Gastronomy in France in Flux?

[Steve Plotnicki]

"The next generation of critics, who can look at individual Adria-type dishes and critique them effectively (or, as Plotnicki put it, we don't yet have critics who speak the language of this new cuisine), has not yet risen. Will it ever?"

Well from where I sit, and this is my issue, I don't see that it qualifies as a cuisine. And that is why nobody speaks its language. There is no coherent language to speak (yet.) Right now the cuisine seems to be (and this is from a distance, my opinion might change after I go there, although I've sampled a few of his disciples, )a series of technical flourishes. Lots of interesting dishes, and even lots of wow dishes, but somebody explain to me what the cuisine is? When the nouvelle cuisine guys came on the scene, or the cuisine minceur guys appeared, there was a coherent explanation of what they were doing. It was simple, they were making cuisine lighter somehow. Whether they were lightening sauces or taking the calories out, it was a cogent explanation that made sense to people.

But what does this passage that Fat Guy wrote mean in terms of my dinner?

"is extract the essence of flavor from food and present it in a stimulating form. In other words, he's trying to make food taste good by escaping the prison of form and focusing instead on flavor, texture, and temperature as pure concepts."

But why would anyone need to do that when food already tastes good?

What seems to be missing from this equation, and I hate to sound like a naysayer when I say this, because I am the type of person who is predisposed to liking anything to do with food, the difference between the chefs of yore and Adria (generic) is that nobody has told me that an essence of potatoes are the best potatoes they ever ate. But why the chefs of yore became famous is that they served the "best mashed potatoes," "best salmon dish," "best truffle soup" etc. And I'm having a hard time fathoming that this particular aspect of cuisine is over, having lost out to a 21 course extravaganza where no single dish is reported on as "the best ever."

[Robert Schonfeld]

But why would anyone need to do that when food already tastes good?

With this, Steve comes closest to my own point of view, and expresses it in one of the most succinct, cogent pieces of food criticism ever.

[Fat Guy]

What?!?!?!?!?!

I'm going to give you both a chance to take it back.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Well let's be more specific. Chefs have changed how we eat even when food tasted good. For example, one could say that the nouvelle cuisine chefs needn't have changed anything because food already tasted good. I think that is what Fat Guy is getting at. But I think the distinction I'm making is that nouvelle cuisine was an attempt to make food taste better. Robuchon set out to improve mashed potatoes. Bocuse's trufle soup was a luxury expression of the Auvergnat peasant soup. But can we say the same thing about the modernists in cooking today? Is their goal to make the best of anything? So in the context of my original question, if the goal isn't to make it taste better, just different, what's the point? Of course I'm not saying that eventually they won't make food that tastes better too. But it is arguable whether this technique will lead to that conclusion.

[lizziee]

I have been sitting on the sidelines, yet reading every word with interest, not knowing exactly how to respond. Maybe, my quandary is evidence over my quandary with Adria's cuisine itself. It is easy to critique Troisgros, L'Ambrosie, Veyrat, Bras and even Gagnaire. This is a landscape I understand completely. Yet Adria's language is at times baffling, sometimes weird, sometimes brilliant and always very demanding of the diner. My meals at El Bulli were challenging to say the least. The focus of the entire evening was the plate. The only conversation was about the food - this single-minded focus made it an intellectual challenge, but was it an enjoyment of wonderful cuisine with convivial dinner companions - no. I think that is why Robert describes this as a meal you can have only so often - it demands so much from you, the diner, that you feel intellectually overloaded by the experience.

There is an interesting article by Elaine Showalter in The American Prospect entitled "Food: My Dinner with Derrida,"

She mentions that Adria gives Jacques Derrida and other philosophers and theorists the credit for inspiring him. "A deconstructed dish," he explains, "protects the 'spirit' of each product it employs and preserves (even enhances) the intensity of its flavor. Still," he adds, "it presents a totally transformed combination of textures."

