The Complexity of Simple Food

In the eyes of many people food is no longer purely a fuel source, yet an opportunity to experience something new or bizarre. Modern cuisine caters to the ever expanding desire to push the boundaries of the label food. Re-constructed, de-constructed and artistic interpretation of meals from humble origins now fill menus across the world. Simple food should be pushed to new levels and people’s expectations should be pushed, like most things change is good for the human soul and culture. Experimenting fires new tastes and flavours that re imagine the core beliefs of the simple foodie. How many people have been bought to tears over new flavour of cheese soufflé is a different question. The dinner table after all, like the stage, is one of the few places where someone can show skill, passion and the desire to create a feeling in someone else. Even if the feeling is simply as being fuller than when they walked in. Someone trying a new recipe for the first time will often go into a completely new mind set, worrying about the strangest little things from “is this carrot too long?”to “is my flakey pastry flakey enough?”. Above all else cooking for many people is that escape, the simple act of focusing on one thing, the meal.

In my eyes that is what cooking should be about, the escape, the pleasure and stress of making a meal for someone else to enjoy. To put the time and hard work into creating someone beautiful that create an emotion (joy or horror) in a person. The push for change in food although is evolutionary I believe it can overshadow the actual simple bare too bones ingredients and emotions. Too much time is spent on being different and not enough is spent on the core of making food for everyone. The act of cooking simple food well, although practiced early on professionally, often gets left behind the larger wave of new and exciting. How many people go to a restaurant and order something simple and basic. No one! You go to have something new, so I understand why everyone does it. But on the day to day does simple flavours get forgotten? Every new food craze pushes the original meal further and further back. Modern Gastronomy is one of the most physical interpretations of emotions after art and music. It’s pushes food to new mouth watering levels and inspires people on a daily basis to build beautiful and daring creations. I feel torn between the two worlds, hanging onto the past and excited by the new. It’s leading a change in what would define as a simple meal.

I worry the connection of modern gastronomy and price, often masks the chefs true intentions. Food should not of all things have a class system. The alienation of this higher complex form of dining, pulls apart and separates what the majority of us feel about cooking. There should not be any barrier to stopping anyone enjoying any level of flavour. The relatively new act of sourcing real and pure ingredients is fantastic. I honestly believe it’s done more in the past 20 years for humans than can comprehended. The fast mas produced food of the 1950’s really reduced the public’s interpretation of simple cooking. Now ingredients are being put first, the masses are being introduced to a new level of quality of eating. A quality that is now not only wanted but expected in a lot of new foods. However this novilty of locally sourced produce has now warn off for many people. Now the meals we have known all long are being altered and re fined to a new level. With this evolution comes price, yes good ingredients are expensive, unfortunately that’s why they are normally good. There is no changing that free range chicken tastes better than battery farmed chicken, it’s just fact. So now to be interesting food has to change into this new experience.

I feel this conversation slowly mutating into a rant of a hungry man.

To my core I believe food should excite you and feed you. Yes a chef may have pushed your ideas of what’s possible in the kitchen, with complex flavours and stunning presentation. But if you leave hungry then they have failed, the basis of their role above all else is to provide you with a good meal. The future of food is such a stark contrast to the past, food has gotten smaller and more expensive. It’s odd and pushes many people away from it. When some one sees the niche of quality and quantity I believe there is room for amazing things to happen.

The example of this change in ratio of portion and price was a recent visit to local hotel and restaurant. Award winning and well respected, this venue is a place for special occasions and afternoons drinking wine watching the yachts race around the harbour. Unfortunately the price is the first thing you associate with the destination so I had mixed feelings when I was invited for a meal. Putting on a shirt that was clean and had as few holes as possible I arrived to well dressed and mannered staff and a beautiful interior layout. Led to tables complete with white table cloths and expensive looking cutlery we were given leather backed menus and conversation quickly to turned wine pairings and how steaks should be cooked. The courses came and went and overall the quality of the food was as to be expected very high, but I couldn’t help noticing amongst the conversation and popping of corks the portion sizes were decreasing. I thought to test this I would order a cheeseboard for dessert.

I find taking pictures of food actually quite embarrassing. However I had to take a photo so I could show numerous unconcerned people my tiny tiny cheeseboard.

Everything on the cheeseboard was undoubtedly very fine quality and very delicious. It was however very very small, borderline actually quite funny. It left me hungry.

This is the complexity of simple food; I am torn between the evolution of the modern gastronomic machine. Creating food that can rival art in its beauty and power to creat joy. And the simple old food of our past, that would feed us and show us the basis of our complex palette. I dip in and out of both sides one day eating someothing strange and beautiful, tiny in the centre of an odd shaped plate. Then another finding the same amount of joy in someone home made out of a paper bag. To be honest there are worse problems in the world, I go to bed full every night which is more than a lot of people have. That’s the problem with food, it’s such a beautiful insane thing and stirs such passion that it’s easy to get lost in the conversation and pick a side. All I can say is don’t. Look at someone cooking in a Michelin star restaurant with same respect and admiration as someone cooking at a stall at the side of the street. Simple food is complex and so many people walk the line and do it well, try as much as you can.

Eat well

J.T