soupnancy

B&B February 23, 2007

In Montreal :

The Montreal Highlights festival is underway! All kinds of cool things cooking through until next Sunday.. www.montrealenlumiere.com . 

The Gazette's notes from the festival:  www.canada.com/montrealgazette/story.html?id=24f53c61-77b3-4d96-8ac4-806a322e4cee

Bofinger Smokehouse & BBQ is a new casual eatery in NDG ( Sherbrooke W. and Oxford ) that specializes in hot-smoked meats, run by Kyle Kerr and Stephane Nanny. More than just chicken and ribs, you can get pulled pork, wings, smoked turkey and brisket, all with a selection of house sauces and sides, not to mention terrific fries. It is counter service only, but you’re welcome to linger, with beers on tap, wine by the glass and plasma TV screens. The food is finger licking good, cheap, and the décor clean and comfortable. My bet is that this place will do rocking business, especially on game days.

From all over:

Almost Foie gras : Gourmet reports back on a new product, a goose fattened liver that is not force fed. A compromise for the ethical foie gras lover? Not quite the silken decadence that is foie gras, but still apparently quite delicious. There’s hope yet that efforts in ethical eating won’t stamp out all our pleasure. http://www.roastgoose.com/ordering.html#Goose%20Livers

Anne Sophie Pic wins top award, which is a big f-ing deal in the old school macho world of French gastronomy and Michelin stars.. I love her style.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,2018534,00.html

Check out the Cheese freak: A queer story of a bloke that lives on Cheddar alone. http://tinyurl.com/yqz7mu

Another reason to love cocoa – the flavenols . (Sorry, no link - I heard this on CBC.)

Scientists are finding more and more to like about chocolate. We already know that it has anti-cancer effects in being high in anti-oxidants, the cocoa bean being a fruit like the super-food blueberry. They’ve already proved that certain chemical components are good for the heart and blood pressure, but now it appears that the flavenols enhance brain function too. At least, a diet rich in flavenols make mice navigate a maze better, and allows them to remember how to for a week as apposed to a day. Another scientist has found that a certain South American tribe who consume crazy amounts of pure cocoa because they flavour their drinking water with it are ultra healthy, free of any of the age related diseases we know, dying only of injury or infection, no strokes, no dementia.

Unfortunately, we can not go out and gorge ourselves on chocolate as we know it to see these benefits. The problem is that our chocolate contains a whole lot of sugar and fat, ie. too many calories, of which we already consume too much. What you want is the unprocessed cocoa powder which is hard to find and quite bitter to our palate.

But still, it’s good to know that quality chocolate is loaded with health boosing chemicals, and potentially good for you beyond the positive physiological effects derived from the pure pleasure of eating it. In theory, you can feel better about indulging in the occasional bitter chocolate, and more importantly, expect to see flavenol boosted foods on the market soon.

Synesthesia and Heston Blumenthal

http://www.starchefs.com/features/heston/html/index.shtml

Beyond classic ‘molecular gastronomy’, Heston is now focusing on psychological factors and contextual triggers to forge the ultimate dining experience..

He cites the sound of bacon sizzling as making bacon taste better, and a bottle of a certain wine tasting better on holiday than on some mundane day at home as examples in how sensory input can overlap and synergize. Inevitably, this opens doors and gives an experimental artist like him an extended canvas. Targeting all senses, and paying more attention to the setting is only natural in trying to please your customers. And Restaurateurs have been doing this for centuries with nice décor, attractive smiling waiters. However, taking it to the extreme seems overly manipulative, beyond just being a good host and cook. Like superstores shooting aromatics in the air to influence the shopper. By blatantly taking advantage of your lower brain influence, you can more easily be led down whatever path they’ve set out for you, that is, to be enchanted by whatever they’ve decided they will make you want, all so that you happily spend a lot of money.

We all know that more is at play than your taste buds when appreciating a meal. Now scientists are trying to measure this. In fact, the Journal of Neuroscience did an article in December that showed anxiety can lower your sense of sweet by 30 percent and increase your sense of bitterness and acidity by 50-something percent. As stress diminishes taste and a good time, good company and a gorgeous setting enhances both.

But when you try to fiddle too much with all these elements, bring an iPod to my table, order me to sniff things, and explain how to eat a certain dish off a new-fangled utensil and so on, somehow, I can’t help but think of sensory overload, and how I might be distracted from the actual morsel of food.

If you’re going for theatre, then fine, it’s all a part of the composition. If I was going to the Fat Duck, I would probably be in that frame of mind and welcome it. But don’t ask me to say a prayer, do a somersault, and eat the wrapper before I put the candy in my mouth on any other day. Food is just food. The restaurant experience is more than that and magical, but overworking it seems counterproductive. Especially for most of us North Americans who are not fussy people, too much of this would not fly. Then again, m aybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m just getting old.

Heston Blumenthal is an original thinker and groundbreaking chef no doubt, but he seems to have his feet still planted on the ground at least some of the time. I like what he has to say about food and kids here; I found this quote in Bill Buford’s book, Heat:

‘It is important that children make their own decisions about what they will and won’t eat, whether this is on moral or taste grounds. It should be our as responsibility as parents to make sure they have all the information they need. We must not pass on any of our own eating hang-ups. I have always made our children aware that when they are eating beef, for example, they are actually eating a cow. There is nothing wrong with this as long as the animal has led a good, healthy life and has been killed humanely. The quality of the meat is directly influenced by the quality of life of the animal itself. After all, evolution has designed us to be carnivorous both in the way we eat and the way we process our food.

Unfortunately, supermarket price wars have resulted in all food prices coming down, including those of meat. If we would only stop to think: how is this possible? Land and property values and wages have been increasing. Inflation still exists. How then can meat and poultry prices fall?’ Heston Blumenthal, Family Food

More fiddling with food. Cool innovation or tiresome gimmick?

A new thing in Texas , David Gilbert plays with food. http://www.starchefs.com/features/luqa/html/index.shtml