Chef John Foster: With even menu planning done by computer, is a chef's work ...

Friday, March 7, 2014

The subject of taste and flavors came up in conversation today, spurred on by a blog post on NPR's The Salt sent to me by a colleague. To summarize: The IBM supercomputer Watson, which was a recent Jeopardy winner, is now helping chefs with flavor combinations and new tastes in a food truck venture. Yes, a computer is taking my job, or actually the jobs of the hierarchy of the kitchen. What used to be the domain of the chefs and sous chefs - menu planning - can now be done on a much grander scale by the computer overlords, fulfilling Sarah Connor's prophecy from The Terminator that Skynet would take over the (my) world. Back in the late '90s and early '00s, the Japanese were working feverishly on a mechanical method for cooking and serving the food in a restaurant kitchen. Assuming the worst, we have now completely automated my life's work, from ordering food through the prep and cooking process involving the ordering and delivery process, resulting in a meal possibly untouched by human hands. Am I worried? No. Am I amazed? Again, not so much. To paraphrase Braveheart: They can take away my labor hours, but they can never take my palate. You see, we each taste in our own way and flavors are to some extent subjective. While most of us taste five 'flavors' on our palate - sweet, sour, salty, bitter and hot - some taste six, the sixth being umami which is a vague savory flavor like roasted chicken or mushrooms. Our palates develop at different rates and to different levels magnified a billion times over. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the author of The Physiology of Taste, was famous for saying, 'Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you what you are.' And those words written almost 200 years ago give me the comfort against the encroachment of technology. You must understand that no matter the broad spectrum of knowledge that can or ever will exist which can be fed into a computer and processed into a thousand different flavor combinations, nothing will ever replace the human sense of taste, only significantly enhance its possibilities. So, now I am faced with an almost unlimited supply of ideas for tonight's specials or next season's menu, and still I'm annoyed. Part of the magic of that twilight between lunch service and the onslaught of dinner, that time when only you and a few cooks work in an afternoon vacuum, is the act of creation. We work so much with our hands and our bodies, stretching and lifting, dancing among the flames, balancing the adrenalin of service, that our minds and our creative spark is sometimes dimmed. These brief moments of peace are moments in which we do the work of Watson the computer by taking what's on hand, divining its flavors and creating the fish special for that night. That is the reward for hours of heat, vulgarity and sometimes brutish work. It would truly be a tragedy if we sat back and allowed a unique experience to be reduced to mix and match. It may seem Neanderthal of me to take this position, and I am usually much more open to the benefits of advancing our culinary technology. But, I was struck by the ease with which we welcomed this incursion into an inner sanctum into which we rarely even admit our own young cooks. We, as chefs, can be an irascible lot, possessive of our time and talent. We are still one of the few careers still kind to the tradition of paying one's dues and, sometimes, we are downright hostile to young upstarts. I confess that, at times, I watch with disdain as a young celebrity chef enjoys their 15 minutes of fame, mindful that without a good foundation that's all they may get. I remind my students that this career they've chosen is a marathon that constantly challenges you to continue, while it teaches hard lessons you must learn. How in the world can all that be reduced to a byte, or bite, of information. The again, this breakthrough represents really the only other way that our industry can evolve. We have the niche of molecular gastronomy, practiced by some of the best chefs in the world but out of the reach of the rest. Unless we discover an entirely new foodstuff, we are confined somewhat to reintroducing the past. The element of unfathomable knowledge is new and even, to me, exciting. Where once we had to learn at the feet of the master, we can now start somewhere up near the kneecaps. We still have to respect the foundations, but with technology literally in our grasp we can access so much more than we used to have at our disposal. Will it ever replace books and old notes or yellowing pages from a journal? For me, the answer is no. For the next generation, I wish for one foot in the past and another in the future. You have the possibility of both worlds to choose from, but the act of creation must end with your hand on the chef's knife and your body hunched over the stove. It should ever be thus if there is passion still left in our craft.

John Foster is an executive chef who heads the culinary program at Sullivan University's Lexington campus. A New York native, Chef Foster has been active in the Lexington culinary scene for more than 20 years. The French Culinary Institute-trained chef has been an executive chef, including at the popular Dudley's Restaurant, and a restaurant owner.

Click here to read more from Chef John Foster. Comments

comments

Lokasi:

Share :