"Of course, in the restaurant, deconstruction can be a bit of a shock, as Adria admits: "When patrons are expecting the Curry Chicken they ordered from the menu and are served a curry ice-cream with apple jelly, coconut soup, chicken broth, and raw onion rings, they are usually taken aback."

She then theorizes that "for some the pleasure of being in the avant-garde of creative cuisine will soothe the disappointment."

From what I can gather, from the latest reviews, Adria has just begun his experimenting. Adrian Searle in the Guardian describes Adria's latest culinary efforts.

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/feature/0,1169,637125,00.html

"Marcel Duchamp, the father of conceptual art, was a frequent summer visitor to Cadaques. Once, he described painting not as something visual, but as "olfactory", an art of smells; oil, resins, varnish and turpentine. If a painter works in a perfumed cloud, Adria invites you to eat it, drink it, sniff it, smoke it. Adria has also described his cooking as conceptual. He is trying all sorts of new, techno things this season: atomiser sprays to sweeten or salt your food at the table, and while you're at it, how about spray-on sauces, aerosols of wine or chocolate?"

Now, the question becomes is this a lasting impact and is it one serious diners want to see? I think, as FG suggests, the impact is already here. If nothing else, Adria is an unbelievable marketer of himself. There is now a Ferran Adria Fan Club (it seems it is based in Italy), Ferran Adria cooking utensils, Ferran Adria traveling worldwide (he is closed 6 months of the year), and chefs from all over the world flocking to the lab and El Bulli. The second part of the question is what has me in a quandary. I know I don't want the El Bulli experience in every temple of gastronomy. I don't want every meal to be an intellectual exercise. That being said, Gagnaire's cuisine is both for me - intellectual but also satisfying. I can only say that we are about to start an extensive trip to France and I hope that my lasting impression is great, memorable food that tastes good.

[Bux]

Analogies suck. No one has ever made a point well in this site using one and it seems we're all safe from tommy's analogy police here in the France board. Nevertheless, it would seem that food--a basic necessity--might better be lumped in with shelter and clothing, rather than art and music. Not all building is architecture and not all clothing is designer clothiing or haute couture. Not all food is haute cuisine, or perhaps in the US we might say that all food is cooking, but only some is "cuisine." Of course fishermen's sandals, peasant blouses and dungarees can become fashion statements and Adria can incorporate pork rinds and pop rocks in his cuisine.

Bux, would you mind expanding on your thoughts along these lines? I don't quite see what you're getting at.

Expand beyond my analogies.

Perhaps I'd say what Adria is quoted as saying in Adrian Searle's column in the Guardian, to which Lizzie referred us.--"Gastronomy is not the same thing as hunger."

[Bux]

I think the distinction I'm making is that nouvelle cuisine was an attempt to make food taste better. Robuchon set out to improve mashed potatoes. Bocuse's trufle soup was a luxury expression of the Auvergnat peasant soup. But can we say the same thing about the modernists in cooking today? Is their goal to make the best of anything? So in the context of my original question, if the goal isn't to make it taste better, just different, what's the point?

I think all chefs try to make food taste better--better than everyone else, better than it did before they came along, better in some way. You might say all cooks try and make food taste better, or at least as good as they can. The problem I have with your post is that somehow you believe Adria isn't doing that as well. Were you complaining when chefs started to plate the food so it was more attractive? None of those chefs were saying "if it looks better they won't notice it tastes worse." I don't believe Adria is doing anything that is not about taste first. All of his food is about mouth sensation--or taste. He's just working in his laboratory on new ways to excite your taste buds. The target of his work is your mouth and not your mind.

When a chef beats in garlic, butter, cream, olive oil and more butter you understand the process and the taste in one discription. I describe the process and you know how it tastes. Not so with Adria. He's breaking too much new ground and we can't understand the taste until it's in our mouth and as Fat Guy notes, there's no one around who can explain it to us, if it can be explained. You're focusing on the technique, but the chefs who have trained with Adria may be focusing on the food in their own restaurants.

