February 2023
If by making beautiful plates we can get more people to engage in a meaningful way with the crisis in which we find our food system, then isn’t it our responsibility as chefs to make every plate a piece of art? And do this in service of not only the message we wish to convey, but also with reverence to the beauty of being able to grow and consume real food.
This is the message that chef activist and educator Charles Michel shouts from the rooftops. Today we have a workshop with Charles Michel who joined us via zoom from Colombia, where he is based.
Our food systems are broken. Our health is suffering. The Climate is suffering. Real food is disappearing from our plates. Chefs have the power to communicate this very real crisis, and as I listen to Charles talk, I feel the weight of this burden land on my shoulders once and for all. We are lucky to live in a time where we have access to everything one could imagine, food from all corners of the globe. But is it luck, really? With this food availability comes a very dear climate cost. Avocados and acai for breakfast after a swim at the forty-foot? At what cost? Surely, foods like these should come with a warning as to their environmental impacts. As a chef designing a menu in Ireland it is paramount that we source locally and treat the food we use with the respect it deserves.
As cooks we hold the power and possibility of conveying the aromas of nature.
Food and the nourishment it provides is one of the most basic sources of life for animals, so it is a necessity that we convey to the general public what the environmental cost of their food choices are. But how can we convey this message in a meaningful way that the consumer will engage with? Charles Michel has spent a great deal of time researching and writing about how food can be a medium for communication, and how flavour, taste and aesthetics can all be gateways of conveyance. He puts it quite eloquently to us that “Perfumers compose aromas, while cooks compose the aromas of nature.” Meaning that through aroma we can make a deep connection with another person, and as cooks we hold the power and possibility of conveying the aromas of nature.
Ultimately, food acts as a method of connecting people. It connects us to memories, through smell, taste, texture and flavour. Concurrently, we can harness this powerful connection which it allows in order to convey powerful messages. We simply need to decide what it is that we want to say.
After Charles’s zoom presentation, there is a collective exhalation from us botanical cuisine students, as we struggle to take it all in. We are presented with a trolley of fresh produce and instructed to convey some element of what we have gained from the workshop through a plate. It is an opportunity to experiment with no judgement and no weight academically. The most difficult part of it is deciding where to begin. There are no constraints, apart from the selection of vegetables which are our media, and the selection of plates which will form our canvases.
When does something become art?
I scribble “When does something become art?” into my notebook in the hope that it will inspire me; nothing. I try again. “Art is understood when it forms a part of the public’s response to the challenge of the culture at that time.” I read something to this effect in Wilhelm Worringer’s Abstraction and Empathy many years ago as an Architecture student and it has haunted me since. Worringer’s study was in relation to the rejection of abstract art by society in the beginning but justified its right to be defined as art by its ability to respond to the absurdity of the times, through absurdity in artistic expression (Barcio, 2018). A prime example of this is Marcel Duchamps’ Fountain, which was an ordinary porcelain urinal, signed ‘R. Mutt’ and displayed as though it were as justifiable a piece of art as any of its more realist counterparts at the time. In the context of a world divided by war, Duchamp’s fountain was a direct challenge to the absurdity of an art world which was almost obsessed with ignoring the reality of its society in a state of crises. Fountain was a question of what art means, and I find myself asking the same question today.
How can I, as a chef, show to someone the beauty of food and the miracle of its cultivation?
Art offers us a solace from the everyday and helps us to understand and interpret our world (The School of Life). Therefore, food art must be the perfect medium to convey what challenges face us in gastronomy. Our food system is broken, we are entirely disconnected from the way that it is produced. How can I, as a chef, show to someone the beauty of food and the miracle of its cultivation? I decide to begin with colour, and select joyful, vibrant shades – a carrot, a few radishes, a beetroot puree and some edible flowers. Something symmetrical, reflecting the shape of the veggies, might connect with a society who find themselves in tumultuous times. My paintbrushes are an offset spatula and a chef’s knife. I begin with a blob of beetroot puree. Next, I slice carrots and radishes very thinly, demonstrating the importance of skilled knifework which only chefs possess. I use every part of the vegetables, from root to shoot. I arrange everything symmetrically, in a spiral, hoping to evoke something of the golden ratio in the consumer (fig. 2). Isn’t that -the symmetry of nature and the miracle of the essence of life- enough to evoke some question of food security in the patron? Probably not without an elaborate explanation, but it’s a start.
References
Barcio, P. (2018, 08 22). On Abstraction and Empathy, Wilhelm Worringer’s Fundamental Work. Retrieved from Ideel Art: https://www.ideelart.com/magazine/abstraction-and-empathy
Michel, C. (n.d.). Charles Michel - Homepage. Retrieved from Charlesxmichel.com: https://charlesxmichel.com/
The School of Life. (n.d.). What is Art For? Retrieved from The School of Life: https://share.theschooloflife.com/article/ee043235dc4277cc5124ead01bef5892611fba85c8f7b88fa3455a8edf7e79c23649bc9da11f0c101e19fa224a374206d822f0dac47cd1d7abb1004543b971c7
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