Photo courtesy of Martin Kastner/Crucial Detail
While the food we create at Alinea falls clearly on the contemporary side, we never forget the importance of classic cookery. My culinary foundation was formed by the education I received at the Culinary Institute of America, and further established at my four years at the French Laundry. Some of my fondest food memories, both on the preparation and consumption sides, involve very classic preparations.
My friend Eric Ziebold (today the chef of Citizen in Washington, D.C.) and I would often challenge each other to mental and physical duels in the French Laundry kitchen. Races to tourne all varieties of vegetables, truss boned-rolled-tied lamb loins (and then measure the consistent distance between the strings), and trivia games based on ingredients in Georges Auguste Escoffier's recipes would often help us stay motivated through the busy prep days.
Many of our dishes at Alinea are based on these very techniques, flavor combinations or menu progressions established years ago by the great cooks of France. These known concepts are good starting points for creativity and pose interesting challenges when we try to modernize and improve upon the ideas. When working with a classic, the challenge is to honor aspects of the original dish while making it indicative of the chef's personal style.
But sometimes the original dish can be used to make a statement. Instead of featuring an updated, re-worked classic on Alinea's opening menu, we included a dish executed verbatim from Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire: number 3970, "Fonds d'Artichauts Cussy," page 478.
Is it a moment of gastronomic time travel? Where is the theatrical line?As media coverage built anticipation in the months of the restaurant's pre-opening period, I agonized over the menu. Yes, service and design had to be tight. But the menu was the guide by which the first guests of the restaurant--the media, the front of house staff, and the cooks--would perceive Alinea. The hype surrounding the restaurant was swirling and much of the talk was about how "molecular gastronomy" restaurants barely cooked anything, abandoned all sense of tradition, and served food that lacked soul. (Keep in mind that this was in 2005, and the worlds of popular gastronomy and popular culture have come a long way in terms of the acceptance and understanding of progressive cooking and its intentions.)
The Escoffier dish was meant to make a statement. In Michael Ruhlman's Reach of a Chef, he asks me why I put the dish on the menu:
"Foie gras, truffles, and artichoke--it's perfect for us," Grant says. "...It's more than a hundred years old and it's new. And," he grins, "it's a personal F-U to all of those people who say, 'Ah those guys just work with foam over there.' We know how to work with foie gras, we know how to turn a lot of baby artichokes."Four years have passed and I have certainly grown up a bit. Frankly, I am embarrassed to read that quote I gave Michael, and admit it was overly defensive--no doubt a result of trying to stand up for what I believed in while taking some hits. That being said, the point of this example is that the inclusion of a dish on a menu can have significance beyond its taste.
Recalling the opening menu and the Escoffier artichoke dish makes me think about the concept of fusion cuisine. Popularized in the 1970s, and given a negative connotation in the '90s, it is a genre of cooking that involves blending elements of various culinary ingredients and techniques.
When we think of fusion, something like "Japanese-Peruvian" usually comes to mind. But in the case of the artichoke dish, the fusion isn't about two cuisines; it's about two time periods. I'm excited to revisit this idea, and I've started to extrapolate the theme of "period dining:"
Can the juxtaposition of modern and classic preparations within the same menu elevate each by giving a clearer perspective of evolution? Or does it show how little cooking has really changed?
Can it fulfill different emotional aspects through the contrasts?
Will people even notice?
Is it a moment of gastronomic time travel?
What if we go to an antique store and purchase ornate silver flatware and gilded plates to present these dated creations? Is presenting these concepts on the service ware true to their period any different than designing special serve ware to accentuate the modern cuisine of the present?
How far should we take this approach? Can we adorn the table with items that establish the sense of era, like candlesticks, or serve the wine pairing in cut lead crystal stemware?
Where is the theatrical line?
To help illustrate the juxtaposition between classic and contemporary preparations, in the photo above, we have inserted a traditional roasted rack of lamb on a simple serving plate in the midst of a tabletop of modern concepts currently served at Alinea. While it is not our intention to serve a group of dishes together as shown here, we felt it was the best way to convey the striking contrast and thereby help elicit the emotional response that may be experienced while eating at Alinea.
We have recently added another dish straight from Escoffier's "Supremes de Pigeonneaux Saint Clair" that will appear as course 19 in our 27-course tour. I'm headed to the antique store tomorrow to look for inspiration...
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It seems that with molecular gastronomy... the next logical step is to go back in time and reinterpret the classics. It would definitely keep it exciting for diners, especially ones (like me) who regularly indulge in modern cooking. I recently had my tenth meal at the Bazaar by José Andrés (in L.A.) and have tasted everything on the current menus (traditional and modern). I had that "now what" feeling until I read your post today. Looking back for inspiration is the way to go.
I challenge you to try making something in a Lucullan feast from Ancient Rome. Granted those exotic ingredients may not exist but it would be an amazing testament to gastronomic time travel if you could. I'd seek MFK Fisher for guidance...
