[BONUS] The Art of Love and Cooking : First amuse-bouche (ENG)
So as promised, here's the first bonus post to The Art of Love and Cooking. An "amuse-bouche" is food in small bites that are usually served between the dishes; sometimes they sum up a whole dish, and anounce what comes next. It litterally means "mouth-entertainer".
Why a bonus post? What will it be about?
Because I did a lot of research before writing this fic, and I learned a bunch of seriously cool stuff about food and chefs along the way, so I thought I really had to share it with you guys, since I know some of you are interested in it.
Take this as some kind of DVD commentary, where you can learn more about the recipes and some aspects of the fic I can't explain or linger on in the chapters. I'll talk about the food mentionned in the chapters, of course, but also food philosophy and great chefs. Although if I realize afterwards that this idea is boring everybody except myself to death, I promise I will stop, be not afraid ^^
How frequent will it be?
I'll post one bonus after each chapter - except if I don't have anything interesting to say, which might very well happen.
Want to share? Variants, stories, experiences, food philosophy, restaurants, favourite chefs or cookbooks, likes or dislikes? Want to trade recipes?
Then be my guest and feel free to comment on these posts, off-topic is permitted as long as it's still food we're talking about, or food-related anyway.
Here we go:
1 - A small take on food philosophy: Puck and Marcel's debate
***Molecular cuisine and Ferran Adrià:
Some of you may already know this, but Ferran Adrià is the owner of the restaurant El Bulli (which is open only six months a year and has already received three Michelin stars along with the title of best restaurant in the world from the English magazine Restaurant). He's considered to be one of the best chefs in the world and more importantly, he's one of the founders of molecular cuisine, even if he prefers to call it avant-garde or "tecnoémocion" (a mix between technology and emotion).
What's molecular cuisine? It's a type of cuisine that uses science and state-of-the-art technologies to revisit and bend the very basis of cooking. The result is meant too be playful, humorous some will say, others would say magic, and sometimes a little confusing. It's about how far you can take a concept, about deconstruction, surprise, about putting the gourmet in danger, or at least in a position where he can't really make assumptions anymore. With molecular cuisine, you can have barbecue-grilled sherbet, cubic tomatoes, chorizo foam, squash oil caramel.
It's the equivalent of modern art in cuisine, so "avant-garde" might not be a misused term, here. Like everything so new and radical, it created a HUGE debate when it first came out in the open. To some people, molecular holds the future of gastronomy. To others, it's much ado about nothing and it's not even that spectacular or doesn't even taste that good. Molecular chefs, when the shine of the novelty wore out, were starting to get called "wannabe sorcerers" or cheap alchemists.
I've recorded a TV documentary about it last year: it was presented as a trend that was gaining more and more in popularity, with both the foodies and the chefs.
Soon enough though, during the summer, an issue of Le Figaro magazine was published (fyi, Le Figaro is a conservative magazine in France, generally read by the upper middle class) entitled "Le retour du terroir" (= "Back to basics"). The article said molecular cuisine was dying, because experimentations and science tricks had their limits, and that the chefs now were going back to classical style, sometimes sticking to recipes that have been invented at the beginning of the 20th century.
(Here I have to explain what terroir means: it's a peculiar notion, very French, and a little hard to explain. To make it simple, I'd say it's traditional cuisine and each region of France has its specificity about it. The quality of the product is very important in terroir (since terroir cuisine in each region uses products grown locally) and the notion implies a lot of local pride. And I mean, A LOT. Terroir literally means "land, earth".)
I wanted to talk about molecular vs terroir debate through Puck and Marcel. Marcel represents molecular cuisine - he really was set on it during the whole season 2 of Top Chef, and had even been criticized and turned into derision by his colleagues on the set for using "foam" with every dish he did. Puck represents the voice of the chefs who choose to stick to terroir and old, sturdy values in cuisine. I've always seen Puck as a little conservative, and I could also very well imagine he would root for simplicity and nice, clean dishes if he were a chef. In my fic, I've chosen Paul Bocuse as Puck's personal hero, and Marcel had been very clear in Top Chef that Joël Robuchon was his (which is interesting because whereas Robuchon doesn't necessarily root for terroir and classical cuisine, he's not too fond of molecular cuisine and often condemns it, even if he admits that Ferran Adrià is a very talented chef).
***Nouvelle Cuisine, Paul Bocuse and Joël Robuchon
Which leads me to the fascinating subject of Nouvelle Cuisine and Paul Bocuse.
First you need to know that Paul Bocuse is considered to be the greatest chef of all times, and it's a fact he's the most awarded ever. He's still alive and running a restaurant near Lyon in France.
