Quote:
Originally Posted by Saccopoo
Foraged...the latest trend concept in nouvelle cuisine.
I think it's cute. It's trendy, hip and the chefs who are doing it are getting solid publicity for it due to the sustainability focus.
I think it's somewhat of a reaction to distance the food from the molecular gastronomy crowd that is/was popular of late.
I don't know Redzepi and his methodology, though I know of him. Perhaps because of my own internal negative reaction to the new forage crowd just because of the explosion of publicity that this style of cooking is currently receiving. Perhaps because I'm still working through, checking out the molecular guys like Ferran Adria. Perhaps because I'm a geographical traditionalist, though it seems that Rene is employing a lot of that area's natural gastronomical tendencies in his dishes.
I do like what you said about his use and advancement of preservation techniques, though I'm sure that many of these are moderizations of past and present long term storage concepts. (Human society prior to the implementation of refrigeration...)
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It is no coincidence that Noma was the restaurant to take El Bulli's spot. Ferran Adria's hundreds of innovations & definitions & re-definitions of molecular cooking gave way (as you said -- a reaction to) to New Nordic. The foraging trend in American dining -- the race to see who can be more locavore -- is the typical blustery American iteration of Redzepi's deep influence. Just as most cities have one or two bad molecular restaurants from some dude who, like, staged at Alinea for two days, most cities have one or two restaurants that try to mimic New Nordic's approach (and even flavors) but miss the mark entirely due to lack of understanding of flavor.
As Adria kept changing his cuisine over the years, as has Redzepi. Bugs are a recent development for the Noma kitchen, for example. Like all the great innovators in gastronomy, he doesn't seem satisfied with what he's done so far.
And, yes, you're right that Redzepi is looking to the past as influence for his preservation lab. Seems like the right place to look.