One reason why the food you eat at restaurants today is so different from the food your grandparents ate when they went out is because great chefs have created new techniques and dishes that have contributed to the advancement of global cuisine.
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Unfortunately many of these advances have now been corrupted to the level where they are caricatures of what their inventors originally intended. Here is a list of some things that I am fed up of.
FOAMS
Heston Blumenthal pioneered the use of liquid nitrogen in cooking. His The Fat Duck restaurant in Bray was the first restaurant to use techniques based on liquid nitrogen.
Ferran Adria at El Bulli took Blumenthal’s work and created the siphon which transformed many cooking techniques. Neither man liked the term molecular gastronomy which was invented by Herve This who wrote an influential book of that name. But the techniques they created, no matter what you called them, revolutionised restaurant kitchens.
Even then, there was a danger that their work was being caricatured by less talented chefs who bought the equipment Blumenthal and Adria had popularised but did not understand the philosophy behind the cooking.
Years ago I asked Adria if he was worried that he would be remembered as the man who taught talentless chefs how to make foams. These are airy things that taste a little of the flavours they are communicating while giving your mouth a bubble bath. They became the signature of mindless molecular madness.
Adria laughed but sadly, in the hands of untalented chefs, foams have continued to remain the symbol of El Bulli’s influence on chefs. In the West, no chef of consequence would use foams all the time. Elsewhere, however, too many chefs still think foams are cool and put them on everything, instantly dating their food and advertising their lack of talent.
SOUS VIDE
The tragedy with sous vide is that, used properly, it can be a remarkable technique. You put a piece of fish or vegetable in a packet which is vacuum sealed and then submerge it in a water bath kept at a constant temperature. This has the effect of preserving the original flavours of the ingredient while gently cooking it.
Unfortunately there are uses that sous vide should not be put too. It can turn good meat into cardboard and it cannot give the food the benefit of the chemical processes (such as the Maillard Reaction) which take place when meat is seared.
On the other hand, sous vide is a foolproof way of ensuring that a steak does not overcook. So lazy chefs sous vide their meat beforehand, not caring that the process has destroyed the texture of the steak, pork chop etc and then give it a nominal, hurried sear before serving it. If you have been to a restaurant, here or abroad, where your steak has the texture of wet cardboard then it is likely that the chef has a sous vide machine in the kitchen.
In its day, sous vide led to many kitchen triumphs. For instance the great Spanish chef Andoni Aduriz used it to explore how best to cook an egg, a use to which sous vide is still well suited. But it’s now become a joke; a default option for useless, lazy chefs.
FERMENTATION
After the Blumenthal-Adria revolution, the most influential chef in the world has been Rene Redzepi of Copenhagen’s Noma.
Redzepi has been even more influential because for many years, Noma accepted interns (stagiers) from all over the world who saw the magic being created up close. Many of these stagiers went on to run very good restaurants of their own and to take Redzepi’s ideas forward.
Unfortunately some of them did to Redzepi’s philosophy what the foam-maniacs had done to Adria’s. They focused on two important parts of the Noma legacy which they then misrepresented.
The first of these was fermentation. Noma was not the first restaurant to harness global techniques of fermentation but it was the most influential because it taught restaurant chefs how to create flavour by using bacteria and mould.
Sadly, many stagiers who wanted to brag about having spent three months at Noma without admitting that they spent most of their time peeling oranges or chopping onions began to use fermentation as a way of advertising their Noma connection.
Much of the stuff they fermented at their restaurants was inedible but because fermentation is such a buzzword, chefs still keep bragging about their fermented foods.
In contrast, Redzepi and his Noma Projects enterprise have used modern versions of the techniques he pioneered to create a range of original and transformative seasonings.
FORAGING
Once again, Noma did not invent foraging (Blumenthal’s signature dish Sounds of the Sea at The Fat Duck has always used foraged sea-vegetables and plants) but Redzepi took it out into the world.
At Noma, foraging is part of a philosophy that includes eating the natural ingredients all around us (When Redzepi takes Noma on the road, to Mexico, Japan or Australia, his ingredients — from corn to kangaroo meat—are entirely locally sourced.)
Take away that philosophy and foraging just becomes a way of going for long treks and returning with dodgy things that you have picked up that don’t even taste any good. And yet that is exactly how foraging is now used at too many restaurants.
TRUFFLE OIL
There are many reasons to hate truffle oil, among them the fact that it has nothing to do with truffles. It is ordinary (usually: cheap) oil to which is added an industrially-processed essence (often extracted from petroleum) called 2,4-Dithiapentane.
Once upon a time, truffle oil used real truffles which is when chefs began using it. Those days are long gone because truffles are expensive and real truffle oil has a short shelf life. But because this inexpensive chemical mimics the smell of one of the many complex compounds that contribute to the aroma of real truffles, it appeals to people who don’t know what a truffle actually smells like.
No serious chef in the West would dream of using truffle oil. In India, even top restaurants use it.
It smells disgusting and will keep you delivering chemical burps for hours afterwards.
FARMED SALMON
Wild salmon is delicious but it is hard to find (it is endangered in many seas) and is expensive. It is also prone to parasites which is why the Japanese rarely made salmon nigiri sushi.
When salmon farming took off, this was a welcome development because it created a sustainable source of this delicious fish. Even the Japanese started experimenting with salmon sushi.
Unfortunately as demand for farmed salmon increased, unscrupulous producers began cutting corners. Most of the salmon that is imported into India these days consists of flabby, fatty fish (they are bred in overcrowded pens that don’t give them enough space to swim around and develop muscle) that taste nothing like wild salmon (they are fed on pellets of cheap fish meal) and are artificially coloured to look pink.
No good restaurants in the West would serve fish of this quality. In India even top chefs treat it as a delicacy.