Joël Robuchon and Paul Bocuse are part of the founders of Nouvelle Cuisine. It's a culinary movement that began in the 70s in France, when an important cultural revolution was at work : at that time, currents branded "nouveau/nouvelle" (which simply means "new" in French) were born, that raised against conservative and classical values. Cinema had Nouvelle Vague, Literature had Nouveau Roman, etc. And the small world of cuisine in France at that time was dramatically stagnating, because the chefs had to stick to a canon of recipes that were kind of "sacred" and never meant to be changed. There was a very precise way of preparing each dish that were listed under immutable names : sole Dugléré, Tournedos Rossini, etc.
Then Bocuse and Robuchon came along, and even at that time the concept of deconstruction was involved in their new philosophy: no more heavy and greasy sauces that had to be prepared three days before, the food no longer needs to be cooked for hours, nor to be presented whole: in Nouvelle Cuisine, it's served in small portions, bite-sizes, accompanied by small vegetables cut to tiny bits with a technique called julienne. The chefs can also use modern devices, like microwave ovens, sherbet machines, fridges, blenders. The time of cooking is reduced, so the product can be as faithful to itself as can be, some "new" cooking techniques are used to that purpose: steam, stir-fry, grill, etc. Finally, chefs that follow Nouvelle Cuisine principles want to appeal to all five of the human senses, so the artistic aspect of the plate is extremely important too, it has to be pleasing to the eye as well as the palate.
As I said before, new movements are often criticized, and Nouvelle Cuisine got a few scratches too - mainly because some unprofessional self-appointed "chefs" that claimed to belong to Nouvelle Cuisine started to flood the market with ridiculously small bits of food in giant plates and crazy prices. So, Nouvelle Cuisine at some point became synonymous to rip off and held a pejorative connotation for the longest time in France. I mean I grew up hearing about how Nouvelle Cuisine was a fraud, something very expensive that left you very hungry - and before I did my research about it I used to keep thinking along those lines, even though I was completely ignorant of the true principles of Nouvelle Cuisine, which are pretty much the norm everywhere, now.
It's because of Nouvelle Cuisine's bad reputation that Paul Bocuse, who had a very classical training as a chef, decided to drop it and go back to a more conservative style of cooking, and at the same time insisting on simplicity above all, serving dishes in his restaurant that are perfectly executed, without any fancy trick.
It's fascinating to me how cuisine seems to keep going back and forth between classical and modern, between innovation and conservatism. And in France, terroir is always a value you can go back to.
Anyway, Bocuse will appear again later in my fic, so that's enough with him for now. ^^
2 - Puck's sardine, Marcel's oysters
Marcel's dish in his cook-off with Puck has been inspired by a recipe I found in a (veeeeery expensive) gourmet magazine. It's representative of molecular cuisine, with at least two of its founding elements: the ever-criticized foam ("espuma", in the fic, which is Ferran Adrià's term; it simply means "foam" in Spanish), and the flash-freezed meringue made with liquid nitrogen, which is an ingredient very often used in molecular cuisine. The meringue was inspired by the documentary I saw about molecular cuisine: it was served in molecular chef Heston Blumenthal's restaurant, The Fat Duck, in England, except it was yuzu, and not oyster-flavoured. Molecular cuisine often plays on the shape of the food, so the variation of oysters under many forms was right in the theme too.
***"It was almost reminiscent of japanese cuisine, the subtlety with which it was all put together and the fact that it was less about the taste, which was, mainly, iodine, than about the texture."
This sentence can easily be understood if you've ever tasted the japanese dish called oden. Oden is a dish consisting of several ingredients (boiled eggs, cut-up vegetables, fish cakes etc) boiled in a dashi broth; so most of the components taste like, well, dashi. But you really start to understand this dish when you realize that it's not about the taste, which basically remains the same even though it's good, but about the play on the textures of the different components. This is to me the true genious of Japanese cuisine, this whole new dimension to explore.
As for Puck's sardine dish, I mainly composed it myself, even though I got the idea of the crunchy sardine out of an expensive book about a prestigious restaurant in Boulogne, Paris. I eat everything and I'm not picky, but sardine to me is definitely not the sexiest fish ever, so I thought Puck would show he's a true great chef if he could make something great out of it - it's like having a haircut that's commonly considered awful and rocking it (like, say, I dunno, a mohawk ;P ). As for the rest of the dish, there you have typical "terroir" with Provençale cuisine. Provence is a region in the south of France, and the flavours are very recognizable - tomatoes, olives, herbs, that sort of thing. The herbs are the most famous part of Provençale cuisine, since there's an herb mix called after the region: "herbes de Provence", tout simplement (its composition is thyme, rosemary, basil, oregano, sweet marjoram, and savory).