[Steve Plotnicki]

"When a chef beats in garlic, butter, cream, olive oil and more butter you understand the process and the taste in one discription. I describe the process and you know how it tastes. Not so with Adria. He's breaking too much new ground and we can't understand the taste until it's in our mouth and as Fat Guy notes, there's no one around who can explain it to us, if it can be explained."

Bux - The reason that we understood what a chef did when he beat in those ingredients is that the process was intended to supplement the taste and texture of a potato and bring out its best parts. And the reason nobody can explain it to us about Adria is that there is nothing to explain. His mission statement is to what, extract the essence from a potato? Extracting the essence from a potato has nothing to do with eating potatoes. It has to do with the illusion of a potato. Of course nobody can explain it us before you put it in your mouth. That's because nobody knows what it's going to taste like. Everybody knows what potatoes taste like, nobody knows what the essence of potatoes tastes like. There is no standardized culinary language for potato essence. Show me a ratte or a yellow fingerling and I know exactly how they will taste. But how will I know how Adria's potatoes are going to taste before I put them in my mouth?

Of course this gets to the heart of the matter which is why people eat? I completely understand why people eat things like fingerlings, or Bresse chickens, or scallops from Taylor Bay. You eat those things once and they make an indelible impression on your palate that is quantifiable and codifiable. But I am not sure that a style of cooking that doesn't offer that aspect of dining can be anything more than a ritual practiced by only the hardest of hard core eaters. Which gets back to Fat Guys statement about whether it will or won't have an impact. It already has. it's the extent of the impact that is being questioned.

[Robert Schonfeld]

There is now a Ferran Adria Fan Club (it seems it is based in Italy)

Now you're scaring me.

[lizziee]

http://utenti.lycos.it/ferranadriaclub/

Adria's fan club

[Fat Guy]

The Showalter piece is here.

[Steve Plotnicki]

That's a good article. But she's even more abstract than I am. At least I said people would eat tablets. She's advanced to imaginary food.

[Fat Guy]

I can't speak to Adria's motives stated or secret, and I'm not even sure they're all that relevant since as a chef he has chosen to communicate through food and not through words and when he claims to be inspired by Derrida I have my doubts, but I see no evidence that he (and, more importantly, the movement he has become an abbreviation for) is not concerned with making food taste good. I can't imagine they're standing around in that lab saying, "This tastes awful, let's put it on the menu."

We need to clarify what we mean by "taste" for the purposes of this discussion, because everybody on this thread is using taste to include texture (the skin and meat of the Bresse chicken taken together), temperature, aroma, appearance -- all the elements Adria manipulates to create his version of cuisine. Yet these are the elements every chef manipulates in order to create cuisine.

As I've said, if there is an element of the approach that strives merely for shock value as an end in itself, I think that's where it goes too far. But I also think the market will correct that excess, if it does exist -- and I'm not convinced it does. But I can't see how anybody could object to using all available means to make food taste good. To say otherwise is, forgive the analogy, like saying, "I don't see why we need all this modern art when nature already gave us so many pretty things to paint."

[Steve Klc]

Steve--when you write "it's the extent of the impact that is being questioned" I think you should also add that it is our own ability to assess and comprehend Adria which is being questioned as well.

I'd say his target is your mouth AND your mind, Bux. And that two-pronged journey might be why assessing Ferran is so problematic. Intelligent, perceptive and experienced diners aren't used to being so challenged in the post-nouvelle era by a chef, they've never had to confront a chef with such an intellect. They're used to reading about a signature dish or restaurant and travelling to experience that signature dish in situ. Going back to this Golden Age of the 70's and early 80's, which many on this thread long for, you essentially had a dozen chefs yearn for a new freedom in their own way but all hew to similarly embraced general tenets--lighten dishes, rely on natural sweetness in ingredients rather than add alot of processed sugar, etc. I could list them but we all know them. Diners understood that all of these French chefs were still cooking French--and looking back, as an armchair diner, it's pretty easy to see now that what they were doing wasn't so special, so revolutionary after all. Bras and Veyrat and Roellinger can easily be seen as logical extensions of this--they belong--and while Gagnaire comes closest to Adria in terms of experimentation, embracing the science behind the food, exploring shock value, he can arguably still be seen as stretching what it means to be French. Adria climbed higher, in a bigger way and I'd argue offers a unique challenge to our sense and sensibilities. Precisely because he is not French and never has had that baggage to carry around.

