Ferran Adria And Ridiculous Food Trend No. 137 - Digital Gastronomy

Reading Ferran Adria’s latest musings on the future of food, I’m left wondering whether he plans to invent the edible computer. Because I’ve read his BBC article about trying to “discover the genome of cuisine”, whatever that is, several times, and I’m still left wondering what the hell he is talking about.

The celebrity chef, who closed El Bulli, widely regarded as the best restaurant in the world, last year, says his next recipe involves a sprinkling of algorithms, a pinch of digital technology, an emulsion of raw data, and a few generous glugs of innovation to create La Bullipedia (catchy name) - an online, curated database that, he claims, “will one day contain every piece of gastronomic knowledge” and change the way people think about food forever.

Or at least that’s what I think he is saying, because when you actually cut through the jargon and nerd speak it all reads like a badly-written press release, typed by someone in the PR office who should have left half an hour ago.

“Cooking shares many characteristics with the internet - both are the sum of many parts and both enjoy the rare gift of limitless potential. Digital technology, when combined with innovation, plays a key role to unlocking this potential,” he writes.

“I firmly believe that as a chef if you only speak to other cooks you'll get bored. Bullipedia uses cooking as a language...” etc etc.

But hang on, haven’t we got this already? Isn’t every bit of culinary knowledge you are ever likely to never need already just a few clicks away on the internet? No, apparently, according to the Spanish chef.

“The internet on its own is limited because information can be found without the need to actually acquire knowledge. We want people to acquire knowledge through the navigation of information,” he says.

So by navigating for information, people will automatically understand it? Is that what he’s saying? Even James Martin?

He goes on: “We are taking fundamental aspects of digital technology such as algorithms and data and applying it to food. We are putting the combined knowledge of El Bulli online where people can adapt and modify it, and draw inspiration from some of the most innovative recipes ever created.

“Technology is now helping to provide future generations of creatives with the tools that they need to be innovative. It is acting as an enabler, connector and collaborator. I believe that it will now sit at the heart of gastronomy and be a fundamental driver of innovation in the industry.

“We have journeyed part of the way to discovering the genome of cuisine. Digital technology will allow us to take the final step.”

Blimey, I’m confused already. Can’t wait for the bandwagon jumping from celebrity chefs and other culinary media whores if Bullshitpedia does become a success. Gregg Wallace leering at MasterChef contestants while tapping his Rolex: “Now, how you doing your nanobytes?”

We’ve had local, seasonal, molecular gastronomy, small plates, big plates, sharing plates, heritage meats, foam, ingredient reversals, deconstruction, sous vide, freshly-foraged weeds, cup cakes, and now this - digital gastronomy.

Hasn’t cooking suffered enough already? Perhaps Adria should stick to advertising Pepsi? That’s an organisation that breeds innovation through collaboration and creative auditing by tracking the developments and inventions of other companies.

Masterchef Song Top Of The Pots

The unfathomably brilliant Masterchef techno song has entered the top 40 – and is set to shoot up the charts this week.

With England on fire, global stock markets in meltdown, and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse cutting short their holidays to plunge the country into further chaos, anything is possible – even a number one hit featuring the undeniable talents of Gregg Wallace and John Torode.

Swede Mason’s mash-up of ridiculous phrases and mid-rapture expressions from Egg and Toad, set to a funky, distorted bass lick became an overnight internet sensation when it was put on YouTube.

Millions of people around the world have now heard his incredibly catchy Masterchef Synesthesia, which on Sunday went to number 37 in the UK’s top 40 singles chart, just days after its release.

The editing masterpiece starts off with Egg rapping about a contestant’s “buttery biscuit base”, spliced with repetitions of “base, base, base, base...”

Later, it cuts to Toad throwing in an “acid bass” line for good measure as the screen goes all Scooby Doo, and demonstrating how it needs some oomph.



“Wobble, wobble, wobble,” raps Toad in the bridge, throwing his arms around like an acid casualty fending off imaginary wasps in a St John Ambulance festival tent, to lightning-quick edits of Egg's insistent: “Base!”

Egg and Toad are clearly big fans of the song, which is raising cash for Comic Relief. Both were celebrating the news it had got into the top 40.

Egg tweeted: “Really cannot believe I'm in a song in the top 40. Really very funny, and kind of nice.”

“When they said top 40, I thought they were talking about our ages. It’s bizarre,” Toad added.

It’s great news for 31-year-old Mason, who is saving up funds so he can give up his day job as a plasterer and labourer in London to concentrate on his music.

