Borsht a sa sarda ai fiori di cappero

the Art of Cooking

Had nihilists been as common in the kitchen as they are in artistic circles, then no one would have dared deny cooking its rightful place among the Arts. What would I care? I'm not worried about the (lack of) dignity of my trade. And as a matter of fact – as I hope to make apparent in the following – I am probably able to enjoy both cooking and eating more under the present circumstances. So it is for the sake of the art, rather than for the sake of food that I will argue here that it does deserve that exalted place.

I´ll have to start with a definition of art: a representation of elements from reality that evoke meaningful feelings or emotions in the context of the observer's life. A movie depicting a heroic adventure would qualify. As would a painting about a child's wondering. Or a statue that visualizes life's burden. A song or symphony that captures the joy of summer. Music, like food, doesn´t use concepts to suscitate emotions. And I am not referring to ´conceptual art´, the bric-a-brac'ed mini essays that flood the modern art world. Conceptual art is boring – and it misses the very point in art's function in life – because it is an intellectual exercise and instead of provoking feelings of any kind, they make a, usually political, statement. Even literature, that in its matter consists purely of concepts, a series of words, aims to transmit emotions.

Now for all the difficulty in understanding what sensory and cerebral mechanisms allow 'sounds' to have such an effect on people, nobody would challenge music as a form of art. Probably it is the force of the emotions that we all know music can cause that works as a first and final argument. All through - auditive – tension and release. Food, on the other hand, does not seem to have the same emotional impact – less even does it provoke a comparable affectional variety. Ironically one could consider music the most frivolous of the arts, in the sense that it is hard to connect its principles with our inherited mechanisms of survival, with the modalities of human life. Our relationship with food, on the other hand, is as relevant, as urgent as it was when we still swung from tree to tree.

Indeed, if cooking is an art at all, it most certainly is 'applied'. Architecture is an applied art, in the sense that it translates furless man's need for shelter. Eating, of course, is not unique to humans, but cooking is. Our taste, and smell, our tactile sense, and our sight originally were instruments with which we were able to estimate nutritional value, toxicity, digestibility, etc. While these functions have been taken over by intellectual means, our senses are still there to be stimulated. And we do. Cooks and other mortals have developed innumerable ways to create sensuous pleasures by preparing our food in specific ways. The final purpose remains feeding, and the overriding feeling created will be fysical satisfaction. There are many ways towards this gastro-intestinal sensation, I'd even say this feeling itself has variations – from the porridge's solid inertia to the light'hearted' contentment of sushi – but one could say this final purpose is the great limiting factor for cooking as an art.

To return to the comparison with architecture: imagine a building that does not provide shelter. It might be pretty as hell, but it would miss its purpose completely. Now with the incredibly raised level in welfare that a lot of us can celebrate daily, a number of foods and drinks are consumed that are not intended to feed, but rather to entertain. This development does enlarge the scope of food, but limitedly so. After all, it will have to taste good, right? And if it doesn´t exactly feed you, it shouldn't poison you either. Now, think of Rietveld's chair – a chair that is actually so horrible to sit on, that it only supports its claim to being art. Similar phenomena in the world of food are few. I can only think of Japanese dishes with blowfish. As much as food, these are a flirt with danger and death. And they are a culinary example of a certain value in Japanese culture. Pushing our powers of imagination a bit further, we could extend the comparison to the use of bitter in cooking. Bitter is the most ´acquired´ of tastes. Our bitter taste receptors originally are an alarm-system for poisonous substances. Compare the 'medicinal' effects of bitter substances on our stomach. But bitters can also be used to create tension in a dish, admittedly not such a strong emotion as the stylized fear of death provoked by blowfish sashimi; and if it cannot be properly termed an emotion, still an affective appraisal of the eater's perception. And if not an emotion, it most decidedly is human, inasmuch as it cannot be equated with an animal or ´digital´type of appreciation like/not like. As part of a composition, an ingredient that may be repellent by itself, can add to or improve something in an ingredient that is good by itself. This is an aspect of tasting as an active process, of consciously 'digesting' the olfactory data.

Now if I were to cook the inedible, I might risk my position in the kitchen, but at the same time I could hope to be taken seriously in 'artistic circles'. I'd serve the soon-to-become infamous tart-tartes, chew-long beef, in: the nutshell, low-heat fritters, grilled cucumber, and of course a char-manger. I'd leave my guests - or my comience, if I am permitted a neologism – furious, frustrated, appalled. Some of them would be utterly confused; especially those sensitive to other people's opinion. At some point during this whole sequence – all arts depend on some build-up of tension, after all – I might suscitate a feeling of relief, of homecoming, of triumph even. By serving anything good. I could have considered 'cooking' for the event by randomly throwing ingredients in the pot – rather like I did as a four-year-old. But surely that would have been too 'naturalist' a meal, to inspire people with any strong emotions.

