Cold is the New Hot; McGee on Science of Cold
Bremer on Grandma's Immersion Circulator, Sous Vide For Everyone
This second half of an interview (see Child of Cleveland's West Side Market, here) with award-winning chef Gabriel Bremer dovetails nicely with Harold McGee’s column on the science of chilling.
Chef Bremer a chef who creates contemporary comfort food. It's often prepared and presented in ways that your Grandmother might not have found so comforting. Ah, but the flavors. They are purely familiar.
We are becoming more familiar with foams, gels and emulsifiers, even immersion circulators. What is the new frontier? Cold, it seems, has arrived just in time for the dog days of summer. You may have tried your hand at granita - if not, what are you waiting for? It’s so easy.
Harold McGee The Curious Cook, goes one better. His writing takes science, demystifies it, and explains its applications to food; how we prepare it, as well as how we experience it. What gives white pepper its punch? Its off flavors? In The Thrill of the Chill, McGee takes on the cold. What is the Mpemba effect? (The observation that warmer liquids may freeze faster than colder liquids.) Is it true? (Maybe.) True enough to win a bar bet? (Perhaps.)
Science in the kitchen is nothing new.
Anyone who has made a salad dressing of oil and vinegar, made mayonnaise or hollandaise, has used science to create an emulsion. Recently, chefs have elevated science to so-called "molecular gastronomy." Chef Gabriel Bremer has a refreshingly down-to-earth take on the topic. Very much like Ferran Adrià, the chef-owner of El Bulli (often credited with being one of the fathers of the movement), Chef Bremer sets aside the debate, talks about techniques and results. It’s not enough to use the hot new tool, unless you’re using it in service of the higher goal.
Open his menu at Salts Restaurant in Cambridge, MA (steps from M.I.T., ironically) and you will see a quote about perfection from Thomas Keller.
"When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy. That's what cooking is all about."
The Interview with Chef Gabriel Bremer continues:
Name three people you’d like to invite to dinner. Would you cook for them or with them? What would be on the menu?
Wow, only three?
1. The Adrià brothers. I was lucky enough to meet with Alberto Adria in NY. He is the most amazing, most humble person I’ve ever met. He fascinates me incredibly.
2. Ferran Adrià - El Bulli, father of “molecular gastronomy”, again, incredible yet humble; even when chefs all over the world are imitating him.
3. Louis Armstrong - Also, inspiration to me, another great humble person.
4. Miles Davis - creativity and genius.
5. Jose Andres - How many am I up to? Trying to narrow it down is hard..!
Your view of molecular gastronomy?
People who come in to Salts take a leap of faith. Maybe some of them don’t know enough to be suspicious. One might see a foam on the plate and make a comment that it looks like dish soap. (Yes, this actually happened.) This is where the “grandmother’s cooking” comment comes into play. With contemporary comfort food, the flavors are familiar, ones we in the kitchen all grew up with. And we’re incorporating the new techniques, not changing the essence, but the presentation. Or using new techniques to put the same ingredients together.
So maybe you see the plate and are a little curious and excited. But when you put it in your mouth you go “Yeah! I know this!. This makes sense.” As passionate as we are about those flavors, we’re also about improving ourselves and learning new techniques and we’re always trying to learn, to add, to enhance. Maybe it’s with a texture rather than a technique.
I guess a lot of people categorize something they don’t know as “weird.” But we're taking grandmother’s dishes, those familiar flavors and presenting them in slightly new and different ways...I mean what’s more weird than a chicken mcnugget? A chicken mcnugget is more frightening than a foam!
Back to the theme of music in the kitchen, it’s a way of explaining how I staffed my kitchen. Personality is most important in this small a kitchen. I pick people who have different strengths than everyone else. We all have to have confidence and know we can learn new things and learn from each other. We have to have trust.
I also have no pastry chef, that’s a rarity. But I think that’s another way that Molecular Gastronomy is changing things. Just like with baking and pastry, the new techniques require precision. In this way, I see savory and pastry both learning from each other, sharing new techniques.
As a chef or conductor, how can I lead if I’ve never done it? Everyone here has a chance to learn new things. And there’s less separation now between the two than there used to be. Maybe these new techniques have helped young chefs see things differently, too.
Favorite food as a child?
I ate everything. I'd probably say the absolute favorite thing was bread. I had it timed out for when they took bread out of the oven at the Italian bakers, you know on those weekend market runs. I’d make sure I was there right when they were taking the bread out of the oven. It was still hot, almost stringy in the middle from the steam...
Complete this sentence: “I’d be mortified if the world knew I eat...”
Alfajores. The commercial ones, dipped in coconut. When I’m around them, it’s just bad. There are lots of good ones, but I can’t resist them, good or bad...two little homemade little homemade cookies, dulce de leche rolled in coconut...even the bad, commercial ones, I can't resist.
Here’s are some beautiful alfajores. Enjoy, Chef!
Remember - it's all about making people happy.
798 Main Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
617 876 8444
Chef Gabriel Bremer
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