Can the juxtaposition of modern and classic preparations within the same menu elevate each by giving a clearer perspective of evolution? Or does it show how little cooking has really changed?
I think the answer is yes to both, and whether it's more of the former or the latter will vary from diner to diner. Say you served a modern artichoke dish and the Escoffier preparation - one person might focus on the artichoke-ness of both of them, while another person might focus on how much the dishes differ in taste, texture, and appearance due to how they've been prepared.
I love this idea of juxtaposing modern and classic preparations, because it showcases how you can begin at one starting point, be it an ingredient or a technique, and then take it in wildly different directions. The dishes are different, no doubt, but they're still connected in essence by their original inspiration. It's a connection at the level of the idea, and it's brilliant!
There is no inherent reason that modern and traditional can't co-exist on the same table. Good food is good food. I look forward to your endeavors in both directions, Chef Achatz!
Heston Blumenthal recently ran a 4 episode series on BBC's Channel 4 that featured his re-creations of 4 historic feasts: Tudor, Medieval, Victorian and Roman. The website for the show is available here: http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/heston-blumenthal/feast/index.html
The problem with taking a period dish and reinterpreting it, is that eventually you end up right back where you started - taking classic techniques and flavor profiles/combinations and creating new dishes that often have a very abstract or intellectual reference to the classic.
I think you're better off searching for the true classics - dishes that are timeless and timely - and cooking them as they are. If you had a Mondrian painting or a Le Corbusier furniture piece, you wouldn't consider making a "re-invented" copy to put in an ultra-modern space. Those things are classics, both are timely and clearly 1930's works, but timeless because they still would support the overall feel of an ultra-modern space.
Perhaps the most interesting question you ask is whether your diners will even notice. And of course a corollary to that is, if they do, will they care? I think many of your diners probably would care if they noticed, because they're looking for whimsy, cleverness and adventure to go along with deliciousness.
Whether they notice probably depends on how you present it. I think a traditional, or classic, or ancient, dish smack-dab in the middle of a 27-course journey might amuse and delight people. Something from their childhoods (or their parents' childhoods) such as baked Alaska or beef Wellington might strike interesting chords in ways that Alan Wong has done at his restaurant in Hawaii by serving updated versions of down-home quintessentially Hawaiian dishes like plate lunches and loco moco, or, similarly, at a Kosher restaurant in New York I was served ceviche with parsley that evoked sense-memories of Passover and gefilte fish and made me laugh.
Classic dishes have provided much good fodder for contemporary reinterpretations, but the idea of doing a classic "straight up" in the middle of a contemporary menu does seem like it would make for interesting comparisons of a different sort.
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It seems you're dealing with two perspectives - the diner "understanding" the dish, and the chef figuring out what to do. In the case of the experience of the diner, look at visual arts. In painting, you can easily put any pattern of colors and shades on a canvas, there are no limitations for the artist. For the piece to have meaning to the viewer, the viewer must develop a frame of reference based on things she has seen before. We draw on our pre-existing understandings to organize our thoughts about the painting. Mark Rothko's paintings are just blury smears of colors, but as viewers we "organize" those smears into ideas like doors, or often, into that most classic of painting, the landscape. If a viewer had never seen a landscape (painting or in person), would Rothko's work have much of an impression on them?
In the case of the creator, think about that icon of minimalist, modern composition, Philip Glass. It's an oversimplification, but his music is very, very Classical, based on the counterpoints that Bach used, and classical European harmony. He's taking lessons from the great of Classical composers and applying them in very modern ways. Not everyone likes his music, but most of us can appreciate it, because it sounds like "music." Contrast that with Glass' contemporary, Steve Reich, who has composed many truly radical pieces, like two pianos playing the same 12 notes, at slightly different speeds so they drift in and out of phase with each other. It's a really "interesting" piece and was very influential on other composers, but most people won't tolerate it as "music" because it has little to do with what most of us have heard before. You may have played Glass in your dining room, but you'd never play Reich's Piano Phase (it has a track record of causing many people to literally run out of rooms because it is so uncomfortably unfamiliar.)
Hip hop revolutionized popular music, but based on a foundation of recontextualizing familiar samples. We are constantly interpreting the "new" based on our understanding of what we are already familiar with. But overdoing the "samples", or using them in a clumsy way is just pastiche. It's a tightrope walk that separates the brilliant from the mediocre. You seem to be doing it pretty well, so keep it up.
To add a fourth dimension (i.e., time) to the dining experience is brilliant. Not only is the food a surprise, but also much of the table setting. The experience is much deeper than food alone could provide.
Most ultra-high-end restaurants will provide a very enjoyable meal. The primary differentiating factor at this level is the experience. Surprise is essential in turning an enjoyable experience into a thrilling experience. (Surprise is what makes a joke funny and what makes a movie exciting—jokes aren’t quite as funny when you know the punch line and a movie is less exciting when you know the ending.) I can’t wait to see what’s next.