One could argue that the emotions I'm speculating on here are not the same kind as we hope to experience through the other arts; that these are meta-sensual, the result of a reflection on perception(s), and not immediate emotional reactions to tastings. If the comience hadn't suspected that I knew better, or, really, if they hadn't known any better, they wouldn't have experienced anything beyond mild disgust. But then, isn´t knowing better the basis, the proper context for all (emotional) appraisal of art? As it is for creations of taste, our most primitive sense. We might share taste, chemical detection, with bacteria, but as human beings we are capable of comparing new data with an enormous archive of previous perceptions. Whether we analyze and compare fully consciously or not, isn't really relevant, inasmuch as we must distinguish an infinity of tastes with a rather finite number of olfactory receptors. Is this why complexity of taste is one of the greatest compliments made of food and wine? Because to deserve this title means stimulating our senses intensely, to cause a treasury of perceptions the size and shape of a Southern villa, and to permit our mind to roam through it. And our body to digest. The villa changes each time, but it always harbors well-being, since it is pleasurable to feed ourselves. It is our roaming through the house of perceptions that constitutes our enjoyment as human beings. You could compare this type of enjoyment to the one we experience by listening to music; in our head we are able to compare sounds to spatial, geometrical relations that – besides provoking emotions – confirm our functioning as human beings. Then, of course, we can experience 'meaningful' emotions upon listening to music, whereas food grants us a series of sensual stimuli and a degree of physical satisafaction. Until you run into a cook as perverse as I described above.

Comments and ideas are most welcome.  

Twisted Shrimp Pasta

Ingredients:

for two portions

extra virgin olive oil

½ an orange

1 bay leaf

salt

3 ounces of spaghetti p.p.

½ cup of cream (stabilized)

1 spring onion

a couple of prawns, a handful of shrimp, some scampi, or your own alternative

a few spoons of dry white wine

Procedure:

Bring a large pan of water to the boil and salt it to taste when boiling. Throw in the pasta and stir once or twice to avoid sticking.

Chop the onion and glaze it in the olive oil over low heat.

Add the shrimp. (A lot, if not most of the flavor resides in the skin and heads. If you really cannot stand the hassle of peeling them on your plate, use peeled shrimp.)

As soon as they lose their transparency, deglaze with the wine and add some zest and the juice from the orange, the bay leaf. After a minute add the cream and reduce slightly.

Strain the pasta about a minut before they are al dente ( which allows it to absorb some of you sauce still ), and add it to your sauce. Heat all together for another minute while mixing well.

Serve if you wish for some contrast (in color as well as flavor) with a bit of chopped parsley, or with some red peppercorns.

Benjamin´s Unmarred Meat Marinades

Chicken; I'll start here with a classic. Yakitori! The recipe obviously is not mine, but having wrestled it at great personal cost from a creepy employer, I do feel it deserves this place of honor.

Reduce on low heat: 1 part soy sauce, 1 part meirin, 1 part castor sugar. Don't reduce too much, because, when cool, it will be too dense and sticky to use. Always use the fattier parts of chicken, or you'll get a dry and tedious result.

Beef; This marinade emphasizes the full, reddish sweetness of beef. It's wonderfull for a sunny, mediterranean barbecue.

Mix olive oil, salt, black pepper, bay leaf, oregano and tomato-paste (as thick as you can get), a couple of crushed garlic cloves, red wine.

Crocodile; This is amazing meat; delicate and pinkish white, lean, with amazing long fiber. Your marinade should also tenderize it, by adding enough acid. You´ll see that I tried to stay close to the animal´s habitat in its garnishing. I suspect that gator meat is similar at the outset, though I would fear that swampy nutrition would give it a muddy taste. Don´t let my musings keep you from trying.

Mix rice-bran oil, a spoon of sesame oil, some crushed ginger, garlic, lemon grass, and red pepper, a few limes cut to pieces, salt.

Lamb; I've organized this one around a North-African taste-theme. It's nice, not as explosive as these times might suggest, and well suited to temper the fatty and sometimes dominant scents of this meat. If you generally find lamb too ancid, it helps to rinse it in cold running water.

