Outside my window, right at this moment, a small flock of Indian Mynah birds, non-natives, are chasing an Eastern Australian Raven from my balcony. At more or less the same instant, small herd of caterpillars is consuming the vestiges of my pathetic potted basil plant. Two different problems, for certain, but they share similarities, and I'm wondering if they mightn't share a common solution. Actually, I'm wondering, in typical fashion, what mynah birds and tiny green caterpillars taste like. I figure the former should be first hung, then roasted until medium-rare, and the latter flash fried, or maybe eaten raw.
On Pests
Fashionistas
There are great, sweeping fashions that move through food communities. Not unlike, really, any group or trade or industry, I suppose. It's fun to watch them drift across the local restaurant landscape. Once you discover one of these trends, you find it everywhere. Seared scallops, for example, paired with some nugget of slow-cooked pork – belly, shoulder, cheek – appeared on half the menus in Sydney a couple of years ago. Then there was a phase that saw the majority of the local establishments offering braised short ribs. They're scarce now; alas, the fad has passed. Not so long ago, every bistro I can think of offered a 'deconstructed stew' of some form or another.
Kitchen Scraps
One of the great challenges in professional kitchens is the elimination of wastage. It's an obsession in most cases. I've worked for chefs who expect their cooks to collect carrot nubs and onion ends and mushroom stumps to be added to the stock at the end of the evening. Other chef's I know randomly search the rubbish bins around the kitchen, checking to see if cooks are discarding bits of useful food. The whole restaurant is subject. Bar have a corked bottle of red? Put it into the bourguignon. Chicken getting on in age? Make a terrine. Those coffee beans a bit stale? Make a coffee ice cream.
On Skinning Cats
A great deal of a chef's prowess is directly related to his ability to endlessly manipulate the same ingredients. When you work long enough, in a great variety of professional kitchens, you'll eventually run out of new produce or meats to use. It's possible to introduce novel foodstuffs (read: goji berries) to spice up old dishes, or to add expensive ones (read: truffles) to lend the appearance of opulence, but these tricks are just that: tricks. A good chef, rather than rely on slight-of-hand cookery, can work with several of the same base ingredients to make endless combinations.
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