Food as Art

Wednesday, October 25

This afternoon, we had an interesting class that was right up my alley and I loved... plating or using the plate as a blank canvas to create a beautiful and appetizing compositon using squirt bottles filled with sauces and reductions just like paint brushes, using a variety of molds to form our food, creating shapes from vegetables, fruits, herbs, grains, and anything else we could think of. After a tiring day and exhausting start to the week with the exam, it was a welcome opportunity to stay mindful and be creative.

First the chef plated a salad and used some different techniques to show us what could be possible. Then we went into teams with only about 15 minutes to design something together out of a variety of ingredients available, which was quite the challenge with two different approaches and thoughts to what is beautiful and works. Though, when you have a team where both people are open and flexible to what can be, then incredible things can be created.

Then, the chef demonstrated different techniques to plate entrees and we were again put into teams with a bit more time to create beautiful and appetizing plates from the available ingredients. The entree that our team created came out very nice and the teacher liked.

Last but certainly not least, the chef demonstrated a variety of techniques for desserts and showed us how to make chocolate that we could use for sauces, molds, for decoration, etc, the use of sauces and reductions on plates, how to form ice cream properly on plates (my Baskin Robbins experience from my teenager years didn't help as we were taught to make an oval type shape with two tablespoons that was quite tricky), molds that we could use to create forms in sponge cakes and other cakes, how philo can be baked into nests, sprinkles and other items for decorations. The possibilities are endless and there are some general guidelines but no hard and fast rules on how to do this. A chef develops his or her own creative style to plating along the way. The best thing she said was to let go, be creative, and see what happens as she experiments for a long time before she comes up with the right plating for a dish for the restaurant she used to own or the catering she now does. Also, you can use one plate to create a design and the other plate to create things that will be placed on the designed plate so as not to interfere or damage the final designed plate while creating things. Our team of two ended up with a wonderful plate that consisted of dark chocolate I smeared on a plate and then put mango reduction sauce in swirls around it. On top of this designed plate was a nest of philo, filled with icecream, and a sponge cake, which I put strips of chocolate sauce over. Around this was a variety of colourful fruit pieces. Sound beautiful and tasty? It certainly was and it was nice that the teacher loved the plating.

It was interesting to see what the teams came up with, sometimes effective a la deux, sometimes not, sometimes people thinking that they made mistakes but the teacher saying it was excellent and like a contemporary art piece and people would pay lots of money for it. It's interesting what kind of moods you can create through observing the plates that people present, whether sparse and zen-like, hearty but light, fun and playful, modern and abstract, sophisticated and upscale, etc. The important thing is to work well with your partner, have fun, and have a general direction you think you'd like to go in. It was amazing what the teams came up with, including ours.

We also had a recipe creation class in the morning, where we learned the general guidelines and tips to creating good recipes and the what not to dos for recipes as well, which you probably know if you've followed a recipe before and have been frustrated, i.e. list the ingredients in the order that you will use them and the procedures should follow this list. We have to create a recipe and hand it in as homework.

Tonight, I went to a tea ceremony and Japanese sweets making class. We learned how to make the basic sweets or "wagashi" for a tea ceremony but using natural ingredients such as white bean paste, replacing refined sugar with agave nectar, and using natural colours such as beet juice, pumpkin and green tea matcha instead of artificial colouring to colour the white bean paste. Also, we made a beautiful gelatin type dessert in small molds with kanten or agar agar, agave and fruit. After making a variety a very beautiful and intricate sweets, we participated in a traditional tea ceremony that the Japanese teacher performed for us and ate our sweets. It was quite the dessert day...