Mix olive oil, salt, some dried or fresh red pepper, lemon juice, orange peel, a pinch of cumin and cloves, honey. If you want some chopped parsley or cilantro.

Porc; Porc can be quite delicate and I wanted to bring out that aspect with this marinade.

Mix white wine, a spoon of almond oil, salt, green pepper, tarragon (not too much!).

Wild Boar; Wild boar, as all game, is powerfull in taste so you need to garnish it with power in order to reach some sort of balance. The gamey notes harmonize well with spices, so I followed a rather classic style.

Mix olive oil, red wine, salt, black pepper, bay leaf, thyme, rosemary, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, crushed garlic, chopped onion. Choose your cuts well, since not all of the boar will be fatty and tender enough for your bbq.

Horse; For fear of all sorts web-attacks and legal trouble, I'll only let the thought sink in for now. If you want it, I'll definitely post a marinade for horse meat.

Grilling Vegetables

Even if the first and last think you would think of, when mentioning a barbecue, is wonderful cuts of meat (with the possible exception of marshmellows), I donnot think any open fire excess is complete without some vegetables. And don't worry: I am not going to discuss your health, though I personally do enjoy the alleviation from vegetables when my stomach is churning on the exigent animal proteins and fat. It is the lightness and variation, the endless palate of subtle sweets, sours and little bitters that complete for me a nice and sunny, out-door meal. The beauty is that you can cook it all on the very same fire, or even on the cooler edges of your grill that are useless for cooking any T-bone of importance.

What I'm proposing below is worthwhile, though far from spectacular. It is also Mediterranean, not only in the use of ingredients and flavors, but also in its culinary approach, I believe. That is, the various dishes are all directed, not to the creation of 'something new', but towards the discovery of the flavour that was always there. Call it sublimination, if you like, or aha-erlebnis, your grill is the most fabulous tool for pure tastes immaginable.

A good sprinkling of salt will help your vegetables to cook better on the irons, as will a drop of (olive-)oil.

Prepare the following garnishings for the specified vegetables:

Zucchini: Extravirgin olive oil, lemon juice, chopped (flat) parseley, a crushed clove of garlic, ground black pepper.

Eggplant: Extravirgin olive oil, a drop of balsamic vinegar, coarseley chopped mint leaves, a crushed clove of garlic, ground black pepper.

Bell pepper: For the red type use extravirgin olive oil, a drop of red wine vinegar, a crushed habanero or other pepper, crushed basil leaves, and a crushed clove of garlic.

Pumpkin: Extravirgin olive oil, lime juice, ground green peppercorns, a bit of chopped tarragon.

Chicory: For these bitter beauties I'd use nothing but olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and black

Radicchio: pepper.

A grilled tomato attains perfection for me with just a bit of olive oil and salt. Just make sure to puncture them once or twice before laying them on the grill, or they might explode.   

Sunset Scallops

Ingredients:

Scallops (to your heart's desire)

the peel of half an orange

a pinch of saffron

a dessertspoon of pink peppercorns

extravirgin olive oil

a lemon, if you like

Procedure:

Take the zest in strips from the orange and lay them to dry on the (less hot) side of your grill.

Remove the beard (and the eggs if still attached) from the scallops and wet (that is not soak) them with the oil.

Take a mortar and pestle and work the dried (but not parched) zest, the saffron, and the pink peppercorns to a powder.

Sprinkle the scallops with the powder and grill. Do not cook them through, or they will be dry and stringy. Serve immediately, if you like with a piece of lemon on the side.

Minestra ai Carciofi - Artichoke Stew

Ingredients: (for about 4 good servings)

½ cup pearl barley

2 large potatos

2 Italian artichokes

2 cloves of garlic

1 medium-sized onion

1 cup chickpeas

bay leaf

thyme

salt

black pepper

olive oil

Procedure:

Leave the dried chickpeas to soak in water overnight.

Put a large pot on medium heat, pour in olive oil, add a spoon of butter, and glaze the chopped onion and garlic. Add the potato (in ½ inch cubes). Stir, and after a few minutes add the cleaned artichoke in slices (for cleaning check out the picture below). A few minutes later still discard the soaking water and add the chickpeas. After another minute of stirring pour in cold water up to about an inch above the vegetables. Rinse and add the barley, bay leaf and thyme. Bring to the boil and leave to simmer for about and hour, or until done. Remove the scum from the surface regularly. Salt (and pepper) to taste - but only when barley and chickpeas are done. Serve hot.