Arts Issue
The question "Is cooking an art or a science?" is to the complex world of gastronomy as "Who came first, the egg to be fried or the chicken for a chicken soup with rice, a few drops of lemon, and lots of mints?" is to those who like both fried eggs and chicken soup. In other words, it doesn't matter, as long as it's good and there's wine.
Pig. Just like that. It's the name of a movie. Perfect, by the way. But not in Portugal, of course. Here it would have to be Pig-Rob's Journey. We could therefore be dealing with the now classic Tuga art of spoiling movie titles. And even movies with the title. Like when Vertigo, Hitchcock's masterpiece, became The Woman Who Lived Twice. Or when the world-famous Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night became The Four Wigs of the Afterlife. Or even when Robert De Niro and the already promising Paul Dano's must-see performance in Being Flynn was unbelievably renamed Another Shitty Night in This Shitty Town. Except that Pig stars Nicholas Cage, so it had to be something else to indicate that we're dealing with something worse than it seems. The idea is ingenious: Rob is a hermit living in the inhospitable forests of Oregon, dedicated to gathering truffles, a task he gives to his pig, the only living thing he communicates with apart from a "producer" who comes to collect the product from time to time. So far, the doors are open to a reflection on human loneliness and the need many of us feel to get away from everything and everyone in search of a kind of redemption. But then someone kidnaps the pig and it turns out that the hermit was, after all, Portland's most famous chef, when he returns to the city in search of (that's right) revenge. In no time at all, we've gone from a good idea to a syrupy mess of chases and fisticuffs in a cocktail of Steven Seagal's strange locomotion, Van Damme's spaghetti strap, and Chuck Norris' 501 Levi's men's camel toe. Without the subject of truffles ever coming up again, a ragged Cage descends, punching and kicking, into an underworld that we already know from meth labs, but now in an innovative setting, with sacks of potatoes, bunches of broccoli and halves of lamb where, instead of M16 machine guns, there are plating tongs, convection ovens and Kenwood kitchen robots, because Bimby is the stuff of European amateurs.
The most demanding film critic, like those who only give a star to works that receive a standing ovation at Cannes, Berlin, and Venice, would talk about the importance of a pig in the life of a lonely soul, like Wilson for The Castaway, but what lies right behind this absolute waste of two hours in the life of a movie-goer is that the truffle is the top ingredient in haute cuisine, and it's worth beating around the bush for it. No, it's not a tuber. Much less a root. It's a mushroom that grows at least twenty centimeters deep (it can go up to forty), near the roots of walnut, hazel, willow, and oak trees (because it has a symbiotic relationship with them), and can only be found by pigs or trained dogs. In order of increasing value, there are the summer truffles (Tuber aestivum) and the Burgundy truffles (Tuber uncinatum), which are the least aromatic, largest and grow all over Europe. Next in line are the black truffles (Tuber melanosporum), which grow mostly in France, Spain, and Italy, are more aromatic, and cost between €700 and €2,000 per kilo. As they are not very fragile and can be handled and washed with water, they began to be cultivated after the "creation" by man of the truffle oak (chene-truffier), which has since been planted in the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and Chile, near the roots of which, eight years later, the valuable fungi begin to appear. Finally, there's the white truffle (Tuber magnatum), also known as the Alba Madonna or Truffle d'Alba because it's in this Italian city, in the Piedmont region of Italy, on the edge of the Adriatic, the most valuable truffles grow (the record belongs to a kilo and a half specimen bought by Stanley Ho for €300,000), with a client portfolio that has already included Churchill, Kennedy, Sophia Loren and Pavarotti. Imagine a product that contains the aroma (which fills an entire room) of wet earth, and musk, with hints of garlic, cheese, nuts and chocolate. Now think that its taste is so intense that cutting it (the thinner the slices, the more intense the flavor) is also an art. Too little is a waste. Too much spoils a dish. Its ideal proportion is an art that requires all the knowledge of a more experienced chef, with mastery of something that can be considered a science. Because it is. Of course, at this point, the Alentejans would have to come in with their disdainful look because they call them túberas and make them with scrambled eggs. Only to discover that the epitome of truffle cooking, which is the highlight of the highest restaurant, is Uova all'occhio di bue (fried egg with raw yolk). With truffle shavings, of course.
