The Elegant Sufficiency

Michael Pollan at the Writers Festival

I’ll be honest… I haven’t read Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food) so what he had to say last Saturday at the Sydney Writers' Festival was fascinating, if not surprising.
On his request, moderator Caroline Baum had taken Pollan to the Sydney Fish Markets, and to an Australian supermarket. He showed the audience Exhibit A, Yoplait Smackers, and Exhibit B, an Omega 3-enhanced bread that “promises healthy brain development”. Among the bread’s ingredients was “tuna oil”. “This is a tuna sandwich even before you open the can of tuna,” he joked, before going on to say that adding Omega-3 to processed food is a very "reductive" approach to nutrition. He continued this theme on ABC's 7.30 Report on Tuesday night (transcript and video here) when he told Kerry O’Brien (who was hugely amused by the concept of the "soul of a carrot"):

“We know carrots are good for you, right? People have been eating them for a long time and the assumption was that what was good in cancer preventing in the carrot was the beta carotene. What makes it orange. So we extracted that and we made these supplement pills and we gave them to people and low and behold in certain populations like people who drink a lot would get sicker, were more likely to get cancer on beta carotene and the scientists kind of scratched their head. There is a couple of explanations. We don't know. But one may be that the beta carotene is not the key ingredient. You know there are 50 other carotenes in carrots. Food is incredibly complex. It's a wilderness, you know, we don't know what's going on deep in the soul of a carrot. And we shouldn't kid ourselves to think we can reduce it to these chemicals.”

My notes below on other themes he touched on at the Writers' Festival:

• In California’s Central Valley, vineyards are being ripped up to make way for almond crops, which are now one of the most profitable crops in the US. But almond trees only bloom for 10-14 days in February so there aren’t enough bees to do the pollination job. So now, every February, 60% of America’s honey bees are shipped across the country — others are brought in from Australia. With bees from all over the world mingling, it becomes, he says, “a great bee brothel”, trading viruses and parasites. The Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) has been implicated in colony collapse disorder in honey bees. Bee owners get $140 a box for the process. The bees are fed high-fructose corn syrup to get them in shape. Industrial agriculture is stressing bees and monoculture is the “original sin of agriculture”; nature doesn’t work that way. It may be an efficient method of production, but it’s not a resilient one.
• Caroline Baum asked Pollan how we can get people to care about food. Pollan responded by saying that when you can tell stories that link what’s on someone’s plate to what’s happening in the wider world, when you can tell people a narrative, a story, that’s when people will start to care. (This to me, is the most interesting sort of food writing.)
• He talked about the carbon and moral footprint of eating meat and predicted that we won’t be eating the way we do now in the future.
• He was asked about the crazy portion sizes in the States. Apparently they got bigger in the Seventies, when the price of raw materials was negligible. Companies such as McDonald’s were faced with two options: reduce prices, a bad move in business, or increase portions. The latter option won out. He drew gasps from the audience when he said it was possible to get a 64 ounce portion of soda in the US — half a gallon. That’s about eight cups, 1.9 litres, 4 pints. With food prices skyrocketing, it remains to be seen whether the super-sizing will continue.
• In one of the most interesting things he had to say, Pollan said that eating ethically in the 21st century is a complex decision-making process that depends on your values. What is your priority: your concern for your health? For the environment? For animals? Because those values might conflict. Organic rules, for example, “were invented before climate change was an issue”, and organics can have a very high carbon footprint. Work out what you value, Pollan said. “The key thing is to introduce values, not just value to your shopping decision.” As a result, we should be trying to get as much information as we can about what we buy. Transparency is what matters. 
• The refrain he has repeated time and again: “Don’t eat things your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognise: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.”

Pollan can also be heard on Radio National’s Life Matters program here.

