Photo by John Sconzo
Maybe I am biased. After all I am in the position of both being quite young and cooking within the framework of modern gastronomy. Both of these qualify me for what I call the "Wide Eyes" syndrome of the Show and Tell. The desire to see the next great innovation was what motivated me to start attending these types of events in the first place.
Later, when I was invited to be one of the exhibitors, the game changed. I still traveled to Spain several times a year to attend the many culinary congresses taking place. I went so that I could watch the leaders of cooking wow the audiences with tricks, causing them to rise to their feet with applause after witnessing the transformation of a daikon radish into a wine cork, complete with an iron-branded label. Or taste a wafer that captures the essence of baby Christ as he lay in the manger. The idea was to solidify the essence of the holiday season in the minds of the diner while consuming a dish composed of quintessential ingredients of the holiday table. While eating the starch-based wafer laced with essences and perfumes, I wondered if this is what an infant laying in hay would taste like...if so, I will gladly pass.
As my career progressed, the pressure of providing these culinary fireworks increased.But I understood the goal and the thought process behind it. And as my career progressed, the pressure of providing these culinary fireworks increased. The emails would come in 6-9 months before I was to appear on stage in front of hundreds of attentive foodies, journalists, and chefs: "Please send the theme and recipes of your demonstration no later than this date, etc..."
Of course, I didn't have the immediate solution to the inherent problem: What do I have that is worthy to show? I had the obvious reaction. I would ignore it the first month. The subsequent months would be conversations with sous chefs and trusted friends, "What can we show that nobody has ever seen before?" This would go on for months, until the emails from the organizers demanding material would overcome me and in a fit of frustration I would submit a vague sample.
In the back of my mind I hoped to come up with something brilliant within the next week, so I could change my topic. For the most part it worked. Well, in the eyes of the viewer that is. I continued to beat myself up right to the point of reluctantly pressing enter, sending the "idea" flying through cyberspace and into the hands of the enemy. The response to my first presentation in 2004 was favorable. Certainly we brought forth some ideas that had not been explored by most and perhaps people were inspired. I dodged a bullet somehow, and it earned me some credibility.
My expectations from both the attendee and demonstrator perspective have changed since then. Now instead of hoping to be levitated out of my seat and fed bites of food shot out of a food cannon from a chef playing the piano and a movie to compliment the food's flavor, I simply want to learn, explain and collaborate. I must be getting old...
SHOP THE ATLANTIC FOOD MARKETPLACE
Subscribe to Atlantic Food
Grant, I had to cancel my attendance at MF at the last minute for personal reasons and was crushed, especially because I was very much looking forward to your "ponencia". And then... I heard you did not talk about the hard times when you lost your sense of taste and had to rely on your other senses, and the incredibly hard ordeal you went through... And yet, the name of your talk on the program was "The sixth sense: the power of the gastronomic memory", which had led me to believe you would, indeed, touch on the subject of your cancer. May I ask you what your 2009 MF presentation focused on, in the end?
Hi Alexandra:
Oddly I never intended on talking about losing my sense of taste due to cancer treatments. The topic was selected by the organizers of Madrid Fusion for the very reason I stated above. I kept putting them off, so they made the choice for me. When they suggested the subject it seemed workable to me because everyone familiar to modern gastronomy knows that one of the cornerstones to this style is to use flavor memory as a tool to make the dining experience more complex.I figured I could work with that. But as time went on and I gave it more thought I realized not only had that subject been presented many times before, but we could articulate something more meaningful.
Chef - It's wonderful seeing this posting and I'm very much looking forward to following your writings in the future. From a fellow chef (and culinary blogger), I believe that your body of work at this early stage will resonate for generations of chefs to follow. And although I am somewhat old school, I strongly encourage my younger cooks and chefs to employ the methodology which you have become so well regarded for. My first dinner at Alinea ranks as the most unique and exquisite of my life.
Chef, thanks for the quick reply! So I'll ask you another one, then. I got the sense, after reading your book, that the Alinea Mosaic was a site closed to only those who purchased the book, but later realized it's actually open to all. Change of mind? And how often do you go on the site?