A Case for Expectation and Anticipation
Jean-Louis Gaillard
Once upon a time, and I know you must move with the times or you might get left behind, menus were written to accompany a season. This was done for many reasons; freshness, abundance, price, and, most importantly, availability of the product. Chefs were thus automatically disciplined when selecting their ingredients.
Therefore, one might see in winter hot earthy soups, casseroles, roasts and braises, usually served with cold weather vegetables. Spring would bring fresh greens, baby vegetables and berries. In summer one would anticipate luscious refreshing fruits and light salads, and autumn would bring a wonderful selection of grapes.
Elizabeth David states in Summer Cooking: "My objective in writing this book has been to provide recipes for just such dishes with emphasis on two aspects of cookery which are increasingly disregarded: the suitability of certain foods to certain times of the year, and the pleasure of eating the vegetables, fruits, poultry, meat, fish which is in season, therefore at its best, most plentiful and cheapest."
I propose that there is now a problem caused by the wide variety of unseasonal ingredients available to chefs, who are able to serve an increasing variety of foods from their kitchens. As Cheong Liew writes in his book My Food, "But our country's geography and climate mean that 'seasons' are not so relevant. If it is not in season in the south then it will be abundant in the north, so the smorgasbord of possibilities for the chef is endless."
Australia has always been known as the land of plenty, and many goods are certainly plentiful all year round. We can buy strawberries in the middle of winter and eat oysters any month we choose. Once consumers would have looked forward to a dozen oysters with anticipation, but such expectation has disappeared. What is wrong with not eating oysters for four months of the year? Oysters should be fresh and look fresh. Modern food in Australia takes little account of the seasons and only small notice of special occasions. Don't give chefs too much rope or they will serve Christmas pudding on the 4th of July. Expectation and anticipation are dying.
Michel Roux in Life is a Menu writes: "From a very early age I knew the days of the week, not by their Monday to Friday names, but by what Francis was making in the Charcuterie. I could tell where we were on my own internal calendar by the smells of boudin, black pudding, on the Monday, andouillettes, chitterling sausages, on Tuesday, and so on throughout the week."
It is this lack of ingredient and time discipline structure that often results in Australian chefs using far too many flavours in the dishes they prepare. The mentality of "we’ve got it so let’s use it" is becoming detrimental to food preparation in many of our kitchens. When was the last time you tasted a dish where no basil or coriander was used, or a fish dish which was not cooked with saffron or lemon juice? As a chef I know how hard it has become to offer relevant produce at the right time, and indeed to know which ingredients are appropriate at different times of the year.
Cherry Ripe in "Ripe Enough" tells us that due to our lack of identity and closeness to food production we have lost the ability to shop and evaluate products. I see another difficulty for chefs, who have trouble making selections when confronted with such a wide range of ingredients.
I will leave you with a formidable tale of the enjoyment of food, and an evocative indication of hot summer anticipation. Manil Suri writes in The Death of Vishnu, "The essence of mangoes, their taste, their feel. The satisfaction of separating pulp from peel by scraping slices between the teeth. He wonders if gods are allowed only heavenly bliss, if earthly pleasure is beyond their reach."
Bring back expectation and anticipation, which are, after all, the magic of a great dish.
Jean-Louis Gaillard teaches cooking at the Regency Hotel School.
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