Clarity
People are become more inquisitive about the truth about ingredients and dishes,
like Artisan, Natural, Healthy, Organic, Farm to Table, and Hand-crafted. These words were used previously by the chefs
and culinary experts.
Now a days we a
notice increase in the use of these descriptive words for products that lack
credibility for the use of these descriptions. These descriptions are used for exploitation and for commercial use without much value added to the
guest experience, and this robs the true value and people who produce authentic
food.
A fast food restaurant starts claiming that their product to
be artisan related, it is time to refuse, and many chefs today say that time is
up now!
From Nature to Kitchen
compatibility (Foraging)
(Foraging is searching for and exploiting food resources. It affects an animal's fitness because it plays an important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce. Foraging theory is a branch of behavioral ecology that studies the foraging behavior of animals in response to the environment where the animal lives-Wikipedia)
Everyone will not search for natural food i.e. forage (searching
for food) for their dinner, it is country specific. Sitting in a woods, next to a lake or water
body or a in a valley. One can see lush green grass and vegetation. This is
country specific trend.
In these natural surroundings, what the forager sees in
Dandelions, Amaranth, wild Asparagus, Clovers, Chicory, Chickweed, Sheep Sorrel
and more in the lush green natural surroundings. Nature turns delicious.
Some restaurants are allowing one cook to be a forager for
the week. Some are employing external foragers with much success in creating a
sense of the true nature-kitchen partnerships.
When you go on jungle trip, take along a Forager's
Guide the foragers harvest
( A Guide To Identifying, Harvesting, And Preparing Edible Wild Plants(Paperback ) by Samuel Thayer some olive oil, herbs and lemon.)
Molecular Cooking
Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor (Arts and Traditions of the Table: Perspectives on Culinary History)
Understand the cooking process, beauty and taste of the end food. Cooking isn't the gorgeous presentations, it's grasping the chemistry of the ingredients, cooking process and dedicating, understanding everything that occurs to create superb flavor, aroma, color and presentation.
Diners strongly believe in the molecular gastronomy evolution
& revolution some years ago and today
also. This knowledge of the physical and
chemical transformations of ingredients, occurs while cooking, pleases our
taste buds and enriches our culinary exploration without taking away the natural
aroma of a grilled steak, roasted prime rib with potatoes.
The idea is to recognize the real culinary artist from the
dramatist, disappearing pouch raviolis or reverse specification* will succeed
unless it also provides wonderful flavor and evokes a sense of discovery.
*(Spherification is the culinary process of shaping a liquid
into spheres which visually and texturally resemble caviar. The technique was originally discovered by Unilever in
the 1950s (Potter 2010, p. 305) and brought to the modernist cuisine by
the creative team at elBulli under
the direction of executive chef Ferran Adrià.
There are two main methods for
creating such spheres, which differ based on the calcium content in the product
to be spherified. For substances containing no calcium, the liquid is mixed
with sodium alginate, and dripped into a cold
solution of calcium chloride or calcium carbonate. Reverse spherification, for
use with substances which contain calcium, requires dripping the substance into
an alginate bath. Both methods give the same result: a sphere of liquid held by
a thin gel membrane, texturally similar to caviar.-Wikipedia)
Diners can be a Part of the Process
Tradition goes like this : customers ordering from a menu, meal
is cooked, and the service staff serving the guest. Now a days that trend is changing, especially
in avant
garde restaurants.
Reputed and successful restaurateurs know that guests want
to be informed of the cooking process and ingredients etc., during dinner, in
the due course of wonderful meal. Restaurateurs
are responding with a dining environment that allows guests to participate in
the process. Tours of the Chef's herb garden prior to dinner, bartender creating
a specialty cocktail with guest’s choice
of ingredients, sampling the wine or cheese menu and knowing about the flavors, or watching live, Chef prepare a
multi-course meal.
Guest’s involvement in the dinner is an engaging process.
Gluten Free
(A gluten-free diet is a diet that excludes foods containing gluten. Gluten is a protein found in wheat (including kamut and spelt),barley, rye, malts and triticale. It is used as a food additive in the form of a flavoring, stabilizing or thickening agent, often as "dextrin". A gluten-free diet is the only medically accepted treatment for celiac disease,[1] the related condition dermatitis herpetiformis, andwheat allergy.
A gluten-free diet might also
exclude oats.
Medical practitioners are divided on whether oats are an allergen to celiac
disease sufferers or if they are
cross-contaminated in milling facilities by other allergens. Oats may also be contaminated when
grown in rotation with wheat (wheat seeds from the previous harvest sprouting
up again in the oat field and being harvested along with the oats).
The term gluten-free is generally used to indicate a
supposed harmless level of gluten rather than a complete absence. The exact level at which gluten is
harmless for people with celiacs is
uncertain and controversial. A 2008 systematic review tentatively concluded that consumption
of less than 10 mg of gluten per day for celiac patients is unlikely to
cause histological abnormalities, although it noted that few reliable studies
had been done-Wikipedia)
Gluten free diets should be more than just serving steamed vegetable
or boiled beans etc.
The ethnic culinary cooking provides excellent gluten free
recipes that have been evolved naturally over time, originating from various
parts of the all over the world. Pan Asian and North African ethnic foods served
by chef’s gluten free, preserving the richness and the flavors of the
dishes. Most cities and even and towns
now produce gluten free pastries without the preservatives, whole wheat pizzas
that are truly delicious, and some of America's classic recipes are gluten free.
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