How many of you dream of eating at Ferra Adrian's table?
El Bulli is one of the most coveted kitchens in the world.
But why?
You get to eat melon juice in a skin, Pea puree in a skin, etc.
Molecular gastronomy... It rolls of the tongue like a well rehearsed verse.
For years we have been hearing of our plates being more and more expensive as they get emptier and emptier.
El Bulli serves you your dish on a spoon.
But people are lining up to eat there.
Nobody complains about ruining themselves over a few dishes each consisting of one mouthful, and often one single flavour. A ribbon of beet leather, apopcorn covered in cheese, pumpkin seed oil in a caramel, a single oyster with a tapioca pearl.
It's like going to a gallery and being face with a plastic cup.
Don't get me wrong.
I have a deep respect for the new found art of seeing food from a scientist's point of view. I am just saddened by the extremes it has been taken to.
Where is the orgasmic gustatory experience in eating a mouthful of melon juice?
Simplicity is of course one of the key elements to good food.
Ask even the greatest gastronome what his favorite dish is and he will probably answer something along the lines of lasagna, or onion soup.
Complex dishes with complex flavours are awesome, but they are not something one would choose over simplicity if given the choice.
My personal favorites are a whole crab served with toast, butter, a hammer and pliars, and foie gras.
But again, I would not go to a restaurant to be served these dishes. I would eat them at home, with good comany and good wine bought cheaper than it would be served by a sommelier.
When I eat out, if I'm going to be spending an arm and a leg, I want to know that what I'm being served is the equivalent of Beethoven's 9th in food.
I want to be taken on a gustatory journey.
I want to have my palate challenged, titillated, teased and finally brought to an orgasm, a crescendo, before being gently brought back down to earth.
Is that possible?
Can food move you as does music, art...
We have 5 senses.
Sight. Which can be moved by a painting or a sculpture, or just a sight as we are walking around.
Hearing. Which as before stated can bring us to a raptuous state through music.
Touch. Well we all know about this one.
Now taste and smell, so closely related as they are, have been left mostly untapped.
But I shall strive to provoke inimitable sensation through these too.
I want to make people cry of joy because they were MOVED by their food.
I want to write a symphony.