Chinese celebrity chef roasts Michelin’s Beijing guide

[liuzhou]

Quote

Da Dong founder Dong Zhenxiang: “We hope Michelin can obtain a deeper understanding of the place where the food is inspected. Get rid of the arrogance, ignorance, and prejudice, and be left with our shared passion for the soul of gastronomy.”

 

Story here.

[eugenep]

It seems like the top chef was insulted by Michellin's selection of stinky fermented foods, offal, and other things as representative of Chinese culture and didn't give any play to Chinese haute cuisine - like banquet food etc.

 

I do notice that the difference between East and West is that the West uses milk products - cream, butter, cheese (parmesan etc.) - to give flavor while Chinese dishes uses fermentation and little milk products - e.g., soy sauce, chili bean paste, hoisen sauce, black bean etc. 

 

There's an excellent quote from the chef and his theory of how the fermentation technique was developed and what the technique is trying to do: 

 

"In the process of spoilage, protein is not completely decomposed and fermented. As long as 1/1000 of the protein is present, amino acids will be delicious. Primitive humans have a very sensitive sense of smell in order to fill their stomachs, and are able to find out the information sent by this weak amino acid. The tiny, delicious flavor is wrapped in rot. In the process of searching for these relatively fragrant substances, humans have also devoured a large amount of stench, forming a genetic memory of taste...

 

....But in general, the evolution of cuisine is to extract fragrant beauty from the dregs, and try to remove its residue and gather its essence. As a result, rancidity is locked in folk snacks, making it difficult to be elegant. To enter Daya Hall, you need to carefully control and adjust the dose and range of its smell and deliciousness."