3 - Foie gras or not foie gras?
I have to admit first that I'm crazy about foie gras, and it's a delicacy that I find fascinating too because there are major ethical questions about animal rights that are raised with it, and even though nowadays people are widely informed about it thanks to the animal rights associations, even though they know very well how the geese are, let's face it, tortured, they can't seem to quit it. It creates a really strange relationship to it, food!kink in the stricter sense, with the self endlessly battling with the superego "-I shouldn't -But it's so good -But I really shouldn't, it's wrong -And yet so right" -- if you see what I mean.
All I know is that I wouldn't eat foie gras every day, only for special occasions and celebrations, but I also would be very sad in a world where it doesn't exist.
I personally prefer my foie gras dipped in a little flour then seared, with something that adds a sugary taste to it, like bits of pear, or grape. When the foie gras is presented as a terrine, I think it's best to eat it on a piece of black bread with onion jam, or fig jam, and with a glass of Sauternes - or Riesling. My number one guilty pleasure, though, the one that I can only whisper about in the dark is... seared foie gras on a steak, in a burger, Châteaubriand style. It's as guilty as can be, and it makes my toes literally curl when I eat one.
But foie gras will also make another apparition in this fic, so that's enough about it.
4 - Puck's radish toast
Inspired by a recipe found on a fellow French comicker's gourmet blog, A boire et à manger by Guillaume Long. It's a great read, but I'm afraid it's all in French. I changed the original recipe a bit and replaced the cream cheese (well it's not exactly cream cheese, it's a typically French product called fromage frais) by cottage cheese mixed with creme fraiche/fresh cream, the texture is a little lumpy because of the cottage cheese and I find that delicious. There also was garlic in the original recipe but I didn't think it was necessary.
Anyway, it's a very fresh and delicious snack, and it's extremely easy to make, so do try this at home. ^^ I insist on the red radishes, they're the best. Don't put too much fresh herbs, otherwise they'll really be overwhelming and you'll feel like you're munching grass.
Sometimes I put salted butter on the toast first like it's mentionned in the fic, but it has to be really, really good salted butter, because I consider salted butter to be srsly srs bsns!
I'm sorry, that was a very long post because of the part about food philosophy, the next bonus posts won't have to be so long, hopefully.
Okay, done! On to chapter 2, now! ^^
Why a bonus post? What will it be about?
Because I did a lot of research before writing this fic, and I learned a bunch of seriously cool stuff about food and chefs along the way, so I thought I really had to share it with you guys, since I know some of you are interested in it.
Take this as some kind of DVD commentary, where you can learn more about the recipes and some aspects of the fic I can't explain or linger on in the chapters. I'll talk about the food mentionned in the chapters, of course, but also food philosophy and great chefs. Although if I realize afterwards that this idea is boring everybody except myself to death, I promise I will stop, be not afraid ^^
How frequent will it be?
I'll post one bonus after each chapter - except if I don't have anything interesting to say, which might very well happen.
Want to share? Variants, stories, experiences, food philosophy, restaurants, favourite chefs or cookbooks, likes or dislikes? Want to trade recipes?
Then be my guest and feel free to comment on these posts, off-topic is permitted as long as it's still food we're talking about, or food-related anyway.
Here we go:
1 - A small take on food philosophy: Puck and Marcel's debate
***Molecular cuisine and Ferran Adrià:
Some of you may already know this, but Ferran Adrià is the owner of the restaurant El Bulli (which is open only six months a year and has already received three Michelin stars along with the title of best restaurant in the world from the English magazine Restaurant). He's considered to be one of the best chefs in the world and more importantly, he's one of the founders of molecular cuisine, even if he prefers to call it avant-garde or "tecnoémocion" (a mix between technology and emotion).
What's molecular cuisine? It's a type of cuisine that uses science and state-of-the-art technologies to revisit and bend the very basis of cooking. The result is meant too be playful, humorous some will say, others would say magic, and sometimes a little confusing. It's about how far you can take a concept, about deconstruction, surprise, about putting the gourmet in danger, or at least in a position where he can't really make assumptions anymore. With molecular cuisine, you can have barbecue-grilled sherbet, cubic tomatoes, chorizo foam, squash oil caramel.
It's the equivalent of modern art in cuisine, so "avant-garde" might not be a misused term, here. Like everything so new and radical, it created a HUGE debate when it first came out in the open. To some people, molecular holds the future of gastronomy. To others, it's much ado about nothing and it's not even that spectacular or doesn't even taste that good. Molecular chefs, when the shine of the novelty wore out, were starting to get called "wannabe sorcerers" or cheap alchemists.
