Photograph : Ruth Calder-Potts, Food and Wine Magazine (Business Post )
May 2022
Events bring people together in a shared experience at a specific time, the result of a vision. The mission is to successfully orchestrate multiple elements in a cohesive, seamless manner that best showcases the unique nature or theme of that event. Our final showcase of learning at honours degree level, required us as a team to create and produce a botanical performance.
As a team we chose our theme well -'Cre agus Coille’The living larder, a forest rekindled'. A celebration of nature’s most resilient and bountiful phenomena, the forest, specifically, a food forest. A food forest can be described as an imitation of a natural ecosystem. A combination of symbiotic plant life carefully designed, developed and allowed to evolve to benefit plants, animals and humans alike.
Cré agus Coill; Earth and Forest
‘To walk through bramble, bush and root we taste the earth, the tree the shoot
To offer a bounty of fruit and leaves, nuts and sap, and sow the seeds……
Of knowledge lost, of skills renewed, upon our plates, treasures imbued’
Class of ’22 Vision Statement
Creative Journey in Dish and Menu Design
With its traditional seven layered structure it offered the class a cornucopia of opportunity to showcase learnings from all aspects of the course. Our creativity was about to be unleashed , as we explored how each layer from the food forest would be represented as a course on the menu.
Each student chose a layer and developed a dish and beverage incorporating the foods from that layer, and it was decided that food presentation for the last layer would represent the ‘team’ focus of the performance.
To be successful a person must always want to do better, be better. Planning and practice are key elements of success, and for many of our team this started months prior to the final event. Foraging, fermenting, dehydrating, preserving what nature offers us through the seasons not to mention tweaking recipes (over and over) !
The decision-making process was totally consuming over the few weeks in the run up to the event. What will we serve our dishes on? What vessels will we serve our drinks in? How will we serve? What cutlery? Building and sourcing props, will they be empathetic to the wondrous environment of Airfield Farm the backdrop to our event? Time-plans, service charts, HACCP, the checklists seemed endless. Each practice, each idea, every element was forensically examined, because we wanted to do better, be better than our own expectations. We wanted to do justice to ourselves, to Airfield and to the programme of learning we were privileged to be part of.
Photograph: Glenn Lucas Bowls made especially for the event
Performance – Overture- Main Movements and The Grand Finale
The day had arrived. The sun had its hat on! We were mindfully ready to bring our learning alive ! The botanical performance just like a musical performance, was about to begin. Guests were greeted, introduced to the class and the concept and the feast began.
A journey through the seven layers of the food forest, each plate representing a layer and the chef’s interpretation of it began with an ‘overture’ at the polytunnel and garden connecting the guest to the significance of edible gardening in menu design. This was followed by the five main ‘movements’- crown, grounded, rooted, heritage and healing. There were classical culinary combinations blended with ancient and modern techniques, rich and indulgent tastes offset with rustic fresh flavours, there was texture, richness, lip-smacking umami, lip-puckering acid, sweet pickles, funky ferments and fun. Fun in an exam! Imagine!
For our grand finale piece titled ‘We are One’ we all gathered around the majestic 400-year-old Red wood. For us the perfect place to end our journey. For the audience we curated a mindful moment to pause and rekindle our connection with nature and then we served a wheel of chocolate. This was no ordinary chocolate, but 75% organic Cacao embedded with seven layers of differing but complimentary flavours developed by each chef. The wheel sat on a chocolate trunk, surrounded by the cacao’s own husks adorned with the acorns of the nearby trees, served with a cacao tea. The wheel was smashed and we all shared the taste of the forest. We were proud. Proud of ourselves and proud of the showcase.
In Appreciation
Gratitude isn’t always the key emotion at the end of a practical exam, but in this case as well as being part of a great team there is so much to be grateful for…the earth, the soil, the forest, the seeds, nature, the ingredients, the producers, the creative minds, our chef patrons and industry collaborators, the woodturners, the humility of everyone involved, the support, the educators, the applied learning, the venue and the sunshine. We are one !
Thank you from our team -the BA(Hons) Botanical Cuisine class of 2022 at TU Dublin.
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