20 Questions, 1 Light Dish, Number 3

"20 Questions, 1 Light Dish" is an (occasional) Elegant Sufficiency feature in which I ask the people who really understand flavour – chefs – to share a brilliant, light, guilt-free recipe for everyday eating.
Last chef to share his thoughts was Greg Malouf, who offered up a wonderful 18-Minute Chicken Tagine.
This time round, I’ve asked Maurice Esposito, chef/owner of Esposito at Toofey’s in Carlton, Melbourne, for a contribution. Maurice draws on his Italian heritage and his love of seafood to create fine, contemporary food. His brilliant recipe below — Red Emperor, Carrot Puree, White Asparagus, Carrot and Ginger Reduction — relies on a great piece of fish and the intense, concentrated flavours of a slow-cooked baked vegetable and reduced juices.

 

MAURICE ESPOSITO

1. Molecular gastronomy: yes or no?
Yes — it’s an evolution in cooking and it’s always important to push boundaries.
2. Chef you’d most like to meet?
Alain Ducasse. I believe in Ducasse’s philosophy – that all wonderful cuisine starts with wonderful product. In one of his books he states, “haute cuisine is 60% product, 40% technique”.
3. Restaurant you¹d most like to visit?
The Fat Duck – Heston Blumenthal really intrigues me. He’s challenging palates and I think his restaurant would be inspiring for any chef. I saw him on a science documentary on the Discovery Channel – you don’t see chefs in that context everyday. He challenges people’s perception of food and that’s the good part of molecular gastronomy for me. We need to go forward.
4. Most stained cookbook?
Grand Livre de Cuisine by Alain Ducasse – it’s also the biggest book I have. Ducasse is strongly influenced by the Mediterranean and so (it features) olive oil, olives, zucchini flowers – not heavy reductions. He brings traditional French into the realms of modern cooking – he is relevant to today.
5. Most memorable meal?
The French Laundry – 16 incredible courses, no duds. Aspects of dishes stay in my memory like a slab of candied smoked bacon – sweet, salty unctuousness; foie gras parfait with popcorn – a signature dish of Thomas Keller’s — with a glass of Sauternes. It was so bloody good.
6. Favourite dish your Mum cooked?
Braised rabbit with artichokes on pappardelle.
7. Desert island ingredients?
Rye sourdough from Baker D.Chirico and good salty butter like Mauri butter from Piemonte in Italy.
8. Favourite holiday destination?
Spain, anywhere in Spain.
9. Favourite kitchen utensil?
Hand-held Bamix. I use it to emulsify sauces – I like to use it for some dishes just before I plate up – if I introduce milk or citrus at the last minute the air lightens what could otherwise be a heavy sauce.
10. Favourite food store?
Mediterranean Wholesalers, Brunswick: I stock up on tinned tomatoes, unfiltered olive oil, pastas, olives – the standard pantry stuff.
11. Last food-related purchase?
I bought a restaurant in Carlton, that’s a food-related purchase isn’t it?
12. Biggest kitchen disaster?
The opening night when I was at Otto restaurant in Sydney. It was a new development in an old building and the sprinkler sensors obviously hadn’t been checked. As we opened the combi-oven to organise the first course, the steam that poured out of it set the sprinklers off. It was literally flooding in the kitchen and there were 100 people in the restaurant. They spent the rest of the evening being fed cold canapés and plenty of Bollinger and all left very happy (must have been the never-ending Bolly!).
13. Average breakfast?
Café latte with two sugars.
14. Guilty pleasure?
Valrhona chocolate semifreddo — a dessert at work I can't take off the menu.
15. What would you never give up?
Red wine – at the moment it’s Chestnut Hill Pinot Noir from Mount Burnett in Victoria.
16. Do you like a drink?
Hell yes!
17. Best snack for someone watching their weight?
A handful of nuts – almonds in particular.
18. Exercise regime?
I’m always at work, but I do like to go for a run once a week – if I’m lucky.
19. Hot weight-loss tip?
All things in moderation (including moderation).
20. Why this dish?
It’s seasonal, it’s healthy, you can eat this dish everyday – it’s not heavy, the flavours and textures are so simple but full of flavour.