I've recorded a TV documentary about it last year: it was presented as a trend that was gaining more and more in popularity, with both the foodies and the chefs.
Soon enough though, during the summer, an issue of Le Figaro magazine was published (fyi, Le Figaro is a conservative magazine in France, generally read by the upper middle class) entitled "Le retour du terroir" (= "Back to basics"). The article said molecular cuisine was dying, because experimentations and science tricks had their limits, and that the chefs now were going back to classical style, sometimes sticking to recipes that have been invented at the beginning of the 20th century.
(Here I have to explain what terroir means: it's a peculiar notion, very French, and a little hard to explain. To make it simple, I'd say it's traditional cuisine and each region of France has its specificity about it. The quality of the product is very important in terroir (since terroir cuisine in each region uses products grown locally) and the notion implies a lot of local pride. And I mean, A LOT. Terroir literally means "land, earth".)
I wanted to talk about molecular vs terroir debate through Puck and Marcel. Marcel represents molecular cuisine - he really was set on it during the whole season 2 of Top Chef, and had even been criticized and turned into derision by his colleagues on the set for using "foam" with every dish he did. Puck represents the voice of the chefs who choose to stick to terroir and old, sturdy values in cuisine. I've always seen Puck as a little conservative, and I could also very well imagine he would root for simplicity and nice, clean dishes if he were a chef. In my fic, I've chosen Paul Bocuse as Puck's personal hero, and Marcel had been very clear in Top Chef that Joël Robuchon was his (which is interesting because whereas Robuchon doesn't necessarily root for terroir and classical cuisine, he's not too fond of molecular cuisine and often condemns it, even if he admits that Ferran Adrià is a very talented chef).
***Nouvelle Cuisine, Paul Bocuse and Joël Robuchon
Which leads me to the fascinating subject of Nouvelle Cuisine and Paul Bocuse.
First you need to know that Paul Bocuse is considered to be the greatest chef of all times, and it's a fact he's the most awarded ever. He's still alive and running a restaurant near Lyon in France.
Joël Robuchon and Paul Bocuse are part of the founders of Nouvelle Cuisine. It's a culinary movement that began in the 70s in France, when an important cultural revolution was at work : at that time, currents branded "nouveau/nouvelle" (which simply means "new" in French) were born, that raised against conservative and classical values. Cinema had Nouvelle Vague, Literature had Nouveau Roman, etc. And the small world of cuisine in France at that time was dramatically stagnating, because the chefs had to stick to a canon of recipes that were kind of "sacred" and never meant to be changed. There was a very precise way of preparing each dish that were listed under immutable names : sole Dugléré, Tournedos Rossini, etc.
Then Bocuse and Robuchon came along, and even at that time the concept of deconstruction was involved in their new philosophy: no more heavy and greasy sauces that had to be prepared three days before, the food no longer needs to be cooked for hours, nor to be presented whole: in Nouvelle Cuisine, it's served in small portions, bite-sizes, accompanied by small vegetables cut to tiny bits with a technique called julienne. The chefs can also use modern devices, like microwave ovens, sherbet machines, fridges, blenders. The time of cooking is reduced, so the product can be as faithful to itself as can be, some "new" cooking techniques are used to that purpose: steam, stir-fry, grill, etc. Finally, chefs that follow Nouvelle Cuisine principles want to appeal to all five of the human senses, so the artistic aspect of the plate is extremely important too, it has to be pleasing to the eye as well as the palate.
As I said before, new movements are often criticized, and Nouvelle Cuisine got a few scratches too - mainly because some unprofessional self-appointed "chefs" that claimed to belong to Nouvelle Cuisine started to flood the market with ridiculously small bits of food in giant plates and crazy prices. So, Nouvelle Cuisine at some point became synonymous to rip off and held a pejorative connotation for the longest time in France. I mean I grew up hearing about how Nouvelle Cuisine was a fraud, something very expensive that left you very hungry - and before I did my research about it I used to keep thinking along those lines, even though I was completely ignorant of the true principles of Nouvelle Cuisine, which are pretty much the norm everywhere, now.
It's because of Nouvelle Cuisine's bad reputation that Paul Bocuse, who had a very classical training as a chef, decided to drop it and go back to a more conservative style of cooking, and at the same time insisting on simplicity above all, serving dishes in his restaurant that are perfectly executed, without any fancy trick.
It's fascinating to me how cuisine seems to keep going back and forth between classical and modern, between innovation and conservatism. And in France, terroir is always a value you can go back to.
