I'm a little uncreative of late so forgive me if my titles seem to follow the "interrogative pronoun + culinary related term" pattern. But it remains convenient to express some ideas that have been stewing (get it?!!? LoLZ!!) in my head.
I don't know if I have enough culinary experience to start examining my personal style. Well, actually I know for a fact that I don't. But I can't help but ponder anyway about what I like to eat, what I think others would like to eat, and dream about the opening menu at my hope-it-can-happen restaurant.
Young cooks, chefs to be, you are generally not allowed to be creative. When you are earning your chops and slogging your way through someone else's kitchen, the chef's word is the word of God. You do not question it unless asked, you follow it with loyalty and faith. Now, a smart chef will turn to their talented staff to contribute their own creativity and skills (see David Chang of Momofuku fame ... his greatest strength is probably hiring talented cooks who continuously develop his empire), but a good chef will also know how to lead and discipline their team. That means no customizing the menu as you see fit, or deviating from the plan, just do as you are told once the dish is set. Keep it up, one day the chef will turn to you to come up with a new dish for your station. And you may panic (see first edition antipasti menu at Va Pensiero, 2010).
That being said, it takes a long while for you to get a chance to flex your creative muscles. I think a lot of people get in to this career (I know I did) thinking that everyday you can try something new and invent dishes near constantly. But the truth of the matter is professional cooking is more about consistency and advanced planning than it is about abstraction and off-the-cuff cooking.
Still fun to wonder though, right? Most of the food a chef puts forward in their restaurant is a representation of who they are. It's the food they grew up with, love to eat, love to cook, and they hope you will also. In the words of my chef, "I'm a big fat guy, I like big fat food." That's why you never saw small tasting platters at Va P, never saw overly fancy presentations, and NEVER saw inedible garnishes. Everything on that plate has to be edible, it's rustic, classical Italian flavors with traditional French technique. And although it's nothing that will change the world of food, it is tasty nonetheless.
So I am yet again forced to examine myself. What would my true self be in edible form? Does my soul have a warm, cheesy center like a fried cheese curd, simple and delicious? Or is it salty, buttery and crispy like well-rendered chicken skin? Or better yet, fatty, rich and balanced like a slice of lardo on a warm, garlic-scented crouton?
I know this much, that food is a craft not an art. Every time I hear someone say cooking is an art, it kind of makes me cringe. Food can be artistic, it can be artful, it can be beautiful, but it isn't art. Now some people meant "art" to describe the beauty of the deft skill and experience that shines through a master cook. I think that's what Julia Child meant. But other people mean it in a dirty, corrupted hipster way to suggest that the idea of what someone is cooking is beautiful in its new-ness, is misunderstood, and revolutionary. Just because it has never been done before and is unheard of doesn't mean it tastes good. And being misunderstood in your lifetime doesn't help anyone anymore. If you're misunderstood in your lifetime then you are unsuccessful and will likely starve, rather than survive as some sort of Van Gogh or Mozart.
The difference is in practicality. A plate of food can look gorgeous, I'm a firm believer in letting the visuals of a plate launch its flavors in a diner's mind. But if a diner is only disappointed or their palate is confused by the actual taste of the thing, then you have failed as a cook, I don't care how many assholes are blogging about how "innovative" you are. Frank Lloyd Wright is probably my favorite architect (hint: he's the only architect I really know), I think he accomplished some amazing things in his lifetime. And I think his work is outstanding, timeless and genius in all senses of the word. But the chairs he designed are the most uncomfortable fucking things I've ever put my ass to. They represent his personality, his architectural style for sure, but I swear to God if I wasn't developing an awful case of hemorrhoids by parking it in his chairs. The lesson to learn here is that it has to taste good, just like how a chair has to be comfortable to sit in.
Say it with me now, FOOD has to TASTE GOOD.
That's why cooking is a craft. Your labors serve a practical purpose; to feed people. The purposes of art are less tangible and concrete, the enjoyment of art is much more subjective and abstract. Food can be very subjective as well, we've gone over this, cooking indeed shares many qualities with art. But you are always held up to the standard of deliciousness, and that is a sensation all humans share (just sometimes don't agree about).
So we got that out of the way, what do I like to cook and eat then?
I grew up with an extremely unsophisticated palate. Chicken McNuggets were among the Pantheon of great culinary techniques, and McDonald's its Mt. Olympus. If you get to meet my mother she would love to regale you with stories of my childhood relationship with the Golden Arches that she suffered through. And when it wasn't breaded, fried chicken scraps it was the Chinese-American equivalent; sesame chicken. A (news flash) double-fried delicacy slathered with what is essentially sweet-and-sour sauce. I liked fried foods, I was a fat kid, all things in life make sense.
