Of food and fete

One can only imagine what our Neolithic ancestors had to go through just to grow a bit of barley. Years of evolution have finally boiled down to a moment some 10,000 years ago in Southwest Asia, at the close of the Stone Age, where a few good men or women realized that planting grains and herding animals meant a regular source of food. Suddenly life was not as difficult. No need to scavenge, forage or hunt so much. Definitely something to sing and dance about. If you look at most indigenous heritage around the world and dig deep into the songs and dance, you will find that a large part depicts the agricultural cycle: hard work and harvest, followed by praise to the gods or spirits that aided them in this constant venture for survival.

Great civilizations were built around agricultural food production: wheat in Egypt, rice in Angkor, etc. Many were also destroyed because of food, or rather the lack of it. Marie Antoinette’s ironic “Let them eat cake” and the subsequent storming of the Bastille is historical proof of that. Food: such a fragile yet pivotal thing in human history. No wonder, to this day, it is still so feted (and even obsessed over).

Sexy and plumpy shrimp in young coconut

If you look deep down into the tiny details, many of our cultural and societal practices come from the way we eat. You can also tell a lot about someone from how he or she manages himself or herself tableside. I’ve always been a stickler for appropriate table manners. At an affair where there are more forks and knives than Elizabeth Taylor had husbands, the utmost decorum must be upheld. In a place that serves you a gorgeous melty cheeseburger… please use your fingers and lick them, too. Each time we eat it is a gift. It is a moment of celebration and hopefully a moment of sharing and generosity. It is a spiritual moment of thanks and grace that is expressed in multiple ways. This week I joined with three organizations that exemplify, not so much the passion and love of food, but more the gratefulness for it and what we can do with it.

Letting Your Toques Down

Succulent and crispy Asian-spiced cuchinillo

 There is nothing more fascinating than seeing chefs let their toques down, exchanging their restrictive chef’s coats for casual clothes, good food and lots of beer. When you see chefs entertain each other it’s one of the most openhearted experiences ever. All notions of food cost or fancy-shmancy trendy techniques go away. You’re left with unadulterated good food made with good ingredients. Honored to be a part of it this year, Les Toques Blanches celebrated their first event at Ariel Manuel’s Phat Wong Asian Bistro. Asian spiced roasted suckling pig with crispy salty skin; soy-rubbed lamb slow-cooked to soft abandon; simmered chicken delicately perfumed in ginger and rose yielding to each bite like a sultry Suzie Wong; plumpy sexy shrimps stuffed into a young whole coconut… The list went on as they candidly shared food stories, suppliers, tips, jokes, chocolate addictions and the woes over people always asking for discounts. To summarize, here’s an insight into the minds of the creators: it’s all about food, how much they love it and how much they want others to love it, too.

Simultaneous ceremonious opening of cloches...

Medals Of Honor

I did not really understand it until I was there, half-nervous, with my right hand up and stating my oath: “I will at all times honor the art of cuisine and the culture of the table…” The Dames and Chevaliers of the Chaine des Rotisseurs are in fact modern knights, valiant and heroic in the painstaking task of remembering past culinary and social practices. They’re here to stab the evil fast-food dragons in the heart with their 764-year-old steel rotisserie spike. While some may laugh at what they might think is a pompous farce, there is a true place in today’s fast-paced days for those who fight for the culture of proper eating. Dining should not just be a necessity but a celebration. The dinner table is not meant for tense talk of politics, religion and business but a moment for like-minded people to get together and share their love for food and everything around it. Whether through a 50-waiter parade bearing silver cloches or a simple gathering around wood-fired oven pizzas, the Chaine places value in not just the food, but the simple act of enjoying it.

Of Wine And Women

Yes, it does exist. A place and a moment where women can gather around without gossiping or scrutinizing each other’s outfits. And even if my man Jonathan truly doesn’t believe me, those who were there last Monday know it’s true. The International Wine and Food Society Ladies’ Branch is a safe haven for women. It is a place where they can let their piggy dreams loose, talk freely about all the things fatty and fattier that they want to give in to, the wines they want to swim in and the desserts they want to practically go to bed with. Oh yes, in this day and age of image and high fashion, a world still exists where the only catty attitude is towards an empty bottle of bubbly or a regretted cheese platter. From the little duck confit samosas, rich and flaky, to the uber-tender 48-hour sous-vide beef that chef Ian Padilla of La Girolle prepared, the underlying mood was to succumb to happy indulgence.

Dames and dhevaliers ready to uphold the culture of the table: Jay Labrador, Sanjeeb Gopaldas, Christine Cunanan, Ines Cabarrus and Krip Yuson

With that I leave you with the words of the French poet Joseph Berchoux (the man who also coined the word gastronomie):

 “Je me suis emparé d’une heureuse matière:

Je chante l’Homme à Table, et dirai la manière

D’embellir un repas; je dirai le secret

D’augmenter les plaisirs d’un aimable banquet,

D’y fixer l’amitié, de s’y plaire sans cesse…

Et d’y deraisonner dans une douce ivresse.” 

(“I take on this happy subject:

Sing to the man at the Table; and tell the best way

To embellish a meal; the secret I share

To augment the pleasures of a pleasant banquet,

Jolly and generous: Fern Aracama, Ariel Manuel and Othmar Frei 

Is to affix friendship, to find pleasure without end…

And to lose all reason in a sweet drunkenness.”) — Joseph Berchoux (1760-1838), Ode Gastronomique, Histoire de la Cuisine