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Doom, Gloom, an' Tatties

Paul
2009-01-27 18:10:00 UTC

I hope everyone had a good Burns’ Night. It’s another one of those festivals I’ve never really understood. We don’t have a Shakespeare night or an Orwell night or a Joss Whedon Night. Instead, we celebrate a faintly-mediocre poet who couldn’t spell. A poet whose sole contribution to society was to sell out millennia of rich Scottish history and culture for personal gain, and the direct cause of the fact that the entire planet now thinks that we’re a race of skirt-wearing offal-munchers who can’t talk properly. I hope that, at least, the readers of this blog are aware that there is much more to Scottish culture than just Rabbie Burns.

This week, the demigodlike A A Gill tells us that ``cynicism is the luxury of a gluttonously overindulged society‘’, and that in these belt-tightening times, the world turns en masse to simpler, non-ironic pleasures, such as steak. Cynicism dead? That’s me fucked then. And there’s a subtler implication that gastro-pretension is on the way out too, which raises questions for the future of molecular gastronomy.

Molecular gastronomy is, it has to be said, a very indulgent practice, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but indulgence is going out of style. It’s shortly going to be terribly declassé to flaunt the fact that you have enough money to pay someone to slow-braise an entire pig for eighteen hours so that it’s just right. And when that day comes, I will be waiting with my slow-cooker, my collection of 1970s cookbooks, and a smug grin. They always come back to me in the end.

Perhaps the rot has begun already. I bought a bag of ratte potatoes at the Farmer’s Market this week. Theyr’e a very waxy kind of new potato, brilliant for boiling, but not all that useful for much else. The chap on the stall told me that “the Michelin chefs” (all of them, as a group, apparently) mash them in a 1:1 ratio with butter. I gave him a look and observed that, if I’d wanted mash, I would have bought different potatoes.

Seriously. Fifty per cent butter? That’s expensive. My initial thought wasn’t that it’s nice for them as can afford it, but just that it’s a terrible waste of good butter when you could just use potatoes suitable for mashing instead.

I’m still going to give it a go, of course, but only on a couple of the smaller spuds. It’s going to be an experiment, not a meal.

What does everyone else think? Does the credit crunch sound the death knell for innovative cuisine? Is it such a bad thing if it does? Or is a steak maybe not the harbinger A A Gill thinks it is?

Comments

Mark sutherland | 2009-01-27 19:40:37 UTC

What would a Whedon’s night supper consist of? Buffet? Washed down with pigs blood or red wine for the less adventurous? Not to mention the obligatory musical interlude followed by frozen yoghurt?
Sounds serene…

Heather | 2009-01-27 19:42:19 UTC

I imagine we’ll see still-rich people spinning off in exotic culinary directions just because they can, but I hope innovation can come to be about creativity with cheaper food rather than how much money can be crammed on a plate. I say I hope. I am still cynical at any rate.

Hugh | 2009-01-27 20:17:54 UTC

Speaking as a man currently preparing to cook his second sous-vide pork belly in two weeks, I’d say that molecular gastronomy’s going to survive the downturn well. After all, there are very few cooking techniques that can make incredibly cheap cuts of meat taste that gorgeous…

The more you know about the chemistry of cheap food, the more you can do Stuff with it.

Marveen | 2009-01-27 20:18:43 UTC

Fifty per cent butter sounds loathesome anyway.

As you said above, buy the flippin’ floury variety already.

Lab Cat | 2009-01-28 01:17:37 UTC

You can make your potatoes more floury by storing in the fridge before using them. The cold temperature causes the starch to be converted to sugar so they taste sweeter too. This conversion is, as far as I know, reversible.

Doing a 1:1 ratio of butter: potato for mash is extreme and heart attack country. I prefer adding cream to mash, myself. I keep the butter for toast and baked potatoes.

Matthieu Weber | 2009-01-28 07:03:50 UTC

The recipe I use for mashed potatoes (it’s claimed to come from Robuchon, but I never checked) uses 20% butter (that is, 250g butter for 1kg raw potatoes). I usually use even less than that, something around 150g I’d say. And then I add milk, a bit at a time, until I’m satisfied with the texture.

pajh | 2009-01-29 18:54:36 UTC

@Matthieu: I insist on using unfeasibly huge amounts of butter for my mash, and I never use anything like 20%. This is what I mean about culinary indulgences—-you can make good food without just wasting butter. Are chefs going to realize this?

Veronica | 2009-01-29 23:56:21 UTC

50% butter? Ugh! Too much!

I love mash with a bit of butter, salt, pepper blah blah blah and a bit of sour cream makes it lovely and smooth.

I don’t know if the higher sorts of order of food will suffer due to economics – but I do think there might be some room for improvising in the kitchen, with some great substitutions yet to be discovered.

daubermaus | 2009-01-30 04:53:43 UTC

Man – this makes me feel old!

Nuevo Cuisine.

At the height of the 80’s extremes – the big thing was to go to restaurant’s in LA and pay obscene amounts of money for 3 bites of food.

Then the Saving and Loan industry collapsed and it went out of fashion faster that the salons that would apply your make-up for you.

The plating for Molecular Gastronomy reminds me of back then. The food is mostly better – but the portions will have to change.

In a down economy most people aren’t looking for the perfect single bite of pork belly, they want dinner, and while a tasting menu might contain enough food to fill you up – I suspect it won’t “sastisfy.”

The cooking techniques will stay around, become more refined and more user friendly. Some of the seasoning ideas will have to evolve – simply because what tastes good as a single bite – might get real old on bite 5.

And then the economy will shift – or heal – and some bright young chef will think of something new – again.

Hugh | 2009-01-30 11:35:35 UTC

Interesting post!

I must say that I’ve never been as utterly stuffed full of food as I was at the end of the Fat Duck tasting menu. I didn’t eat for about 24 hours after that – which for me is unprecedented.

I’ve had similar experiences with other tasting menus, at Gastropod in Vancouver in particular.

The portions might look small, but they add up.

Stephanie | 2009-02-01 17:20:20 UTC

Does the credit crunch sound the death knell for innovative cuisine?

Hell no! Look a bit further back than the last 60 years, and you might see that the most interesting, innovative food all comes from not wanting to waste a single bit of anything. If you’re looking for recent-times cooking, look at all the tips out there for making 1 chicken last a family for 3 meals…

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