Making Food With a Sense of Humor
Photo by Lara Kastner
OYSTER CREAM lychee, horseradish, caviar
with DOMAINE WEINBACH'S 2006 PINOT GRIS CUVEE Ste. CATHERINE
We like adding a touch of whimsy to the Alinea experience to make it fun and in some cases thought-provoking. It can also be a useful creative tool in helping us transform ingredients or compose dishes in a playful way, heading the dish in a direction we wouldn't find if we took the process too seriously.
In this dish, we manipulate the textures of most of the ingredients to mimic those of others while maintaining the flavor integrity of each. The concept becomes a fun challenge for us as we decide which ingredients should mirror others and which techniques we'll use to accomplish that.
For example, using a process we learned years ago while trying to turn various liquids into puddings, we steeped briny oysters in cream, strained them out so only the flavor remained, solidified the liquid with agar agar, and then pureed the gel in the blender into a velvety-savory pudding that imitates the popular horseradish cream. Horseradish, an ingredient commonly paired with oysters and caviar, is infused into water, gelled, and chopped into small pieces that roll on the palate like caviar and then melt rapidly, giving sharp, richness-cutting relief to the opulent impersonator.
I enjoy the idea that we focus on the underdog ingredients. Many would spoon a mound of caviar in the bowl and be done with it, letting luxury prevail over thought.
Finally, lychees--to me the conceptual starting point of the entire dish--are simply peeled and their pits removed; the resulting quarter-sized pieces resemble the look and mouthfeel of raw shucked oysters. It was seeing lychees' close aesthetic and textural association with shucked oysters that initiated the impulsive and chain-reacting role reversal of the ingredients. And that role reversal produced, to my mind at least, the most interesting aspect of the dish. It was founded on the idea of psychological processes in relation to humor--not on the latest in gastronomic showmanship.
I also enjoy the idea that we focus on the underdog ingredients. Many would spoon a giant mound of caviar in the bowl and be done with it, letting luxury prevail over thought. In this case the true focal points are the otherwise slick and lean oysters transformed into a rich velvety pudding and the floral lychees acting like raw oysters.
Originally I was not planning to add osetra caviar. From a pure food perspective the dish didn't need it: all the components necessary to make it delicious and compelling were present. But after I continued to think about the dish, how it came to be, and what it represented, I wondered if we could make a point with the addition of some beautiful osetra caviar.
If we added the caviar to the dish for no other reason than trying to prove that even as one of the most recognizable, sought-out, and status-validating foodstuffs known, in this context it is basically inconsequential, then we solidified the concept in earnest. And we made a joke encompassing everything including deliciousness.
As it turns out, the whimsy carries through to the wine pairing. The floral lychees immediately made gewürztraminer seem logical, but in fact that wine proved to give too many of the same tones on the nose. Instead Joe turned to an Alsatian pinot gris, which he claims can echo the floral ripe tropical fruit notes in a subtler manner while matching the zing of the horseradish and briny aspects of the oyster. After we settled on the varietal, it was a matter of finding the right pinot gris to parallel the level of inherent dryness and intensity brought on by the assertive seafood elements and horseradish.
Domaine Weinbach's 2006 Pinot Gris "Cuvee Ste. Catherine" was the ultimate winner.
When you first smell the wine, the nose leads you to sweetness. The perfume of papaya, pineapple, apricot, quince, makes the mind think dessert. I recall repeatedly sticking my nose in the glass, looking at the dish, sticking my nose in the glass, and looking at the dish, thinking: "There is no way this is going to work". After finally taking a sip of the wine it reminded me of when you reach for a glass to take a drink of the soda you had been enjoying, only to find you grabbed a glass that contains water. The misguided expectations set up by one of the senses provide a perplexing reaction as the others realize the truth.