I've been teaching my oldest boy, nearly four, to appreciate fruits and veggies in season. When we visit our local fruit market, we talk a lot about why we can't buy peaches all year 'round, and why raspberries are expensive more often than not. He gets it; he asks me all the time when, say, mandarins are in season and when is the best time to buy watermelon. I'm happy to answer these sorts of inquiries; we get to chat about climate and farmers and the seasons. Then he asks me about tomatoes. Or bananas. Or carrots. Or about the innumerable other fruits and veggies which, through a combination of cold storage, hot-houses, and inter-hemisphere transport, are never “out of season.” It's tricky, trying to explain these things. Not the concepts, as my boy is quite bright, but I've put so much emphasis on in-season being “good,” I don't know how foods which are the opposite can be anything but “bad.” It's not that simple.
Green Season
Eye to Eye
This week's topic is something of a perennial issue here at OHC. It's one of those culinary hangups I have, and I can't seem, no matter how often I air my grievances, to completely get over it. The truth is I have a problem with a certain, fundamental attitude most people have towards food, and since neither attitude nor outrage are likely to change, I'm predisposed to angry outbursts. This time around it was a serve of school prawns that set me off. School prawns, for those unfamiliar, are tiny little prawns (shrimp, in the most literal sense) are typically fried and served whole; you are meant to eat the shells and heads and all. They are crunchy and taste intensely of shellfish. Delicious. I do understand, however, that eating whole baby shrimp might be challenging for some people. I get that. In fact, I understand this so well I make sure that every customer who orders the school prawn starter is told exactly what they are getting. Most recently, it was one such conversation that set me off.
For the Love of...
I have always loved cooking. For as long as I can remember, actually. The basis for the love has evolved over time, but my earliest, happiest memories are of standing on a stool at the kitchen bench, waiting impatiently for any opportunity to help: stirring, measuring, pouring, wooden spoon-licking. What started as an intimate food relationship in my Grandmother's kitchen changed as I grew up. Later, the love was based on the joy of creativity, then on the challenge of learning to cook professionally, next on the joy of mastery, later still on the comfort of deep familiarity. Most recently my love of cooking has again become about an intimate, loving relationship with someone in the kitchen: my two little boys. I know how special my time in the kitchen with my Grandmother was, I hope it is the same for my two children.
I digress, a bit. My point is that I love the act of cooking and all that is involved; I get up every work day and genuinely look forward to going into the kitchen. Given the long hours, the physical demands of standing for 14-or-more hours a day in a hot, smoky environment, the emotional stress, the required constant, unwavering focus on the job (jobs, rather, several jobs at once) at hand, and the pressure to get every, single, detail, right, – given all this – you'd expect every chef to feel as passionate as I do about cooking. But they don't. Some chef's don't even like food.
Pioneering
There is more than one way to be a food pioneer. Most obviously, you can invent new flavor combinations; paring ingredients and cooking methods in ways never before tried. Much culinary credence is given to such innovators: one need only to look at the accolades associated with names like Ferran Adrià or Heston Blumenthal for evidence. The custom is not a new one either. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin famously wrote in 1825 that: “The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity, than the discovery of a new star." Hyperbolic and factual at the same time. Clever.
There is also room in the business of food pioneering for those who embrace a national or regional cuisine and elevate it to fine-dining fare. While the French and Italians have been doing this for a couple hundred years, the phenomenon is relatively newly applied to, say, North Indian food, or the various cuisines from regional Mexico. The chefs and gastronomes refining these traditions into fine-dining fare are at least as worthy as those creating new dishes altogether.
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