Red Emperor, Carrot Puree, White Asparagus, Carrot and Ginger Reduction
Serves 2

2x 200g fillet red emperor
Carrot puree and reduction:
1 bunch dutch carrots
¼ teaspoon coriander seeds
500ml orange juice (5-6 six oranges)
½ teaspoon tarragon leaves
½ clove garlic, crushed
2 whole star anise
sea salt
Asparagus salad:
12 spears white asparagus
1 sprig tarragon leaves
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
sea salt to taste

Carrot puree and reduction: Preheat oven to 220C. Peel carrots. Place coriander seeds in a flameproof baking dish and toast in the oven for two minutes. Add remaining ingredients, cover and seal with foil and bake in the oven for about 50 minutes until carrots are tender. (This sounds like a long time but you want  carrots to be very soft, full of the flavour of the cooking liquid.)
Asparagus salad: Trim the asparagus and blanch in boiling water for three minutes. Refresh immediately in cold water. Drain. Pick the tarragon leaves, chop roughly and sprinkle over the asparagus. Drizzle the asparagus and tarragon with the olive oil and season to taste. Set aside.
When carrots are cooked, cool carrots in the cooking liquid. Remove carrots from liquid and strain the liquid into a small saucepan. Blend the carrots in a blender, using a little of the juice, until they form a puree. Set aside.
Return the liquid to a medium heat, and reduce until it has the consistency of a syrup.
To cook the fish: Heat a frying pan that can go in the oven. Season the skin side of the fillets with salt and pepper and brush with a little olive oil. Place skin-side down for three minutes, turn the fillet and cook for one more minute. Depending on the thickness of the fillet, you may need to finish it in the oven for a few minutes.
To serve: Reheat the carrot puree, then spoon on to a plate. Place the fish on the puree, then dress the dish with the asparagus salad. Finish the dish with the remaining syrup and, if desired, fried shallots.

Spain ... On the Road Again

Loving the look of this new food series, Spain on the Road Again — "The Road Trip of a Lifetime". Gwyneth Paltrow eats churros, barbecues, interviews Frank Gehry and spins around in a Mercedes convertible, New York mega-chef Mario Batali kids around with The New York Times's Mark Bittman, tri-lingual Spanish actress (and NIDA graduate) Claudia Bassols doesn't do much except look pretty, REM's Michael Stipe makes an appearance, and Willie Nelson delivers the theme song. Lots of fun, and I reckon we'll be seeing a lot more of the orange-clog-wearing Batali, a seriously funny man.

A New Week + Recipe Scout 12

A ghastly week behind me; a new (brighter...) one ahead in which my father’s health improves (please…) and his doctor considers releasing him from hospital, and in which I write a rather fine, rather clever 2500-word profile on the rather appealing, rather clever Sydney actor-writer Brendan Cowell, get to the gym and take a healthy packed lunch to work every day, let nothing pass my lips stronger than a Single Origin Roasters skim latte, and count the varieties of food I’m eating.
Have followed with interest Limes & Lycopene blogger Kathryn Elliott’s charting of the varieties of food she eats. “If you try to eat a greater variety of foods, you will be healthier for it,” writes Kathryn, who tallies between 30 and 35 different foods a day in her own diet. (And, I warn you, no cheating by counting the Brie de Meaux and the Parmigiano-Reggiano as two foods! That’s one and it’s called dairy!)
But Kathryn, I have questions:

• If I have miso soup at work — made from a packet mix but one without MSG — can I count the spring onions and wakame and tofu that rehydrate with the addition of boiling water as three varieties of food? And what about the miso sauce that they provide for you to mix in?
• And do pizza toppings count? And, if they do, is there a statute of limitations on how many days old the pizza can be before those toppings have lost their food value?
• Do freshly ground black pepper and Murray River salt flakes have any credentials here?
• What about a clove of garlic crushed in a lazy pasta dish and the chopped parsley from my sad balcony herb pot that I might consider using too? And hey, how about the olive oil?
• If I have muesli, do I count everything I put in it, even if I might only end up having an eighth of a teaspoon or less of the ingredient?
• What about raspberry jam, eaten with a croissant on a Sunday morning?
• And how about the store-bought spinach dip I’m hoeing into right now (and the pinenuts it claims to have)? Is that two ingredients, three if you count the rice crackers?

