Nostalgia and history are shaping the way we eat. Our generation is focused on recovering, preserving and maintaining cultural traditions through food by referencing historical texts and recipes or revitalising ancient cooking methods in a contemporary context.
Fired up
The discovery of fire marked the dawn of civilisation. Despite the many technological developments in cooking and farming, fire remains a primal symbol that unites cultures and binds us with nature.
On the Netflix series Chef’s Table, Argentinian chef Francis Mallmann celebrated open-fire cooking and revealed a movement where chefs are digging pits, firing up grills, and abandoning the glistening kitchen for smoke and soot.
Sweden’s Niklas Ekstedt is another chef who has ditched modern technology in his restaurant and opted instead to burn a variety of Scandinavian woods for fuel. His rustic cooking methods reflect a back-to-basics movement that is being embraced by chefs around the world.
While cooking is as old as time, its organic, untamed qualities recall how our ancestors survived. Cooking with fire is at the heart of so many culinary traditions and dishes, from South Africa’s ‘braai’, to Mongolian grilling, Turkish kebabs, and English Sunday roasts.
Complementing this new obsession with open-fire cooking, traditional cast iron cooking vessels and hand-forged brass cutlery are also making a comeback. As respect for cooking traditions grow, people will continue to find ways to reconnect with their past, tap into food memories and explore with primal, natural elements.
“When it comes to eating, food and memory are inextricably linked.”
Water you waiting for
Water is the source of all food. Dating back to prehistoric times, cooking with water signalled a tremendous advancement. It tamed the uncontrollable beast that is fire, allowed a simple pot to braise and boil and introduced new flavours and textures. With global warming and increasing drought affecting food-producing regions, we are learning that water is a resource, not a commodity.
While fire will continue to ignite culinary excitement, water is reviving how we farm, cook, eat and preserve our food. For example:
- Hydroponic farming, a more environmentally-friendly alter- native that does not need soil, re-uses water, produces higher yields and requires less space.
- Algae-based seafood is emerging as a replacement for proteins.
- Seaweed is replacing kale as the new green alternative.
- The Japanese ‘raindrop’ cake, a traditional dessert featuring transparent agar jelly, became an online sensation and sparked a craze for see-through dishes.
- Clean, clear ice blocks are elevating whisky appreciation and the art of mixology.
- Sous-vide cooking, the vacuum and water-based cooking method at the heart of molecular cuisine, has now made its way into the consumer’s kitchen and given a key role in daily food preparation.
With water-based farming and food production on the rise, we can expect changes in the way we cook and eat.
- Braising and stews will make a comeback. A healthy alternative to grilling and sautéing, big pot cooking evokes a nostalgic home cooking vibe.
- Steaming, a foundation to Chinese cuisine, will be more prominent in Western cuisines as health-conscious consumers educate themselves about how food is cooked. ‘Steam restaurants’ in Asia will eventually expand to western countries and replace the Asian hot-pot experience.
- Chilled liquids such as ice cream, shaved ice and slushies will continue to reign. Chefs will continue to refine their ice-cream and frozen confection repertoire, whether it’s creating nostalgic soft-serve confections or avant-garde creations.
- Bottled water will be eliminated from restaurants with diners opting instead for ‘house water’ made from purified water or sparkling water makers.
- Plant-based water is evolving beyond coconut and aloe drinks. Cactus, maple and artichoke waters have the added nutritional benefits that are gaining popularity over sport drinks.
- Farming with seawater not only addresses the issue of water shortage, but also provides a solution to producing food in challenging environments and climates.
What is culture without cuisine?
While chefs rebuild a relationship with nature through fire and water, many are also revisiting culinary traditions to create cultural touchstones.
Our ability to link a dish with a country shows how integral food is to a cultural identity. Think what dim sum is to Hong Kong, ramen is to Japan, tiramisu is to Italy and hot dogs are to the U.S. Looking to dig into their cultural roots, chefs are exploring dishes that have been lost to time and unearthing agricultural species that connect the past to the present.
In an effort to preserve Italian heritage, Italian agronomist Isabella Dalla Ragione is preserving Italy’s forgotten fruits by referencing Renaissance-era still-life paintings for ancient fruit varieties and cultivating them. Likewise, the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in the U.S. has been preserving a slice of American culinary identity through heirloom seed saving. At the recently opened National Museum of African American History and Culture, a café serves regional American cuisine that reflects the diversity of African-American cuisine.
In the current climate of political and racial turmoil, indigenous identities are strengthened as ethnic groups stand to be recognised. “Sioux chef” Sean Sherman sought to recover the lost flavours of indigenous North Americans by mining anthropological and ethnographic texts and diary entries of his native ancestors. Indonesian “culinary anthropologist” Lisa Virgiano studied the cooking methods of the 600-plus native tribes that make up the Indonesian archipelago in order to create an authentic menu at restaurant Kaum in Potato Head, Bali.
A back-to-basics recipe
Acting as culinary scholars, chefs are changing the dining experience. While fine dining will continue to occupy a revered space in gastronomic arts, pedigree chefs are abandoning their stars for scaled-down simplicity, opting to create accessible, nostalgia-evoking menus.
New York City’s Brooks Headley, formerly the pastry chef at Del Posto, left his four-star kitchen to open Superiority Burger, an unpretentious restaurant serving a vegetarian and “accidental” vegan menu. Bangkok’s Gaggan Anand will reportedly leave his top-ranking restaurant by 2020 to move to Japan to open a small restaurant. There’s a collective movement among chefs to scale back the size of their restaurants, reducing service and going for a back-to-basics vibe. Chefs want to regain ownership of the kitchen and restaurant, creating more intimate and less pretentious dining environments.
The comfort of simple foods such as ice cream, burgers or a bowl of hot noodles triggers childhood memories. Chefs are trying to recapture these fleeting food memories through simple, familiar food. El Bulli’s Ferran Adrià, for example, wanted to create a pizzeria to deconstruct the world’s most popular dish to provide an ‘honest interpretation’ on why it remains so popular.
While an experimental meal can surprise your senses and expectations, memories of comfort food are both personal and universal. Pop-rock candies speak to a global generation while Spam speaks to another. Given the high cost of labour and ingredients, chefs and diners will turn their focus to creating food that revives priceless childhood memories. Food that evokes a sense of nostalgia might just be the highest expression of culinary skill.
About the source
This article is part of CatchOn Communications’ third annual ‘Future of Food’ report that explores many of the changes now taking place in the culinary world. Request a full version of the report by emailing futureoffood@catchonco.com.