It’s quite fitting, given Masterchef’s premise of giving it all up to “make it as a professional”. Cue: Techno doesn’t get tougher than this...

Or as Egg would say: “This delivers on every...single...level.”

Other figures of ridicule Mason has poked fun at with his mash-ups include Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Madeley, Mel Gibson, and Harold from Neighbours. So at least they’re in good company.

Masterchef In Hot Water Over Eels

Masterchef: The Professionals has found itself in hot water for putting eel on the menu.

Conservationists saw red because the European eel (Anguilla anguilla) is critically endangered, and the BBC programme’s so-called ‘Delia effect’ could have promoted demand for eel among viewers.

In the recent show, presided over by Egg Wallace and Skeletor, sorry Michel Roux Jnr, four hopefuls were told to prepare two dishes using smoked eel in 50 minutes (about as long as the last eel in the wild has left by the sound of it...)

And this is where the trouble started. The European eel is in freefall decline, with numbers of elvers plummeting by an estimated 99% since the 1980s, warn experts.

Despite eel, smoked or otherwise, being on the menus of many top UK restaurants, the fish is on the "red list" of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, meaning it is only a small step away from extinction.

"Serving up European eel on a popular television show like Masterchef is irresponsible – and likely to lead to even more demand for a species that is just as endangered as tigers or pandas,” said a spokesman for Greenpeace's Oceans Campaign.

"Eels are intrinsically linked with London, as a traditional dish, yet it is our overfishing of this species which has pushed it towards the brink of extinction.”

The sight of Egg and Skeletor stuffing their faces with the forbidden fish provoked a storm of protest. It made no difference that the eels in question were farmed – by priests no less, says Chris Daphne, the environment officer of the National Anguilla Club.

“Eels are not bred in captivity; aquaculture relies on the collection of seed eels (elvers) which are then grown on,” he says. “This means that the species is unsustainable as ALL eel sold in restaurants, shops and bait suppliers have been taken from the wild initially.”

Experts say it is time for eels to come off all menus, pointing out that the UK exports 250 tonnes of eel every year, and it takes 3,500 individual eels to make a kilo of meat.

Indeed, so serious is the problem, the EU has asked all 27 member states to restrict eel fishing to give stocks a chance of recovery. The Dutch government has even announced a ban on commercial eel fishing.

And last year, Gordon Ramsay, was slammed for cooking eels from the River Severn - even though they had been caught under licence.

But clearly all of this had escaped the BBC's researchers.

A BBC spokesman whined: "We absolutely recognise the very important issue of sourcing sustainable ingredients and, in all our Masterchef programmes, we take a lot of time and make every effort to use locally sourced ingredients.

"The eel in question was used in a classic recipe test, and came from a farm in Northern Ireland run by priests who assured us it had come from a sustainable source. For future series, contestants will be required to consider the endangered fish list when submitting menus."

Those pesky priests, hey, and isn’t it a bit rich putting the onus on the contestants’ environmental awareness when they’d been told to cook the smoked eel in the first place?

Masterchef Presenter's Tweet Nothings

‘Would you like to jiggle my cabbage?’ It’s hardly the best chat-up line in the world, is it? But it seems to have done the trick for that wily old ingredient expert Gregg Wallace.

The self-proclaimed ‘cooking woman’s crumpet’ has found love again – in the shape of a biology teacher 17 years younger than him. And pundits are already breathlessly exclaiming that this is the first instance of a celebrity romance developing from Twitter.

The two first made contact when Heidi Brown, 27, joined the 2,000 or so bored housewives, students, and other Masterchef fans following his every spoonful. Discussing his famous dessert-driven mutterings like: “I want to take my shirt off and dive in,” and the unforgettable, "it's like a lemon has just picked you up by the ears and given you a big snog." (Maybe that’s how she felt?)

But it was when Egg posted his cabbage comment that he really hit gastronomic gold, prompting a number of saucy responses from fans. "Jiggling cabbage is not a euphemism,” he replied to Brown. “No more than shuffling shallots or sorting celery."

Shuffling shallots? Even Frankie Howerd would have baulked at that one.

The father-of-two then went on to explain to Brown how to sort celery before she asked him whether he knew he’d been described as a “weird crush” in a magazine. He couldn’t get to the keyboard quick enough. "Ever visit London? Give me a call, I'll buy you lunch," he said.

Egg, 44, who uses the name Pudding Face on Twitter, has persuaded her to give up her job in Cumbria and move in with him at his home in Kent. "He and Heidi are very happy," a spokesman for the former grocer told the Sunday Mirror.