In the meantime, while I anxiously wait for answers, here are the latest recipes I’m adding to my Recipe Scout Index:

1. Salmon Rillettes on the David Lebovitz blog.
2. Rick Stein’s Fillet of Turbot with Clams and Chardonnay on BBC Food.
3. Chickpea, Almond and Sesame Spread on A Life (Time) of Cooking.
4. Gourmet Traveller's fine-looking Lasagne. 
5. "Salmon Noodle Soup for What Ails You" on Cook & Eat.
6. Algarve Buzz's Portuguese Codfish Cakes (Pasteis de Bacalhau).
7. Indian Squid Curry on Rasa Malaysia.
8. Bake until Bubbly Macaroni Cheese on Bay Area Bites.
9. Saveur's Spinach with Pinenuts and Raisins.
10. Strawberry Panzanella on 101 Cookbooks.

Links Wrap-Up

Alas, I’m well overdue in sharing some links, and they do pile up. Might end up being a two, or a three-parter… some good stuff though, despite older vintage of some. You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I start with this (from the website of European weekly magazine, Der Spiegel) — the Guolizhuang Restaurant in Beijing, covered by the BBC previously. Indeed, my colleague John Lethlean, a noted offal connoisseur, has written about this restaurant before. I wonder, though, if he’s seen Der Spiegel's photographs.
If you’re still with me, you’ll have the stomach to handle this in The Sydney Morning Herald, American artist Victoria Reynolds’ carnivorous art. As the story notes: “Indeed, meat has an uncanny hold for some in the artworld. Meatpaper is a quarterly magazine of art and ideas about meat.”
And then on to some great pieces about chefs and restaurants and meals I’d like to eat:

• Something else for John: The New York Times reports on the Montreal dining scene where “there has been a surge in quirky restaurants that are extensions of their chefs’ personal tastes and dedication to Montreal’s regional ingredients. At these restaurants, no part of the pig escapes the kitchen knife, whether it’s the ears (sliced and fried in a salad with frisée) or feet (braised, stuffed and roasted). And foie gras abounds, never far from marrowbones, sweetbreads and steaks so big they’d make a cowboy blush.”
• I've linked before to a story about Noma, a Copenhagen restaurant that set me thinking it was time I set off to explore my Danish ancestry. I’m thinking even more seriously about it thanks to Sunday's New York Times piece on Copenhagen Nordic cuisine — Noma again, plus Alberto K and Geranium (where they apparently smoke salmon at the table in front of you). A great slideshow here.
• The New York magazine covers, in almost interminable length, Alain Ducasse’s so-far unsuccessful attempts to conquer the city. “It could be that Ducasse, like a man trying to woo a distant lover, was simply trying too hard,” writer Alex Morris speculates.
• In an Independent newspaper blog, Australia’s own Terry Durack calls for a shake-up of the S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards (2008: El Bulli, 1, The Fat Duck, 2,Pierre Gagnaire, 3, Tetsuya’s, 9, Noma, 10, Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée, 18).
• And The New York Times again on restaurants in Bordeaux, where “where a cadre of experimental chefs have pulled Bordeaux into the 21st century”.
• In Slate, writer Lisa Abend asks of Spanish avant-garde cuisine — “isn’t anyone tired of this stuff by now?” She’s referring to “dishes” including “a fine plate of fish blood”, and chef such as “the Roca boys (who) painted swabs of truffle, hare, and dirt across a plate and called it "Winter." In Barcelona, Angel León used algae to clarify soup, Ramón Freixa turned liquid-nitrogenized pineapple into dessert, and Martin Berasategui talked about something called "synergetic elaboration."
• And finally for now, an "expose" on Iron Chef America. In The Village Voice, Robert Sietsema writes: “Iron Chef America is more bogus than even I had imagined.”

There, that’ll keep you busy … have a great weekend.

