Regular readers will know I will go to great lengths to procure the foods I love. Many times this involves disproportionate effort, often due to my belief that I should be able to produce anything I eat, even if I don't always do so. I once, for example, made bonito flakes; it's a month-long curing, smoking, and drying process, just because I love a bowl of udon. I've also processed coffee, from berry to cup, in part to understand how it is done. Other times the effort I'm willing to expend is simply a great deal of old-fashioned leg work. In general, I am willing to walk, cycle, or drive any distance for a meal or an ingredient. Once, when in Naples, my wife and I walked the streets for hours, starving, unable, somehow, to find a single restaurant. We talked up the giant, steaming bowl of mixed clams we'd seen served in several establishments the night before until it became all we could think about. When, finally, we spotted a restaurant, a quick check of the menu revealed no clams. Silently, with empty stomachs still, we slipped back into the restaurant-less night. It's the sort of pursuit I often find myself on. Let me tell you a story.
On Legwork
Saucier
In the film Apocalypse Now one of the main characters, a soldier in a team sent to find and kill the renegade soldier Kurtz is called Chef. The character is, in his civilian job, a chef from New Orleans. A saucier, to be precise. The incongruity of a chef who specializes in something as intricate and delicate as making sauces being sent on a killing mission is, at the very least, amusing. Our saucier, sadly, does not survive the film. (Why, by the way, does the chef always get killed in movies? Are we so expendable?) I actually don't find the idea of a cook hacking his way through the jungle that much of a stretch, quite a few of the guys I've worked with would be quite at home in a similar situation. Besides, a machete and a chef's knife seem pretty interchangeable to me. What I do find interesting is the idea that someone can specialize so much in my field that they only make sauces.
Coming 'Round
I reserve the right to change my mind. It is something, admittedly, that I do not do often; I am quite strong-willed. One might even say obstinate. The exception to this rule is, not surprisingly, food. In culinary matters, I try to keep a very open mind. So open, in fact, that I am willing to eat nearly anything, at least once, and there are not many foods which I don't like. To list a few in the "not" column: beetroot (which taste of sweet dirt), calves liver (pasty metal), and kidneys (hot urine). It bothers me greatly that, as a chef, I don't enjoy eating these things. I feel somewhat obligated to like all foods, and I make a continual effort to get my palate to come 'round by trying and retrying. I hope in this way to make the flavors familiar to the point where I might enjoy them. This is especially true for kidneys.
Homonyms and Random Association
I am, as I might have mentioned before, quite fascinated with the process in which ideas evolve. I've written in the past about the manner in which slow-burn thoughts combined with a lifetime's gathering of knowledge, can suddenly explode, (Eureka!), into the consciousness. In contrast, most of my my ideas are not the result of amassed knowledge and long mulling. Neither are the majority sudden bursts of inspiration. Rather, my ideas often come to me when my mind is free and wandering, leaving a random association trail of breadcrumbs which I can only sometimes retrace. For example, once when slow-roasting a batch of quince, I was thinking about the medieval nature of the fruit, which has fallen, for the most part, out of favor. This, in turn got me thinking about other foods no longer in popular use, and I was reminded of bay leaves. We still use bay, obviously, but it was once a common flavoring in desserts, only dropping out of use when vanilla became widely available. So I wondered, looking at my quince, what bay would taste like alongside. Quince tatin with bay leaf ice cream is sensational.
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