My Longing for Real Food

As exciting as the fast moving world of restaurants can be, over the past couple of years I have felt very much a passenger on a run away train. Cooking trends have exploded in all directions, cookbook sections in bookstores have grown into complex labyrinths, and restaurant menus and dishes are often ordeals to deconstruct, both physically and sensually.

Professional and home cooks alike have charged into this chaos with resulting disappointment at the end of the day, having overloaded menus with too many ingredients, too many flavours and too many steps. In response to this overload, many of us have started retreating to a simpler and more direct form of cooking.

At home and at work, I find myself cooking more straightforward and traditional dishes and when I go out I seek restaurants where the chef understands restraint and simplicity. I crave the clean, honest flavours of sushi.

I’m not alone. A growing number of home cooks, chefs and cookbook authors are heading in the same direction. In the same way that many food professionals tossed aside the overwrought French cuisine of the seventies in favor of the purity of nouvelle cuisine, many are now pulling away from fusion cooking and experimentation and heading for an entirely new ideal – simplicity. This growing respect for the pure and uncomplicated is the basis for a whole new trend in cooking.

As with many shifts in the food world, this one has come from restaurants. A few years ago, a few chefs began foregoing garnishes; cutting down on the number of ingredients and focusing on techniques that would coax the essential flavours out of foods. The results are spare in appearance and impeccable in flavour. Most important, they are easy for the palate to comprehend. It used to be that the big concept for chefs was the marriage of flavours, and he who married the most was the winner. Now, it is who can marry the least. The big attraction of the dish is no longer the garnish but the flavour itself.

Part of the reason for this change is that we are maturing. I am really a member of the first generation of home grown chefs in this country. I can clearly remember a time when you could not expect to teach or head a kitchen in this country unless you were European and so we have really only just begun to appreciate and develop our own distinct style. In addition, the older I get, I think less is more. Instead of adding elements to the plate I have started taking them off. I recently served a roasted farm chicken with a broth scented with black truffle shavings, followed by cranberry bread pudding for a diner. It may seem blunt when compared with the grocery lists on many restaurant menus but what I was serving was a perfectly cooked, high quality organic chicken with a simple garnish that my guests could make sense of.

It takes courage, though, to serve such unadorned food in restaurants. Chefs will tell you that when people spend a lot of money on food they like to see the evidence of the money with lots of frou frou on the plate- swirls, complexity, multiple garnishes.

The changes are starting to trickle down to home cooks, not just through inspiration, but by way of cookbooks as well. Recipe books calling for quail eggs and fresh duck liver and three days of your time are being challenged by books that are surprisingly simple. They call for top quality ingredients and technique is uniform but lavish exotic ingredients and arcane technique is out.

Will chefs who fail to prune their creativity fall of the map? Will cookbooks that lack authority sit on the shelves? Will the food world suddenly transform itself into one cohesive, organized unit? Certainly not. Cooking is an art after all. But it seems clear that among the forward looking, the brash, over-the-top 90s style of cooking may be simmering down. And a pared-down approach to cooking and eating does seem a logical progression. And I for one am ready to embrace it.

Macaroni and Cheese

Serves 4

1 cup fresh bread crumbs from French or Italian bread

2 tsp. sea salt

1-½ tablespoons melted butter plus 4 tablespoons butter at room temperature

½ pound elbow macaroni

2 large eggs

12 oz milk, heated until warm

¼ tsp. hot pepper sauce

Fresh ground pepper to taste

1 tsp. dry mustard

12 oz medium cheddar cheese, grated

1)   Preheat the oven to 350 F. Place a 1 ½ quart heatproof dish, in the oven to warm.

2)   In a small baking pan, combine the breadcrumbs, a pinch of salt and the melted butter. Mix well and set aside.

3)   In a large pot, bring 8 cups of water to the boil. Add 1-½ teaspoons of salt and the macaroni. Cook until almost tender but still a little firm to the bite. Drain and transfer to the preheated dish. Stir in the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter.

4)   In a small bowl, combine the eggs, 1 cup of the milk, the pepper sauce, ½ tsp. salt, pepper and the mustard mixture. Mix well. Pour the egg mixture over the macaroni. Add ¾ of the cheese and stir until thoroughly combined and the cheese starts to melt.

5)   Place the dish of macaroni and cheese in the oven and bake for 5 minutes. Remove the dish from the oven and add about half of the remaining milk and half of the remaining cheese. Stir well and return pan to the oven.  Bake 5 minutes longer, remove the pan from the oven and stir thoroughly. If the mixture does not look moist and creamy, add a little more of the milk and cheese. Return to the oven for an additional 20 minutes, removing the pan from the oven halfway through to stir in the remaining milk and cheese.

6)   While the macaroni is baking, add a pan of breadcrumbs to the oven and bake until golden brown. When the macaroni has baked, sprinkle with the breadcrumbs and serve.

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