Ancient In An Apron loves eating out, sampling ‘taste blowing’ foods chef’s serve to amaze and intrigue diners. Afterwards it’s time to muse on how the dinner was launched, shaped, buffed, and infused with color and flavor. Today this food puzzle can be as challenging as Sudoku, although it is definitely a more expensive pastime. Read reviews on an eatery, compare it with what you were served, and often a deeper puzzle evolves. Could the chef be in a slump? Was he in Washington preparing a state banquet? Have tastes changed that much? Was the reviewer recognized and his food maximized? Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia have added another layer of confusion; anyone and everyone can be a food critic. Food tastes are so individual there’s little chance everyone will agree, but what fun to compare critiques. Curiosity leads one to hot new places especially after they have been declared amazing. This often turns into a one-night stand, experienced, and soon forgotten. Here’s a tale of dining at one shrine of molecular gastronomy in Chicago.
We arrived at the restaurant feeling expectant, were coolly escorted to our table, and left to study the room while awaiting the dining adventure. There was no hilarity, toasting, or joke telling; it was a somber place. The food being served didn’t seem to excite the diners I could see. In fact some appeared to view the food with fear. One girl poked suspiciously at an unrecognizable bit of food, never daring to put it in her mouth. She and her escort apparently were celebrating a special occasion that was turning less than gleeful. Some businessmen in expensive suits and their fur clad ladies arrived. The host was either well informed or a repeat visitor, he hyped what was coming.
We were a strange pair. An ancient woman and New York based classical musician, each of us wearing casual dark outfits.
The night we dined at “the best restaurant in the United States” the first course served was, “Osetra”, introduced as “traditional” caviar service; it was not quite what a caviar fancier might expect. The toast wasn’t crisp for it had been turned into an igloo of foam with a tiny blob of Beluga caviar tucked in. We missed the crunchy toast but the caviar was first rate. Glowing colored beads on the plate were a mystery. Could they have zapped lemon, sour cream, hard cooked egg, or onion, things often served with caviar and turned into balls of intensified flavor?
Next came “Pork Belly” and “Matsutake”, possible salad spinoffs. Then came my favorite moment of the evening when our uptight hostess introduced “Trout”, a French inspired course. She chirped, “The chef has decided to investigate traditional French cuisine and is revisiting Escoffier.” She looked at me and said, “Do you know who Escoffier is?” Whoops—Of course I knew who he was and quickly informed her of that. I’m certain I’ve eaten in more 3 star French restaurants than she has. She viewed me with a bit less distain after this. This was delicious and even resembled proper French food. The miniature roll of trout was delicate and flavorful, accompanied by a primo pate in a tiny barquette, rich pastry boat. I decided I would see if I could find anything similar in my French cookbooks; one of them has an introduction by Escoffier.
Intriguing but unrecognizable food with names like, “Pheasant”, “Peanut Butter”, and “Concord Grape”, continued to arrive at our table accompanied by detailed explanations. One small plate was balanced on a slowly deflating puffy pillow that released an aroma meant to enhance taste. Another small plate held a sizeable glowing ball; it came with directions to pop it in the mouth, throw back the head before biting; failure to do this could mean an unexpected shower. This seemed a bit like gargling to me so I punctured the ball on the plate and watched the colored liquid flow free. I was tempted to pick up the plate and slurp but resisted. Instead I dragged a spoon through the liquid and licked off a taste; I missed the experience of flavored liquid streaming down my gullet. I just couldn’t do it.
After the evening was over I found it was impossible to remember the tastes, but I found the visual and aromatic experience remained. The blended flavors of altered food forms were not memorable. What would the chef think of that? Only the course named “Hay” was remembered. A dry bitter sawdust taste, created of burnt sugar, coffee, and huckleberry, filled my mouth. The flavor so intense and texture so odd I nearly spat it out. I begged for real coffee to rinse this strangeness from my mouth. Water would have only spread the harsh flavor, much as it does when one tries to soothe pain after biting into a Jalapeno pepper. Real coffee would dilute the taste and dislodge the chips from between my teeth. The waiter demurred, coffee wasn’t served until the end of the meal; “Chocolate” and “Bubble Gum” were still to come. I insisted and finally got a cup of coffee; that was a flavor I remember.
After the visit to the restaurant I was given the impressive Alinea cookbook and while looking through it I had an epiphany. The cookbook stated that today chefs have “bigger tool kits”, filled with new tools, not all meant for the kitchen. I wondered what the chef would have thought about the tool kit I hauled about when working in photography studio kitchens. One photographer declared it was definitely the heaviest one he hefted. Comparing the tools used in this creative kitchen with those I used when putting food in front of the camera might make an interesting blog.
Special tools have always played a big part in food preparation whether it was being created for family dinner, photography, or molecular gastronomy. The large kit, originally designed for fly fishermen to hold flies and spinners, I carried was filled with implements; each with a special use. I filled it with pins (straight, safety, bank, needles), toothpicks, X-acto knife blades, razor blades, eye droppers, syringes, tweezers, manicure scissors, baby spoons; all small things that could be easily lost. There were also special knives, cutters, shredders, spreaders, brushes, and lengths of wire we used to slice through wheels of cheese and drums of ice cream, potato mashers, rotary beaters, wire whips, strainers, and an electric paint remover. Some tools had been created to use with food, others started life as dental, medical, artist, and handyman tools.