The Social Media Sommelier

Don't touch on wine very often here (another story away from the screen), but thought you'd find this video interesting. Apparently, the 32-year-old Gary Vaynerchuk is a "cultural phenomenon" in the States, a wine merchant who attracts up to 80,000 viewers a day to WineLibraryTV.com, his online wine-tasting show. He calls himself the "social media sommelier". Vaynerchuk's schtick wears thin pretty quickly but it's interesting what media commentator Jeff Jarvis on Buzz Machine has to say about him:

"This isn’t as simple as using online video to sell wine, though the family store is now a $60m-a-year enterprise. Vaynerchuk is also transforming retail and making it social. He has realised that a store should be a community and so he uses every tool available online — a social wine rating site called Corkd.com, his videos, his appearances on other popular online shows such as Diggnation, his ubiquitous presence on Facebook, and answering countless emails every day — to make and connect with as many fans as possible."

Vaynerchuk may be a merchant primarily, but he has also well and truly crossed into the world of wine media. And watching him and reading Jarvis's thoughts on him, it's not hard to crystal-ball a few years or so forward to see, as is the case with all other forms of conventional media, how the food and wine media landscape as we know it is going to irrevocably change — both in how information is delivered and who is delivering it. In his Guardian column in February, Jarvis wrote that camera-phones "may well change the job of the journalist in ways more radical than even I could ever have imagined". I'm going shopping.

A Slow Boat to Tasmania

Sometimes, personal correspondence is so good it just has to be shared. Great email landed in my inbox the other day from an old friend and colleague, Matthew Evans. A month or two back Matthew left Sydney for a Tasmanian sea change. Former editor of The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide and Good Living restaurant reviewer, long-time Good Weekend food columnist and author (Never Order Chicken on a Monday and the Weekend Cook), he’s now learning to make cheese, slice abalone from rocks icy Tasmanian waters and spear flounder. An edited version, with Matthew's permission, reproduced here:

“I arrived in Tassie the slow way, on an overnight boat, with my car buried in the hold. I travelled with Nick, my cheese maker mate, and Ian, the other cheese maker. We filled the wee bunkroom with the smell of washed rind and red wine and I slept like the deceased.
Awoke to a brilliant Tassie morn and drove straight to Sheila’s house. A friend’s mother, she was expecting us and had the bacon and frypan at the ready. Jar after jar of preserved fruit filled the room, and after runny eggs we raided the back yard. Two types of nashi, so small they’d fit in a toddler’s palm, filled our crates. We picked hundreds of tiny apples and then gorged ourselves on mulberries. The result was three grown men, giggling like schoolgirls at the flavour, the stains on our hands and shirts giving us the appearance of the criminally insane.
After that it was down to Bruny Island. Here’s something I jotted down: Monday and it’s salt bush lamb chops, simply pan seared then grilled with rosemary and olive oil. The potatoes are unpeeled whole baby pink eyes with a scattering of Bruny Island’s Tom cheese, like a French tomme but with an Aussie accent.
I cook lamb again later in the week, this time a rack, seared in a hot pan and bunged in a hot oven for a few minutes. I boil quartered Dutch cream potatoes until soft and toss them with crushed garlic and a knob of butter while steaming hot.
Come Sunday, we go abalone diving. It’s two blokes, one snorkel, one knife, one weight belt and a kelp forest shielding the abalone from view. Despite the lack of equipment, in an hour we prise seven abs from the rocks, five of legal size. I feel giddy from the exertion and need to eat. Blackberry brambles line the path back to the car and we drop the wetsuits and greedily fill our faces, our hands and mouths stained to deep purple.
A mate drops in to share some of his 50 hand-dived scallops. He reached his bag limit in 23 minutes. It’s the first weekend of the season, so it’ll be slimmer pickings in weeks to come. You need a tank to get deep enough for scallops, and a scuba licence.
In the absence of a big steamer we barely grill the scallops until plump. The abalone is chopped 1cm thick and wok tossed for a few seconds with garlic and chilli. The only accompaniments needed are riesling and rice.
After dinner the wind drops and we go floundering. We wade hundreds of metres from shore on a long sand bar, towing an old surfboard. It holds a milk crate for the catch and a car battery hooked up to a torch on a pole. The beam of the torch spreads out underwater; the flounder, near the channel’s drop off, can be seen as vague lumps in the sand. You have to be fast, and accurate, to spear them using a metal rod with a barbed spike on the end. Ten flounder later, with the water lapping at my comfort zone, it’s time to head home. We pop the fish in the fridge and have a nightcap of 12-year-old Glenlivet with walnut shortbread in the shape of a pear.
Did I tell you about the phosphorescence when we went floundering? Or the free range eggs at the CWA shop that are blue from silky bantams and are tiny wee things that cost just $2.50 a dozen? Or the mist on Mount Wellington, that strange monolith that overshadows my new life? Have I mentioned chocolate crackles as big as a child's head or a tarte Tatin with quinces as dark as a Bruny night and as fat as a fist? Or Ross's unctuous scrambled eggs on sourdough with wood oven roasted Snug butchery bacon and slabs of buttery sourdough bread on the deck? Did I tell you about the milk spewing from the van after I pressed the wrong button as we pumped it from the dairy into tanks, and that Nick had forgotten to put the lid on the milk pod, so not all the slops were my fault I probably did, and I'm boring you.”

