Sunday, 7 January 2007

Food for thought

Over the last couple of days a few situations, conversations and observations have lead me to think about food in general, and Hobart restaurant food in specific.

I had occasion to spend a full night with Austar, firmly fixed on the Lifestyle cooking channel which was featuring a Rick Steinathon - ie every conceivable episode of any cooking program ever made by Rick. After a few hours, it came through loud and clear what I had never picked up on before, having previously just watched the occasional series he'd made. His push appears to me to be that chefs these days (and he DID mention Australia in this context) are going further and further towards the crazy combinations of tastes and flavours, and in the meantime forgetting that much of the basic ingredients of the dish contain their own particular fine flavour which should be enhanced, not masked, by the subsequent preparation and cooking process.

Add to this the fact that I had read the menu of the Four Hats dinner at the Town Hall, which, the Mercury says, included a national award winning dessert of steamed meringue of apricot water ice with ewe and goat curd sorbet. As I read this description, I thought, in Rove's immortal words, "What the...???". I could imagine myself steaming meringue only in the circumstances where I had prepared the meringue mix & was about the pop it into my oven to cook when the electricity went off & I had to think quickly, so using my huge powers of lateral thought, might be tempted to give the steaming process (on my camping gas ring over a wok?) a try! As for the rest, well - obviously I don't have such a good imagination as our Four Hats chefs.

Now you may well be thinking that's why they are the highly paid and experienced chefs whilst I am the punter who willingly pays mega-dollars for the time, imagination, experience, preparation and presentation of these and other dishes that constitute todays restaurant menus.

You would be correct in that thinking. But - if we are such a state as we claim, producing all these fabulous natural products, why the hell do we want to bastardise them into some melange or pot-pourri of assorted flavours so we can't taste the fine, natural flavours we originally started with?

An example like fresh tuna springs immediately to mind. Canned tuna and fresh tuna bear absolutely no resemblance. Fresh tuna, in my humble opinion, is the most fine and delicate of tastes. I can't imagine any valid reason in the world why I would interfere with nature's beautiful natural tuna flavour to add anything else that would mask the delicacy of its taste.

Add to all the above the fact that I have been "baby-sitting" four laying hens (is that part of the verse in "The Twelve Days of Christmas"?) over the Christmas/New Year period and thus reaping the rewards, ie the bounty, of the fresh, free range eggs. Obviously I have been eating these eggs as well and have to honestly say that I really can't taste the difference between these eggs and the supermarket-bought ones I usually eat which their label proclaims are free range as well.

When I bought this subject up at a BBQ lunch yesterday, all present eventually admitted to the same thoughts and feelings, which then prompted general discussion about the free range v caged eggs. We ended up agreeing that the reason most people probably opted for free range eggs was the thought of the chooks living conditions, rather than the taste of the eggs themselves.

So - to go back to the start of this post - are we, as a nation, complicating our food way too much instead of concentrating on the fine flavours to be found within the food itself and using our cooking talents and skills to actually bring out those flavours instead of trying the most bizarre combinations of ingredients to try to one-up the next restaurant?
Posted on by Rita
3 comments

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My sentiments exactly Rita!!! As I frequent some of Hobarts restaurants, I often find the menu to portray the said choices with fancy descriptions (usually longwinded/wanky) and that simply don’t live up to expectations. Call me uncultured, unsophisticated or primitive but for god’s sake don’t call me Bruce!!! Seriously Rita food should compliment its origin and not be an overstated and belligerent affair as it has been for me of late. I would rather not pay for fancy descriptive choices and be left disappointed, rather have eaten a fantastic meal with great friends leaving feeling satisfied with the experience. Are Australian Chefs striving towards a menuwankanism to keep up with the Jones’s???

Anonymous said...

Yes many are. In competing for their market share, chefs are resorting to fadd-ism & gimmicks in order to generate interest, behold Molecular Gastronomy.
Conversely, many people want to eat food in restaurants that they cant or wont prepare in the home.
This creates a fairly difficult perameter in which to make a living.
My belief is that the food above all, must have integrity. It takes a mature & wise hand to know when to leave well enough alone. GG

Rita said...

I agree with you GG - and welcome to my blog as well. I consider it an honour indeed that you have: 1. found my blog site, 2. read it, 3 commented on it, and 4. added me to your own listing of linked sites.