I chose the example of the truffle because it is paradigmatic. As one of the most complex ingredients in its bouquet, it requires what you might call a scientific approach, which is only available to a minority of people who have years of experience in the laboratory that is, or can be, a kitchen until they arrive at a dish that we can call a work of art. At the opposite end of the spectrum is a potato, the true flavor of which we only discover when we arrive in Peru, its country of origin, and taste one of its more than four thousand varieties, which have naturally lost flavor since they were brought to Europe and planted in very different soils and altitudes. Another example is the success of basmati and jasmine/Thai rice, which have invaded the pantries and kitchens of our homes with their aromas, having been used for centuries to agulha and carolino, which are comparatively tasteless (someone over there in Sado will kill me for this). But some chefs manage to give these products a preparation that leaves you dumbfounded, with your eyes fixed on what is usually the saddest and most boring element of the dish. What about tofu, whose lack of flavor requires all the lemongrass, kefir lime, soy, fish sauce, and a few other ingredients from southwest Asia, the most aromatic in the world after India? Or going even further, let's take those flavors that are so characteristic and unique that you either love them or hate them, such as broccoli, cauliflower, cheese, and even coriander, the use of which in Portuguese cuisine is unfeasible above the Mondego because "it tastes like soap", say "the guys from the North". Even so, and because if cooking wasn't such a complicated task, anyone could do it at their highest level, aroma and flavor aren't enough. How many of your friends don't put pork rinds and ear cartilage on the side of their feijoada? They do it for the consistency. But the next day they may well be in Mealhada munching on the very same product. Because someone has mastered, as they have in Singapore, the art of giving a whole pig on a spit the appearance of a caramelized apple from an August fair, a chemical process that makes the rind crispy, which was, admittedly, Anthony Bourdain's "infatuation". I remember one day, at his invitation, I went to try the new menu at Bistro 100 Maneiras with a friend who was in the final stages of the difficult process of giving up animal protein. Only she made the mistake of telling Ljubomir Stanisic. Anyone who knows him knows what would come of it. And it did. Túbaros, molejas, and a few other entrails and "fressuras" that were, let it be said, divine. She loved it. Because it was pure art.
A chef worthy of the nickname has mastered a unique combination of art and science. It sounds like a cliché, but the truth is that the man in the kitchen puts his creativity, both in the presentation of dishes and in his combinations of flavors, at the service of his mastery of cooking processes that result in certain textures, so that this translates into a pleasurable experience for those who taste it. A chef takes care of the chemistry of the ingredients for you and controls the temperatures and cooking times. Then, of course, there is the fact that each dish (or set of dishes, which results in a menu) undoubtedly mirrors the personality of the person, just like a bibliography of a particular novelist or a set of paintings we visit in a museum. In short, and because it is an art, there is creativity in the combinations of flavors, in the presentation of dishes so that they speak to our senses, in the very cutting of vegetables or animal protein, in the way a dish is often the cultural expression of a place, in innovation with unusual ingredients for an unexpected result, in the combination of surprising textures and even in seasonality. Then, because it's also a science, there's in-depth knowledge of food chemistry (from caramelization to fermentation), of temperatures, sometimes with incredible accuracy, necessary to obtain very specific results, of enzymatic reactions or precision in measuring ingredients, which determines consistencies. It should also be noted that the search for innovation and uniqueness in recent years has often made use of scientific research. Today it is not uncommon to see those who consider the relationship between a certain cooking temperature and the thermal conductivity of the food it is intended for, thus arriving at the ideal times and temperatures for obtaining a certain result, or those who resort to sensory analysis, i.e. the way our senses perceive flavors, aromas, textures and the impact of a certain presentation of a dish. Or those who use rheology to their advantage, studying the viscoelastic behavior of food, which influences the consistency of sauces, creams, or foams. Some master the Maillard reactions to develop flavors, colors, and aromas in food that has already been cooked. Then there is, of course, the time when I was taking my first steps in the kitchen at home and was excitedly describing to my friend's grandmother how to add a chilli pepper to a stew to achieve the desired result and I heard: "People who make stews don't know how to cook." I shut my mouth and went to study. But that's not enough. Whether it's the science of cooking or the art, let's hold on to something that tends to be more than just forgotten, it's increasingly neglected. It's called talent. And that, dear friends, is like class. You either have it or you never get there.
Translated from the original in the Arts Issue, published November 2023. Full stories and credits in the print version.
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