A Late Livestrong Submission

Long past deadline, but there you go, I’m good at that. You want excuses? Where do I start? Still, hope Barbara at Winos and Foodies might give me some credit for my efforts.
This post is a contribution to her annual A Taste of Yellow blogging event in support of Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong Day on May 13, an initiative to raise awareness and funds for the cancer fight. (You can donate here to my chosen cancer charity, the Mater Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, which is doing some really amazing work to find a prostate cancer vaccine.) 
Barbara's A Taste of Yellow demands of its participants that they cook and photograph something yellow with a yellow Livestrong band in the photograph somehow. “Please join me again as we remember those loved ones who are no longer with us, support those still fighting and celebrate with those who have won the fight,” Barbara wrote on her blog when she launched the 2008 Taste of Yellow a month or so back.
Dad is very firmly still with us and, if I have my way, he’s not going anywhere soon. (Although, if he were to eat this as I have done today — straight out of the jar — a heart attack would get him before the prostate cancer does.)
Well, what else are you to do with very very runny mandarin-lemon curd but slather it on sourdough toast as you would honey?
One of my roles at work is to be the editor of Sean Moran, of Sean's Panaroma. The lovely Sean writes a monthly column for us called “Fresh”: a seasonal ingredient, how to select it and store it, and what to do with that ingredient. Next column coming up in our June edition is about mandarins and one of Sean’s recipes is for mandarin curd. Loved the idea, thought it might be perfect for A Taste of Yellow.
Pity though, that I have a sad history of wrecking anything involving cooking eggs slowly into a dish. Custard, crème brulee — you name it, I mess them up. Impatience, incompetence — who knows? (Have been saving up the story of making crème brulee for the Belgian countess during one of my cooking jobs after finishing a Le Cordon Bleu course: my crème brulee was as eccentric as she was. But really, a temper tantrum over a curdled crème brulee? For heaven’s sake!)
Couldn’t get the ferocious, crazy Countess de la Laing out of my brain as I embarked on my mandarin curd. You’ll have to wait for the next the(sydney)magazine for Sean’s recipe, but suffice to say that, when my egg yolks very deliberately started to solidify in my butter-sugar-juice mixture, I could feel the countess’s wrath descending all over again.
Remedial measures were called for. The saucepan off the heat; the mixture strained to remove the cooked bits; a new egg yolk deployed in the now cooler mixture to compensate for the egg lost; back to the stove. Well, I wasn’t going to waste all that mandarin zest. Do you know how hard it is to zest a mandarin?
Of course, it was never going to be perfect, was it? One egg yolk wasn’t going to do the trick, and eventually, reluctantly, I admitted defeat, took it off the heat, poured the runny mixture into jars.
Sean’s recipe wasn’t at fault — my vagueness and impatience were the problem. The tangy, two-citrus flavour is divine and I’ll be attempting the recipe again soon, but in the meantime, I just can’t keep away from that jar in the fridge.