The Alinea cookbook is filled with gorgeous food shots of constructed food, designed dishes, frivolities, and lovely miniature servings. The big difference in what inventive chefs serve today and what I put in front of the camera is size; our aims were similar. We both want to put something engaging in front of the diner or viewer. Something that will tease, create desire to taste, and end with enjoyment. The chef’s miniaturized plates today promise a heightened experience that will be satisfied when the fork picks up the food. The bigger than life cakes and generous plates I put in front of the camera were meant to be admired visually and desired. In food photography we sell the imagined good taste that will be delivered when the cake has been made or purchased. Apparently the viewers of the first Sara Lee Cake packages and advertising found they lived up to the promise; they’re still in grocery freezer cases. First time visitors on a photography set always said the same thing, “That looks good enough to eat”. This sometimes led to a problem. Occasionally someone would sneak into the kitchen and rip off the perfect slice of cheesecake waiting for its moment in front of the camera.
THE TOOLS
The chefs at Alinea have their special tools, as we also did. Some are the same or at least similar; others are new additions. They use acetate sheets to create ribbons of color to wrap around berries; we had gelatin and created colorful salads and desserts. During the “Jello” era Broken Glass Cake with translucent red, green, and orange cubes in a creamy pineapple gelatin base glowed as intensely as today’s creative desserts.
Meats are cooked in Cryovac wrap for controlled flavor. The nearest we came to doing this was cooking in bags sold as the way to an easier cleanup job; the flavor boast was a happy extra.
Ovens have long been used to dehydrate fruits and vegetables for storage; now it is speeded up with a dedicated dehydrators. We dried and toasted coconut, nuts, seeds, and breadcrumbs for garnishes; a tricky business, turn your back and the coconut burned.
The new chefs use molds, small ones; we used large and ornate ones and filled them with fancy desserts and salads. There were molds of many sizes for Fish Molds, Plum Pudding, Suet Pudding, Brown Bread, and Tea Party Mints.
Older and less sophisticated versions of blenders and mixers were in my kitchen. In fact we developed recipes for one of the first electric blender cookbooks.
We used graters and slicers, not microplanes, for grating cheese, vegetables, and fruits. Mortar and pestles were around and being used for grinding spice and seeds long before these young chefs were born.
Anyone can use silicon mats for baking today. We coated our baking pans with pan coat, a mix of shortening and flour; a bit of cocoa was added for chocolate cakes.
There was no siphon for foaming liquid in our kit; wire whisks and bar foam created bubbles for us.
Syringes were used to inject meats and tease juicy drizzles down cut surfaces; they improved the look, not the taste.
All sorts of strainers and sieves were used to make fresh breadcrumbs, remove seeds from raspberries, and separate chaff from chopped nuts.
X-acto knives and slender knives carved melons, cut away odd spots from foods. My favorite knife has a 5x½-inch blade and was originally meant for larding. We searched through garbage pails if one was accidently tossed out with parings.
There was no anti-griddle for quick freezing; a slab of dry ice worked for us. We sifted powdered dry ice over ice cream to keep it from melting until the camera shutter clicked.
There were all sorts of slicers from commercial electric slicers to sharp carving knives. When the electric knife came it was beloved by some but it left a wavy surface I found unattractive. We had tricky gadgets that would spiral a hotdog, carve a radish rose, or core an apple.
The first heat gadget we used on the set was an electric chicken singer; few remember when chickens were killed and plucked at home. This devise was used to burn pinfeathers off plucked chickens. We used it to brown meat, toast marshmallows, and glaze hams. When the chicken singer burned out an electric paint stripper replaced it; there’s one of those in the molecular kitchen. We used a blowtorch to caramelize sugar on “burnt cream” and flame cherries jubilee; even Julia used a blowtorch to finish her Baked Alaska.
Spray bottles added drops to iced tea, cola, and beer glasses, moistened lettuce leaves, and juiced up cut fruit with a Fruit-Fresh solution.
Electric steamers meant for clothing were used to melt pizza cheese; real live melted cheese wouldn’t hang for long exposures.
We used a food mill or strainer to crush pulp and remove seeds; the molecular wine press wasn’t there for us.
Thermometers of all sorts were on hand; to test syrups, roasts, and oven temps. Studio ovens were not always accurate; we never baked without checking with an oven thermometer.
How I wish meat glue had been around when I was putting hams in front of the camera. We used a paste of meat and fat to fill holes and a photo retoucher fixed the color. Later Crazy Glue got in on the act.
Let’s not forget tweezers that Chef Achatz says he uses every day. Tweezers were never far from my hand when I was on the set. Our purposes were similar; arranging perfect bits of food in a most attractive way. When I commented on this to a young friend, she said, “Why would anyone need tweezers to handle food?” Those long slim tweezers gently place a bit of garnish, drop a berry in place, remove a stray crumb, spin fettuccini into a curl, or remove a fruit fly from a coffee cake. I wish I had seen the fly that settled down on a crumb topped coffee cake before he had his picture taken.
Could I claim to be a forerunner in the field of inventive food preparation? Molecular gastronomy it wasn’t but many of the tools, food handling tricks, and visual maneuvers used in the new shrines to food imagination are similar to those that made burgers juicy, pizza cheese drape, pancake syrup hang suspended, and kept ice cream from melting. I didn’t turn toast into foam, create bloated balls, or fashion thin sheets of vegetable and fruit leather; but foods were melted, pureed, sprayed, moistened, glazed, and kept moist and fresh using many of the same tools.
We are walking an exciting line of creativity with food today, pushing the past away, some hoping old recipes will stay there silently. I’d like to bring some of those old recipes into the light just as Grant Achatz did with Escoffier creation. He added his ingenuity; I want to stick closer to tradition. I wonder if in 50 years when molecular gastronomy has become a part of history, will there be someone trying to recreate his visions?