But since the Twitter love came out in the tabloids, are the strains already beginning to show? Asked by one follower whether there were paparazzi hiding in the dustbins outside his door, and how his girlfriend was coping with all the attention, twice-married Egg tweeted back: “Calling Heidi, poor kid.”

I can hear the Mrs Merton questions now: “So what first attracted you to the millionaire Gregg Wallace?”

Last February, Egg bragged in a magazine article about how TV fame had helped get him girlfriends half his age.

“Television is very, very good for your love life,” he said. “The girls are getting younger too. I’m seeing one who’s 29, but they have been as young as 21. God that was hell.”

Television doesn’t get tougher than this...

Brown has now protected her Twitter updates, but lists her profile as: “Cumbria 20 something, Northerner, owner of a retired greyhound and a cuddly whippet. Loves Sancerre and all things cured.”

Perhaps that’s why she fell for the lovable old ham?

Something Fishy About Masterchef

The dish I decided on for the Masterchef audition was tuna tartare with cucumber and wasabi soup. Don’t ask me why. I’d seen it made in a restaurant somewhere and decided to copy it. It was piss-easy to make, but it looked good. And, after all, as Egg and Toad liked to point out - you eat with your eyes...

You dice sashimi-grade, raw tuna and salmon, and do the same with an avocado. Then mix sesame oil, salt, pepper, lime juice and soy sauce in a bowl, and stir in the fish and avocado cubes. Leave it to marinade, and cut a peeled cucumber in half lengthways and remove the seeds by running a spoon down the middle. Blitz the chopped cucumber flesh with chicken stock, cream, wasabi, Worcester sauce and Tabasco, then strain and chill.

You plate the dish by putting a chef’s ring (oiled on the inside) in the middle of a soup bowl, and fill with layers of marinated salmon, tuna and avocado. Take off the ring, pour the chilled soup round the tartare tower, and garnish with a sprig of chervil and a few salmon eggs.

And here was the problem. I couldn’t get salmon eggs anywhere in London. Every shop had either sold out, or didn’t know what I was talking about. After a few hours traipsing around, I realised I had more chance of getting my hands on a fucking Dodo egg.

The last place I tried was a Japanese fishmonger called Atari-Ya hidden away in the suburbs of West Acton. They didn’t have any salmon eggs either, so fobbed me off with red and green tobiko, or flying fish roe. I bought a chiller bag, and a thermos flask to carry the soup in, and thought about the next day. I practised the dish a few times and went to bed.

The Masterchef narrator’s husky voice begins...

“After everything he’s learned, can Lennie deliver a faultless dish? He’s attempted a delicate combination of tuna tartare with a cucumber and wasabi soup...”

Toad destroys my tower like a spiteful child in a sandpit. The plate looks a fucking mess. He picks up a spoonful and sniffs the raw fish before sticking it in his gob.

“I think your flavours are good. You’ve got the rich oiliness of the fish; you’ve got the sweetness of the soup...”

Egg holds up a napkin to stop soup dripping down his Armani.

“That is deep! It’s well seasoned - both the salmon and the tuna are cooked perfectly...”

What would I do? Tell the ignorant bastard the fish was raw?

The alarm clock went off and I jumped out of bed.

:: This blog eventually became a bestselling book, called Down And Out In Padstow And London by Alex Watts, about my disastrous attempt to train as a chef, including stints at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck and Rick Stein's kitchens in Padstow. You might like it if you're a foodie or have ever entertained the ridiculous idea of entering the padded asylum of professional cooking. It's here on Amazon as a paperback or Kindle book if you want a read...

Masterchef: 'I’ll Stick My Face In It'

“So, Lennie, tell me about your passion for cooking...” the researcher from the Masterchef show began.

She asked me pretty much the same questions I’d filled in on the application form. I tried to remember what I’d written. The more I listened to her gushing about the programme, the more I realised it was all a con. From her voice, she genuinely seemed to think Masterchef was offering people a chance to, as both Egg and Toad liked to say, “embark on an absolute, life-changing journey”.

There were no details about the prize cooking job, of course, just lots about what sort of contestants they were looking for. She wanted to know whether I’d worked full-time as a professional chef before, if I had received an NVQ catering qualification or similar in the past ten years, and whether I had the required level of enthusiasm, drive, love of food, and desire, to change my life.

At one point, she asked if I had ever been convicted of a “serious crime”. I kept quiet about that. If it came out later, I’d bring up Egg’s conviction for football hooliganism.

I began drifting off, listening to the spiel. She had the same irritating, husky, mee-jar voice as the show’s narrator...