Anyway, Bocuse will appear again later in my fic, so that's enough with him for now. ^^
2 - Puck's sardine, Marcel's oysters
Marcel's dish in his cook-off with Puck has been inspired by a recipe I found in a (veeeeery expensive) gourmet magazine. It's representative of molecular cuisine, with at least two of its founding elements: the ever-criticized foam ("espuma", in the fic, which is Ferran Adrià's term; it simply means "foam" in Spanish), and the flash-freezed meringue made with liquid nitrogen, which is an ingredient very often used in molecular cuisine. The meringue was inspired by the documentary I saw about molecular cuisine: it was served in molecular chef Heston Blumenthal's restaurant, The Fat Duck, in England, except it was yuzu, and not oyster-flavoured. Molecular cuisine often plays on the shape of the food, so the variation of oysters under many forms was right in the theme too.
***"It was almost reminiscent of japanese cuisine, the subtlety with which it was all put together and the fact that it was less about the taste, which was, mainly, iodine, than about the texture."
This sentence can easily be understood if you've ever tasted the japanese dish called oden. Oden is a dish consisting of several ingredients (boiled eggs, cut-up vegetables, fish cakes etc) boiled in a dashi broth; so most of the components taste like, well, dashi. But you really start to understand this dish when you realize that it's not about the taste, which basically remains the same even though it's good, but about the play on the textures of the different components. This is to me the true genious of Japanese cuisine, this whole new dimension to explore.
As for Puck's sardine dish, I mainly composed it myself, even though I got the idea of the crunchy sardine out of an expensive book about a prestigious restaurant in Boulogne, Paris. I eat everything and I'm not picky, but sardine to me is definitely not the sexiest fish ever, so I thought Puck would show he's a true great chef if he could make something great out of it - it's like having a haircut that's commonly considered awful and rocking it (like, say, I dunno, a mohawk ;P ). As for the rest of the dish, there you have typical "terroir" with Provençale cuisine. Provence is a region in the south of France, and the flavours are very recognizable - tomatoes, olives, herbs, that sort of thing. The herbs are the most famous part of Provençale cuisine, since there's an herb mix called after the region: "herbes de Provence", tout simplement (its composition is thyme, rosemary, basil, oregano, sweet marjoram, and savory).
3 - Foie gras or not foie gras?
I have to admit first that I'm crazy about foie gras, and it's a delicacy that I find fascinating too because there are major ethical questions about animal rights that are raised with it, and even though nowadays people are widely informed about it thanks to the animal rights associations, even though they know very well how the geese are, let's face it, tortured, they can't seem to quit it. It creates a really strange relationship to it, food!kink in the stricter sense, with the self endlessly battling with the superego "-I shouldn't -But it's so good -But I really shouldn't, it's wrong -And yet so right" -- if you see what I mean.
All I know is that I wouldn't eat foie gras every day, only for special occasions and celebrations, but I also would be very sad in a world where it doesn't exist.
I personally prefer my foie gras dipped in a little flour then seared, with something that adds a sugary taste to it, like bits of pear, or grape. When the foie gras is presented as a terrine, I think it's best to eat it on a piece of black bread with onion jam, or fig jam, and with a glass of Sauternes - or Riesling. My number one guilty pleasure, though, the one that I can only whisper about in the dark is... seared foie gras on a steak, in a burger, Châteaubriand style. It's as guilty as can be, and it makes my toes literally curl when I eat one.
But foie gras will also make another apparition in this fic, so that's enough about it.
4 - Puck's radish toast
Inspired by a recipe found on a fellow French comicker's gourmet blog, A boire et à manger by Guillaume Long. It's a great read, but I'm afraid it's all in French. I changed the original recipe a bit and replaced the cream cheese (well it's not exactly cream cheese, it's a typically French product called fromage frais) by cottage cheese mixed with creme fraiche/fresh cream, the texture is a little lumpy because of the cottage cheese and I find that delicious. There also was garlic in the original recipe but I didn't think it was necessary.
Anyway, it's a very fresh and delicious snack, and it's extremely easy to make, so do try this at home. ^^ I insist on the red radishes, they're the best. Don't put too much fresh herbs, otherwise they'll really be overwhelming and you'll feel like you're munching grass.
Sometimes I put salted butter on the toast first like it's mentionned in the fic, but it has to be really, really good salted butter, because I consider salted butter to be srsly srs bsns!
I'm sorry, that was a very long post because of the part about food philosophy, the next bonus posts won't have to be so long, hopefully.
Okay, done! On to chapter 2, now! ^^