World Food Week

If I had to pin point a theme for this week's classes, it would have to be something like: food from around the world. Some might say that we explored national cuisines, but that wouldn't be totally accurate since some of the foods we explored did not belong to any particular nation. Besides, there are some who argue that the notion of "national cuisines" is a false one and that there are no national cuisines, only regional ones. I'm not sure I totally agree with this, but that is for another time.

On Monday we were visited by Ana Sortun from Oleana restaurant in Cambridge. I had heard really good things about Oleana, so I was excited to work with her. Ana describes her food as Mediterranean. In the current culinary vernacular, Mediterranean has come be short-hand for style of diet influenced by the ingredients common to some countries of the Western Mediterranean: mainly Spain, Italy, Greece, and southern France. But, the Mediterranean is vast and there are quiet a few cuisines that are not a part of this profile: for example, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, etc...

Witness this map:


So, for Ana Mediterranean food extends beyond olive oil, fish and legumes. It is also the flavors and spice profiles of some of these other cuisines. As Ana explains it, what she likes about these cuisines, is that the flavors come not from piling on the fat (butter) but from the particular and aromatic herbs and spices. The result is food that is pleasing to the tongue but does not leave one with an unpleasant feeling afterward. What was most fun, was that we worked with ingredients and spices that we don't normally work with: Aleppo Chiles, Sumac, Dried Mint, Kofte Spice, etc.

The dishes we made were really good and were, indeed, very flavorful without being too filling. I am even more excited about trying Oleana now. Ana taught us a very cool trick to mash garlic. Essentially, you "chop" the garlic clove using the back of your chef's knife, towards the handle which results in mashing the clove instead of chopping it. It is a little difficult to master, but a good trick to know.

In almost direct contrast to Monday, on Tuesday we worked with lots of meat and lots of fat. This day we did Alsatian food with chef Jamie Bissonette from KO Prime .

Among other things, we made two of my all-time favorites: Wiener Schnitzel with Spaetzle and Choucroute. As with Ana on Monday, I was really looking forward to working with Jamie because of the food I ate when he was still at Eastern Standard (one of my Boston favs). Most notable in this regard was the charcruterie which makes sense since Jamie is building a reputation for working with offal.

Jamie and his sous chef were very hands-on when it came to instructing us, and they were both very serious about their craft. It made for an intense but very instructive day. Must of my day was spent working on the Alsatian Apple Beignets (aka apple fritters).

On Thursday we worked with Carlos Rodriguez (left) of Orinoco. Once again (and maybe this was the real theme of the week), Orinoco is a restaurant I have heard good things about and is somewhere I really wanted to go to. But we got it even better than that, Carlos came to work with us! Carlos refers to his food as Nuevo Latino, which is a melding of various Central and South American cuisines (most notably Cuban, Peruvian and, in Carlos' case, Venezuelan). You might be tempted to call it "fusion" but Carlos would be quick to correct you. What's the difference? Bear with me here a minute. With fusion, it's more about influence and taking dishes that are not traditional to a particular cuisine (say Cuban) and giving them a twist based on that cuisine. For example, you might put Chipotle powder in brownies (which is REALLY good, by the way) and say that they are classic brownies with a Central American twist. With Nuevo Latino on the other hand, ingredients from different cuisines are combined in a dish. So, you might have pork prepared in a manner traditional to Cuban cuisine which is then stuffed into an arepa.

Once again, somehow, I was on dessert duty which is ironic since I don't particularly care for dessert. In fact, it is not unusual for Aileen and I to go out for dinner and not even order dessert. In this case though, it turned out to be not such a bad thing. I worked on a chocolate Torta Fluida which is essentially an undercooked chocolate cake. Eating it was like eating a rich hot chocolate in a semi-cake form. It was cake you had to eat with a spoon, it was really incredible.

I should mention what we did on Wednesday, even if it did not fit the "theme" of the week. In the midst of all of this world cuisine, we worked on pastries. Specifically, we worked with puff pastry. We made Mille-feuille (aka Napoleons) and Tart Tatin. Doing a twist on the classic Tart Tatin (which is made with apples), I made a banana Tart Tatin, which, if I do say so myself, was really quite yummy. See for yourself:

Banana Tart Tatin


To end the week in fine fashion, Lilly (who is in the program with me), Jason (her SO), Aileen and I went to Orinoco for dinner on Friday night. It was excellent and highly recommended.