Also, we are all much more knowledegable, much more experienced airmchair critics now. I suspect "nouvelle" was more easily understood then because you had a group of mythic leading lights which you could put into a context, a framework called French cuisine. You were conditioned, in other words, to embrace it, to process it. It made sense to you.

As I see it, and as I sense Shaw and Bux see it, the great challenge to this generation of knowledgeable diners--who have invested all that time in learning already, and who want to enjoy the fruits of their past labors trying to synthesize what it was that made a Robuchon, a Bocuse, a Ducasse, a Thomas Keller, a Daniel Boulud special--is not to resent being challenged yet again. What I take away from this thread so far is not the fear of learning anything new--but some justified trepidation at not quite knowing how to assess a truly unique figure, Adria, and his impact on chefs and dining--because he brings so much to the table in ways which surpass all of our previous assumptions of individual culinary "genius". It's scary for some of us to consider that someone could redefine our sense of "genius" and "visionary" and "chef."

A few of you want to understand why, as a chef, I seem so accepting, so comfortable in touting Adria's brilliance--and I promise to try to explain it better.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Well I don't think anyone is accusing Adria (generic) of not trying to make food that tastes good. Of course he is trying to make food that tastes great. But there is some sort of disconnect between trying to make the best mashed potatoes and making the best essence of potatoes. The texture of potatoes are the best part of eating them. And because that's the case, I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how seperating the potato from it's form will end up with an item that tastes better than a potato in it's natural form?

[Robert Schonfeld]

My favorite quote from the Showalter article:

"The next phase, perhaps, will be virtual or conceptual cuisine, where the food is not only deconstructed but imaginary."

When a creative endeavor becomes a movement, or a school, or when it develops a devoted following of adherents and critics and media, it also develops a kind of gravitas, an inferred profundity that serves the interests of practitioner and acolyte alike. If I am uncomfortable with something here it is with too much talk and not enough eating. As has been pointed out, sometimes well, sometimes not, but pointed out repeatedly, it's not painting; it's not music. It's food.

No question the man is an original. No question his influence is already upon us. No question we don't yet know what the kind or degree of that influence will be in the long term. And no question we'd all like to eat there. I'd rather not, however, eat with a notepad at my side and my fingertips pressed to my furrowed brow.

Pleasure is the overarching criterion of a meal. If El Bulli only offers the sort of intense concentration described by Liziee, then my guess is that its long term influence will be greater in his disciples, or in other practitioners of molecular gastronomy whose larger objective is the greatest enjoyment for their patrons. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[Fat Guy]

Plotnicki: How do you define the natural form of a potato? Where's the dividing line that says you've pushed into the unnatural realm? Raw, that's easy. Baked? Twice-baked? Mashed? French fried? Potato chips? Potato flour made into bread? Potato vodka? Potato foam? I'm having trouble seeing the disconnect. To me a disconnect would be taking a potato and altering the molecules so that it tastes like gasoline. Taking a potato and extracting and highlighting the essential flavor doesn't offend me.

But it's probably easier to make the argument with other ingredients. Fruits of all kinds are a good example, especially when you view them in the context of pastry. So if you take the phrase "I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how seperating the potato from it's form will end up with an item that tastes better than a potato in it's natural form" and replace "potato" with "key lime" or whatever, you start getting some pretty compelling answers. More importantly, you get apples and oranges comparisons if you get my meaning. Does raspberry sorbet taste better than a raspberry? I think the answer is who gives a shit.

