We had] an ideal: to create a community of friends, lovers, and relatives that spans generations and is in tune with the seasons, the land, and human appetites.’ That ‘delicious revolution’ sounds pretty good to me.