A Handbook of Gastronomy & A Little Culinary History

If you ever wondered about the author of that quote on the original Iron Chef, "Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are", you might be surprised to find that the author it's attributed to lived in 18th century France, pre-dating what has been termed Classic French Cuisine. Chairman Kaga in the original Iron Chef was quoting Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a French lawyer who's fame is due to a work called "A Handbook of Gastronomy". The book reads like essays from a philosopher, and Brillat-Savarin was so passionate a gastronome that he includes the "sense genesic", or sexual instinct, as intertwined with the culinary experience in his many meditations on gastronomy. He was born in an area of the Rhone region of France that bordered Savoy, an area which once influenced the western alps all the way to Piedmont, Italy; a perfect backdrop to develop a world famous gastronomic pedigree. I'm still gradually reading his work, and have found it very interesting to see how trancendental certain aspects of gastronomy are through the ages; on truffles for instance: "...the truffle is the very diamond of gastronomy". Since the book was published and translated so long ago, you can read the full text online.

More recently, the codifying of French Classic Cuisine (and to the western world, Classic Cuisine period for that matter) occurred at the hands of Auguste Escoffier in 1903; the book was called Le Guide Culinaire. This work would almost unwaveringly influence two generations of chefs over the next 60 years, and you can't find a book on sauces worth a darn that doesn't have Escoffier's fingerprints throughout. Not only is it amazing that one book so influenced gastronomy in the western world for so long, but that Escoffier also had so many other contributions. The whole concept of a'la carte is attributed to him, along with being among the first chefs to define techniques for canning and the preservation of foods in this manner. In what will soon seem an ironic twist, Escoffier's cuisine attempted to simplify the courses and preparations from what appeared to constitute celebratory feasts in the late 1800s.

In the mid 1960s, the Nouvelle Cuisine movement emerged in France, a rebellion from the Classic Cuisine that dominated Haute Cuisine. The Nouvelle movement continues to this day, and the influence is evident wtih many top restaurants and chefs. The movement emphasized artistry in plating, letting the true flavors of the food come through, and healthier preparations. It's also easy to derive from these themes that many of the Nouvelle preparations emphasized simplification of the complex preparations of Escoffier and Classic Cuisine. Interestingly, the chefs of the Nouvelle Cuisine movement gained solidarity in an effort to rebel against the "rules" imposed by the Michelin Guide's rating system. Also interestingly, many of the new preparations in Nouvelle Cuisine relied upon advances in kitchen technology.

Fast forward to today. With few exceptions, Ferran Adria is regarded as the most influential chef in the world, and Adria's El Bulli has been repeatedly noted as the best restaurant in the world. He has termed his cookery, Technoemotional Cuisine. The emphasis is on invigorating the senses and making the diner participate more actively in the gastronomic experience. Molecular gastronomy is an essential element of this movement, a movement less about rebellion from the rules, and more about seeking innovation through the application of food science, scientific methods, and rigorous experimentation in the kitchen. The movement is much more mature in Europe, but is beginning to take root in America as restaurants like Alinea, Moto, and WD-50 increasingly garner awards, high ratings, and recognition. The Degustation menu that restaurants like The Fat Duck, Trail-Blais, Alinea, and El Bulli present has a curious twist ... the number of courses is almost crazy (up to 31 at Blais, 40 at El Bulli), possibly setting the stage for another type of rebellion.

A very interesting timeline of cuisine has been assembled by apicius and is available on eGullet. The merits and limits of this timeline are debated here. By no means is this comprehensive, but it is fascinating to see where some of your favorite chefs land in terms of the chain of influence. I'm sure it will be years before we really understand the longevity of the Techno-Emotional movement, the future of Nouvelle Cuisine, and what's next. But the recent attacks on Adria seem to be overblown and targeted at selling books more than making a real argument or founding a movement; Santi Santamaría is a very respected chef no doubt, but in this instance he's coming off sounding a bit like a whiny Jamie Oliver.

My observation at this point is that regionalism seems to be a sub-trend across nouvelle cuisine and micro-movements like Bistronomia. Certainly, the roots of regionalism go back to at least the 1940s even in the United States. Adria has also termed his technique as deconstructivist, and many other chefs have played with deconstructing classic dishes and pairings, as well as mimalism in the artistic sense and the preparation sense (how else would we have the raw food movement). As for the Technoemotional Cuisine movement, the genie is out of the bottle, and food science is not likely to go away; saying it isn't a factor is like saying the earth is flat.