[Steve Klc]

Robert, quite eloquently, writes "No question the man is an original. No question his influence is already upon us. No question we don't yet know what the kind or degree of that influence will be in the long term. And no question we'd all like to eat there. I'd rather not, however, eat with a notepad at my side and my fingertips pressed to my furrowed brow."

So, don't.

Simple as that. In the Guardian art critic's article, one of my favorite lines is this: "There's no opposition between simple or complicated, Adria said, there's only good and bad."

Begin here. Adria does. Why get hung up on defining Adria, boxing him in?

Eventually the shock, the extreme intellectual exercise, the "demands" you are all bringing to the table and imposing on the meal will diminish and you'll just enjoy, you'll just understand.

Steve--you'll even understand better why Adria is so influential without having eaten at El Bulli. Lizziee--you'll see his global marketing of himself as a red herring--so what if his restaurant is closed 6 mos. of the year, allowing him to travel and taste and experiment? Why? Because he can. It's just one of the many things he does as a chef/restaurateur that hasn't been done at that level before and it's just another thing throwing you off your game a step. He's no more or less a celebrity chef than Keller or Ducasse--all three were on Gourmet magazine trading cards, remember?

All of this speculation is just a diversion--interesting, yes--but a diversion. In future posts I will try to sound less like a new age spiritual guide.

[lxt]

That's because nobody knows what it's going to taste like. Everybody knows what potatoes taste like, nobody knows what the essence of potatoes tastes like. There is no standardized culinary language for potato essence…  it's the extent of the impact that is being questioned.

Reviewing a new work undoubtedly presents a critic with a challenge and is much more demanding then reviewing a familiar piece though the stakes are considerably higher.

There are two major issues in evaluating the potential effect of a contemporary performance on future development, be it in music or food: technical and philosophical.

It is relatively easy to separate the performance from the actual piece in music if one is acquainted with a work, for instance. It is, however, impossible to do so without being familiar with a score and an initial thought process of a new work. Therefore discussing any impact on future trends should be viewed from both perspectives: “the score” and the performance. The new “language of potato essence” is a “score” composed by Adria. To be able to see the future of this work, it is essential for a critic to “read a score” first and to “listen” to the work at least once with a score.

The philosophical issue concerns the interpretation of the “language” or vocabulary of the creator. Unlike the earlier Baroque or Classical periods where a certain technique prevailed, today composers are inspired to use a complex combination of tonal and non-tonal. It is quite interesting to follow the history of composers being reevaluated after their death. Shostakovich, for example was identified as a reactionary composer during his lifetime and the fact that Bach and Mozart's music was basically conservative, while Berlioz and Beethoven's was radical, is of little importance now. What is important, however, is the quality of their work. The challenging part in identifiying this aspect lies in one’s ability to “hear” no matter what vocabulary the “composer” chooses to use.

Edit: Three typos corrected.

[Fat Guy]

My favorite quote from the Showalter article:

"The next phase, perhaps, will be virtual or conceptual cuisine, where the food is not only deconstructed but imaginary."

That quote was one of several reasons I thought the essay -- which I've just re-read -- was more cute than good. It seems to me that if you want to be serious about the intellectual direction of cuisine then Plotnicki comes closer to the mark when he worries about the abandonment of goodness in favor of shock value. The radical expression of this would be something along the lines of feeding people foods that intentionally taste bad in order to prove the point that flavor is fiction. So you would get trendy intellectual types to sit around a table and eat things that are formulated to taste and smell like vomit, glue, etc., and then they would report on the wonderful "leveling experience" they had undergone. By contrast, there is nothing radical about imaginary cuisine. It's what all of us consume between meals.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Fat Guy - You are not going to like my answer because it comes from the "can't pin it down exactly school." Or maybe it's the "I know porno when I see it" school. But a potato isn't a potato when the person eating it doesn't get the sensation of eating a potato while doing it.

