Ómós Digest: #23 Social Gastronomy?
Let’s cast our nets a little wider.
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It always starts with one…
I went out for a pint last Wednesday. Alright, it was 3 pints. I had good reason though. Friends who I met while working abroad were in town and where better to meet than at Grogans. Just as I had not planned to drink, I too had forgotten to eat. With the Guinness flowing a little too fast, the decision was made that we locate a nearby restaurant, with the hope that a table miraculously became available at 9.15pm (never an easy task here in Dublin). With great luck, Uno Mas on Georges Street had had a no-show (the bastards!). So, in we went, delighted with ourselves at our good fortune. The food was delicious, so too was the juice, and I was happy to see the two boys had thought so too. I’d like to add that the Flan de Queso is the créme caramel of your dreams: butterscotch flavours with welcomed acidity from the soft cheese.
I’m always a little nervous when I eat out in Dublin with friends coming from overseas. Now home 3 years from my own travels, I feel a sense of ownership and want for Dublin’s restaurant scene to be in the same realm of cities like Copenhagen, Berlin or Paris. I don’t really buy Failte Ireland’s stance that we have the best food in the world just yet...
Just like in these major food cities, I want the same cohesion, sense of community, a shared celebration for local produce and a relationship between the restaurants and their suppliers. For me, and I might be wrong, but the celebration for seasonality, and common ground shared between these restaurants, is what makes these major food cities so elite. For example, when the Nordic Kitchen Manifesto was conceived and formulated in 2004, 12 of Scandinavia's most celebrated chefs of that era came together, curated and signed it. Rather than this meaning restaurants all over the Nordic Region were to cook the same food, what actually occurred was an agreement about their core values (purity, seasonal cooking, ethics, health, sustainability and quality). A trend became a movement; techniques developed, supply of goods grew, and quality increased. With a newfound appreciation for organic farms, local produce with an emphasis on heritage crops could be celebrated. Both old and new-found flavours favourable to the landscape came to the forefront. There was a desire to move collectively, sharing knowledge and belief.
As it turns out, my companions were in fact Irish and we had met in Copenhagen. Sam worked at Amass and Manfreds, while Andy worked at one of my all time favourite restaurants, Relae (now sadly closed). Despite my initial desire to learn Danish and surround myself with locals, almost by default I migrated towards the Irish expat community, who were mostly working in the city's elite restaurants. Each weekend we would convene, sharing stories about what we had seen, done, made, dropped, broken or served.
Back for a week's fishing, they were travelling North to Donegal the following morning. Their destination was Malin Head, located so far North that even cloudberries grow there - a berry similar in appearance to a yellow raspberry, with a texture of yoghurt when ripe. Typically they are only found in the most northern parts of Scotland and Scandinavia, and even then they are scarce. Cloudberries are considered a luxury commodity and can be quite expensive. While the boys might find it difficult to locate a berry in such short supply, I am told there is no shortage of fish in those waters. Enough for two lines to be cast anyway.
Between creamy pints of Guinness, our conversation meandered to Food on the Edge, the food symposium taking place next week in Dublin. The theme this year is Social Gastronomy. After some thought, my interpretation of Social Gastronomy is that its aim is to generate initiatives that positively impact society through food - a call to action for chefs, culinarians, and gastronomes alike. In 2018, Food Writer and Journalist, Ryan King referenced culinary genius Ferran Adrià when discussing the topic of “Social Gastronomy: Can Food Change Society?”:
’Adria, forever at the cutting edge, was part of the G9 chefs summit in 2011 when he and eight fellow chefs published a manifesto dubbed the 'Lima Declaration,' a call to action for chefs that was shunned by many at the time who claimed they should stay in their kitchen and simply cook! “We dream of a future in which the chef is socially engaged, conscious of and responsible for his or her contribution to a just a sustainable society,” stated the document, which now reads as a prediction of what was to come from the future generation of chefs.’
It appears we have come a long way. I graduated from the Dublin Institute of Technology in 2015 where I completed my B.A. in Culinary Arts. My thesis title that year was “Analysing the influences Ferran Adrià has had on Modern Day Chef’s Creativity”. A number of years following that, while swimming deep in the lactic waters (working at René Redzepi’s Noma), I recall asking myself, why did I choose a subject like that? Why didn’t I have the foresight to choose fermentation? A movement that today stands at the forefront of modern gastronomy and one that I could form a direct correlation to with Ireland. However, now only days away from Food on the Edge, as I delve into what Social Gastronomy truly means as a term, and how I interpret it, it is apparent that the ideations derived through the work of Ferran Adrià, have had a startling level of influence on 21st century gastronomy. I guess that’s why I chose a subject like that.
But back to fish.
I remember when I was head chef at Bastible in Dublin, I served a dish of cured sea trout from Scotland. The trout was cured in a salt of kelp seaweed and dried pine shoots, before being glazed in a lacquer made from reduced quince juice. I hesitantly sourced the fish from my supplier after he told me it was farmed. Aware that the majority of sea trout and salmon consumed in Europe comes from Scottish and Norwegian farms, owned only by a handful of international companies, meant I was skeptical. When I asked the supplier about organic, sustainable farming and what that meant, it felt as if there was a legitimate, well-formed answer for each question I had. I was somewhat assured by this. On one particular evening, however, after the fish was served to a guest, they asked whether it was wild or not. After I stated it was farmed, they were absolutely appalled and said had they known, they would have sent the fish back. Although I was told the fish was organic and sustainable, but farmed, what did this really mean? No matter how much research I did, I felt there was no one answer.
I raised the question to Andy last night, who has been fishing for as long as he could remember. He’s so passionate about it that he said he would consider swapping his kitchen for the seas, on a professional basis. What I found quite alarming is that even Andy felt fish farming was a grey area. While you may have picked up quite a few facts from The Salmon Dance, it’s interesting to note that salmon are carnivorous. They need a certain proportion of fish in their diet to ensure they contain the levels of omega 3 that consumers expect. An unnerving statement, right? According to a research paper by the Changing Markets Foundation, 90% of the seafood that’s caught and turned into feed pellets for farmed fish could be eaten by people instead. It is also estimated that farmed fish in the UK eat the same amount of fish that the entire UK human population will eat in a year. So, does this mean that 90% of that would have been suitable for human consumption? Organically sourced salmon and trout uses less caught wild fish in its pellets, instead using trimmings from farmed fish, otherwise discarded. It’s all very confusing and seems like a bit of an anomaly. All you need to do is watch Seaspiracy on Netflix to understand how messed up our fish industry is.
With Social Gastronomy, I believe the potential is there to cultivate connections that equate to a better future in food. If we pool our resources together and become less fearful to share knowledge and ideas, we can develop a more learned and inclusive society and in turn, a healthier planet. For now, I’m going to stay away from farmed fish until the waters become a little less murky.
Side Note: Woodcock Smokery.
Wild salmon you say? When I think of the people I am most inspired by in Ireland, Sally Barnes is one of the first names who springs to mind. With a firm and unfaltering stance against environmentally unsound aquaculture, Sally has been smoking wild fish since 1979 at her Smokery in West Cork. She deals with genuinely sustainable quantities of real fish from local boats when the weather is good and the fish are in season. I’ve witnessed Sally speak at a number of conferences, and the passion and respect she has for her craft is inspirational. You can get a hold of her incredible smoked fish here.
Love that you continually question your gastronomical decisions Cúán and are always searching for the truth. Best of luck with Food on the Edge.