Gastronomy, Seriously?

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When I watched Julia Child's The French Chef on television in 1963 I had no inkling where it might lead.  The show came along after the success of her cookbook Mastering The Art of French Cooking, a lengthy work aimed at demystifying classic French cooking for the American housewife.  

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Thankfully the television show was nothing like the book whose recipes and detailed instructions were a real challenge.  Rather than the cooking, Julia herself was what made the television show a hit.  She appeared to be having the time of her life sipping wine, chortling away with her cartoon voice, relishing every opportunity to chop, hammer or skewer with a bit of a flourish.  Rather than a chore, making the meal was such joy for her it made you want to try it.  Along the way you'd also pick up techniques for basics like prepping vegetables or deboning a chicken but it was her love affair with what she was doing that made her an icon and soon put her on the cover of Time magazine.

Julia drew a lot of attention to cooking and slowly things began to happen in the kitchens of America.  Food writers refer to the late 1960s and 1970s as the The Culinary Revolution.  It was a movement that originated with people like Alice Waters, the owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, and the gist was to eat fresh, local and seasonal ingredients.  My grandfather would have failed to see this as a novel idea since he had his own garden, fruit trees, chickens and grape vines. Evidently, everybody else was eating strictly out of cans and was totally overwhelmed by the concept.  There was a tectonic shift to California Cuisine by restaurants across the USA.  

The financial windfall that was spawned by this in the form of cook books, cooking schools, restaurants, gourmet products, cooking shows, magazines, food critics and celebrities did not go unnoticed. Similar to the art world and the fashion world, food became yet another creative medium in which "artisans" leaped at the chance to become self-absorbed while seeking fame and fortune. Successive waves of different ideas for food began rolling out, usually sparked by a single chef's cuisine.  Of course for this to take place the chef's food could no longer be merely delicious, it had to be visionary.  What was cooked, where it came from, how it was prepared and what it looked like had to satisfy social, cultural, political and artistic concerns.  Some of the more notable movements that came after California cuisine include nouvelle cuisine, slow food, molecular gastronomy and most recently, new Nordic cuisine.

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Chef Rene Redzepi's Noma restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark is responsible for the new Nordic cuisine movement. Noma has been selected by Restaurant magazine as the world's best four times and Redzepi, like Julia, also found his way onto the cover of Time.

After he opened Noma in 2003 he organized the Nordic Cuisine Symposium through which a dozen Scandinavian chefs drafted and signed a "Manifesto for the New Nordic Kitchen." This document far exceeds the Magna Carta in length and ambition.  An overly simplified summary might read as follows:

Farm to table fare that promotes sustainable agriculture

and advances community wellness and livelihoods

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However, this pales in comparison to reading the complete manifesto which is worded like something Martin Luther would nail to a church door.  It was conceived and committed to by a group of very serious and well-intended zealots. Noma utilizes products grown and foraged from the local ecosystem to reinvent traditional Nordic cuisine.  Most dishes are unrecognizable as food including what appears to be a slab of local turf removed from its home by means of a flat-nosed shovel.

Reading about the items featured on Noma’s menu, I for one began to wonder if any substitutions were permitted.

     “Instead of the chocolate moss could I just have a side of fries?”

     “Also, as far as the scallop paste goes, is there any chance I could have my scallops

      served prior to them being deconstructed?”

   

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 “On second thought, I 

     don't suppose you'd know 

     of a little mom and pop 

     place around the corner

     where I could just get coffee

     and a Danish?”  

Despite the fact that a lot of the ingredients don't sound appetizing, food critics swear that everything that comes out of the kitchen is sensational. I guess this serves as proof that several dozen devout disciples spending 14 hours a day primping food with tweezers and blow torches can make sea grass, weeds, elderberry leaves and milk curd utterly scrumptious.

I'm sorry but it is impossible for me to view Chef Rene Redzepi's Noma as a noble cause despite the stated intentions to benefit mankind. At Noma, the standard no frills tasting menu is $296 per person.  If you'd care for wine pairings with your meal it will run an additional $185 per person.  The food is strictly elitist.  As for the methods, inventive as they may be, none but the most affluent could ever afford the time and expense to apply them.  According to the United Nations 21,000 people die everyday of starvation and conditions brought on by hunger and malnutrition.  I didn't do a damn thing today to help any of them and let’s face it Chef Redzepi, neither did you.