That's the point Marcus was trying to make when he spoke about Schoenenberg. It looks like classical music, it smells like classical music, and it even has the touch and feel of classical music. And on paper everything about it is the essence of classical music (I snuck that word in on purpose .) Yet the general classical audience rejected it as an avant garde or an abstract tangent of classical music. In simple words, and I know you hate this answer, it didn't move them emotionally like classical music moved them for the 300 years prior. Too intelectual. Not enough of the primal thing that draws a person to classical music in the first place. And I can say the same thing about Ornette Coleman. It's music for jazz intelectuals. Charlie Parker made music for jazz fans. And to tell the difference between them all you have to do is to listen to them.

[Robert Schonfeld]

It seems to me that if you want to be serious about the intellectual direction of cuisine

I don't. I guess this is where we part ways, FG. I don't give too much of a damn about the intellectual direction of cuisine. I don't find it especially challenging and I don't think you do either. A few minutes reading your well-thought pieces here on egullet, and those of two or three others, follow a provided link or two, and I'm up to date on the intellectual direction of cuisine.

I thank Steve Klc for this: "Why get hung up on defining Adria, boxing him in?"

Indeed. Let's eat.

PS: I will read the book if you will write it, FG. I and maybe five other people.

[Steve Klc]

lxt's lines that "What is important, however, is the quality of their work. The challenging part in identifiying this aspect lies in one’s ability to “hear” no matter what vocabulary the “composer” chooses to use."

Perhaps lxt should have written the Showalter piece in TAP.

Steve P.--this is the crux of the issue for you when you write: "The texture of potatoes are the best part of eating them. And because that's the case, I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how seperating the potato from it's form will end up with an item that tastes better than a potato in it's natural form." You are imposing beliefs, suppositions, projections onto something and holding yourself back. You find disconnects when I or Shaw do not. It precludes you, more than anything else, from moving forward as when early sailors feared falling off the flat end of the world. But eventually, everyone realized that wasn't going to happen. With Adria, you will too. But it is going to be a long process, because you are getting hung up on the mere "concept" of a potato foam, let alone how it actually tastes, or how there might effortlessly be a hundred different potato foams and how they might be used in thousands of different dishes simultaneously all over the world.

[Fat Guy]

The "smell test" is useful, but it needs to be applied by people who have taken the time to cultivate their senses of smell. The thing is, we have many people on this site who have eaten enough haute cuisine that it's entirely legitimate for them to say "that dish sucked" based purely on impressions. Experts and aficionados are allowed to do that. But we're neither experts nor aficionados in this new cuisine. We haven't eaten enough of it. I can certainly tell you that after five or six Liebrandt meals at Atlas I found myself very far along a learning curve I had never imagined being able to tolerate no less enjoy.

[Bux]

Robert [schonfeld], quite eloquently, writes "No question the man is an original. No question his influence is already upon us. No question we don't yet know what the kind or degree of that influence will be in the long term. And no question we'd all like to eat there. I'd rather not, however, eat with a notepad at my side and my fingertips pressed to my furrowed brow."

So, don't.

Adria's food is an interesting subject of conversation, both at the table and afterwards among those who have had his food and those who haven't. The food drives conversation, but that conversation can also be a force that removes the food from it's primary sensory pleasure. That may be why the hikers I described earlier may have enjoyed their meal as much as, or more than, I did. I'll bet they didn't sit around the table taking the meal apart. That's also why my wife expressed an interest in eating there alone (or presumably, the two of us alone). Even more to the point for those who are interesting in the duscussion, but have not eaten there, we can share our thoughts, but we can't share the direct experience. You aren't really going to satisfied if I state that dinner at El Bulli was delicious even less than you will be satisfied by an account in full that only said dinner at la Pyramide in 1956 was delicious, but you will better understand the 1956 meal because its description will deal with foods you understand because they were precursors to what you eat today. In 2035, the description of dinner at El Bulli will make more sense to more people.