“After 15 years in prison, Lennie is desperate for a life in food. In his heat, he blew the judges away with his chicken vindaloo."

“I’ll quite happily stick my face in it,” says Egg.

“But sometimes he gives himself too much to do, and more often than not, it tastes better than it looks...”

The bitch, I thought.

Then I wondered whether I’d said the word out loud. But the researcher was still talking.

“So the next stage is a casting day,” she gushed. “You may get invited along for that. But we’ll be interviewing about 8,000 people across the country and only choose 100 for the show...”

I had a one in 80 chance. I needed to get a job.

I went for a walk, and passed a catering agency advertising cooking jobs for £6 an hour. They didn’t ask whether I had any experience. Once I’d filled out a few forms, a short, fat, cocky man with a goatee (think Ricky Gervais locked in a Frey Bentos factory for two weeks), threw a few questions at me. The interview was over in seconds.

“How do you make a béchamel sauce?”

“First you infuse the milk…”

“Infuse?”

“Yeah, boil the milk with bay leaves, peppercorns, and you can use an onion…”

He waved me on irritably.

“Then melt some butter in a pan, stir in some flour to make a roux…then slowly whisk in…”

“Yeah, yeah fine.”

All he wanted to know was whether I knew how to make a fucking lasagne.

He phoned the next morning, but I was in bed. By the time I phoned back, the job was gone. But I didn’t want to work as a dinner lady anyway.

A week later I got an email from Masterchef, saying they were “very impressed by my application” and invited me for a casting day at the Brunei Gallery in London. It said:

“Please bring along a sample of your cooking for our judges to taste. You only need to bring one dish. The team will be tasting lots of food so it does not need to be a big portion. It can be sweet or savoury and must be cold or something that can be eaten/tasted cold. We will take into account that the food is cold and has had to travel. Please note there are NO REHEATING FACILITIES and there will be minimal preparation time/facilities but you will have to plate and serve your dish.

“The auditions will be filmed for broadcast so we want you looking and feeling your best. Please avoid wearing white or cream, any logos and steer clear of thin stripes, small spots or geometric patterns. Remember we want your personality to shine through so make sure you feel happy and comfortable as possible….

“Due to the large number of applicants we will be unable to contact unsuccessful applicants.”

I sat there thinking about what dish to go for, and whether I had any clean shirts, let alone any that weren’t striped.

It’d have to be something that could sit happily in a humid Tube carriage half-way across London. Looking back on it now, I still don’t know why I went for sushi.

Masterchef: From Office Into The Pan

I sat there looking at the questions on the Masterchef application form. I had no idea what to put down. The whole show was a farce. The prize was a job as a trainee chef at a top London restaurant. They didn’t say how much you’d get, or what the hours were, or what to do when you’re thrown out on the street because you can’t pay the rent. I couldn’t see Wallace buying the Big Issue off me when he stepped out of his Bentley. And Torode looked like he wouldn’t give a fly to a blind spider.

Maybe the prize didn’t exist at all. I mean, who the hell would take them up on it? The whole thing was about getting on the telly, and society’s mushrooming obsession with fame. I couldn’t see any of the contestants swapping their cushy day jobs for 16 hours slaving in an underground furnace on a wage just enough to keep them alive. Not if there weren’t any cameras about. They weren’t as mad as me. Nowhere near.

The recent winners and finalists seemed to be too busy churning out recipe books to spend much time learning the trade. A few had apparently done a stint here and there in a top kitchen, and Thomasina Myers had set up her own restaurant. But how long she spent there given all the book deals and TV appearances was anyone’s guess.

All I knew was that even if I did get in the finals, it was unlikely to lead to any proper paid cooking work - one winner had turned up at Le Gavroche to find it was unpaid. I needed professional training and a way to support myself if I was to do it properly - to open my restaurant by the sea.

There was also the time delay. I’d have to get myself a cooking job in the mean time. The programme was likely to be months away, and I was dying to get back in the kitchen. One hopeful had to wait eight months before the producers contacted him, then spent 40 minutes on the phone whispering about why he wanted to be a chef with his boss earwigging in the background.

What the hell. I filled in the form anyway...

:: This blog eventually became a bestselling book, called Down And Out In Padstow And London by Alex Watts, about my disastrous attempt to train as a chef, including stints at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck and Rick Stein's kitchens in Padstow. You might like it if you're a foodie or have ever entertained the ridiculous idea of entering the padded asylum of professional cooking. It's here on Amazon as a paperback or Kindle book if you want a read...