But I do have memories of more authentic Chinese delights. Ti-pang, a pork butt braised in soy sauce, garlic, rock sugar and star anise for a whole day and then broiled for the last hour or so. Slightly crispy, super fatty sweet flesh served with garlic chives and white rice. That might have to be my death row meal. Mystery stir-fries put together from scraps by my mom's chef, Peking Duck, dim-sum, Szechuan-style tripe braised with hot chiles and copious amounts of garlic. There are so many good things in Chinese cuisine beyond the Americanized versions of take-out. Perhaps it's my mission to combine classical technique with Chinese flavors (not that that hasn't been tried) in my own fashion.
And I've learned a lot since then, opened up my palate to new things. I love offal; chicken livers, foie gras, tripe, sweetbreads. I love seafood (I used to HATE seafood); scallops (my favorite), lobster, oysters, sea urchin, striped bass. And I love well-prepared vegetables; ramps, bok choy, rapini, haricots verts. There are only more things to learn from here.
How do you combine it into a focused vision? How do you amalgamate a lifetime of food experiences into one restaurant, one menu?
There is a way to classify restaurants that I only recently learned from The Flavor Bible by chef-husband-wife team Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. They classified a restaurant's food by the motivation behind their creation.
A restaurant celebrating the physical realm of food is focusing on excellent produce. Places like Dan Barber's Blue Hill or Alice Waters' Chez Panisse focus on the natural deliciousness of earth's bounty. Tomatoes that make you feel like you've never eaten a tomato (quote Bourdain, thank you), well-raised and tenderly cared for fruits, vegetables and livestock treated with respect, almost minimal technique and fuss. My mom's new favorite restaurant? Blue Hill.
A restaurant celebrating the emotional realm of food is generally focusing on a type of cuisine. An Indian restaurant cooking the food their mothers used to cook, a Rick Bayless establishment where he shares his love of Mexican food with the world, a soul food joint in Harlem, that's what we're talking about here. Food that has a deep connection to someone's life experiences, prepped for service and shared with the public, often a humble place with a deep fan base.
A restaurant celebrating the mental realm of food is trying to, pardon my French, mind-fuck you. These are the people who are stretching our understanding of food, using the newest and strangest of techniques to present food in an unexpected way. The original gangster, Ferran Adria at El Bulli, Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck, Grant Achatz at Alinea, Homaru Cantu at Moto, Wylie DuFresne at wd~50, Jose Andres and the whole country of Spain, this is their territory. This is probably the most outrageous and popular new trend, restaurants of this type are popping up in hordes, but very few survive. But those that do make it are veritable legends as these types of restaurants heavily populate the World's Best 50 Restaurants list. This is where food begins to tread dangerously in to the territory of art while losing its soul as a craft, where the priority of making something new and beautiful can transcend the importance of flavor. It's a thin line to walk, and many fail the test. So I have to give those that excel at this a lot of respect, their popularity is well-deserved.
And then we have the spiritual realm of restaurants, the most vague and difficult to categorize. A "spiritual" restaurant is not just trying to wow you with food, but it is trying to give you a life-changing and awe-inspiring experience. These are highest of high-end restaurants with the most exceptional of exceptional service, reinventing and exemplifying the notion of hospitality, creating a temple at which food and service are worshiped. Daniel Boulud, Jean-Georges, Alain Ducasse (unfortunately a victim of French douchebaggery once he came stateside), Patrick O'Connell, Thomas Keller are not just creating the highest-quality food, but are also constantly adjusting the meaning of an "excellent restaurant." I struggle to put the meaning in to words, but you'll know it when you see it. A place of beauty, elegance and refinement that doesn't forbid you entrance with a proverbial moat of pretentiousness. A place from whence you leave, you will leave a different person.
Now a restaurant doesn't have to be strictly pigeon-holed. Restaurants cross boundaries a bit in this rough rubric. Thomas Keller was often striving to recreate the American classics he grew up cooking, David Chang uses a little molecular gastronomy to redefine the Korean home-cooking he loves, etc. So I hope I can do the same. I love home-cooked Chinese food, I love the Chinese-American classics that have been dumbed down (I agree they need a face lift) by cheap takeout joints, and I love the authentic and sometimes exotic regional cuisine of China. I think people would really enjoy a reinterpretation and reintroduction to these types of food, so long as it was done well and tastefully. So that's why I need a strong foundation of classical technique, and build from there, brick by brick.
I know sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) this blog is a sounding board for myself, a motivational poster in verbose, profane, nerdtastic format, an organization of my pet peeves and helter-skelter ideas. Really, I appreciate it so much that people actually take time to read this. But perhaps its time for more doing and less talking. What that exactly means I'm not sure, but once I get back from this wedding, I'll let you know.
Click, click, click.
EP6
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