Monday 27th November 2006

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Nobuyuki Matsuhisa

By: Reese Deveaux

The globalisation of haute cuisine 

Nobuyuki Matsuhisa was a 23-year-old sushi chef in Shinjuku when a Japanese Peruvian pepper farmer came for dinner and changed his life – and helped to alter the patterns of global cuisine.

“He talked about Peru, he talked about the fish, he was a big success in Peru because in the Amazon they grow black pepper. So one day, he asked me to come to Peru to open a restaurant together,” Matsuhisa says.

He had started at the sushi restaurant at 18 and for some time had thought vaguely about leaving Japan to work overseas, so he decided to take a chance.  It was a fortuitous decision. After a long geographical and gustatory voyage, he now has the movie actor Robert DeNiro as a partner in 16 restaurants around the world and he is known universally by the name “Nobu.”  He is opening his 17th in November at the Intercontinental Hotel in Hong Kong.

But besides now being known one of the world’s top chefs, Nobuyuki Matsuhisa is something more.  As much as any chef working today, he represents the globalization of haute cuisine.

This, he protests, is not fusion, a word now culinary anathema. In fact, most of the great chefs today have a mantra. Joel Robuchon, in a recent interview in Macau, said that “fusion est la confusion.”  Nobu, in his Hong Kong interview, echoes that “fusion is confusion.” It is a phrase that echoes across top kitchens everywhere. Donovan Cooke at the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s Derby Restaurant uses the phrase. So does Rolando Schuler, perhaps Hong Kong’s most exciting current chef.

But the fact is that as chefs increasingly learn their trade internationally, the local ingredients they find are increasingly creeping into their cuisine. The difference is that the top chefs are incorporating these ingredients into their own frame of reference rather than trying to bring the two together.

In Asia, there is a kind of circuit for young western chefs, trained along classic Italian, French and other lines, aided and abetted by the growing numbers of luxury hotels around the region, most of which have up to half a dozen restaurants – Japanese, a variety of European, Chinese, local cuisine and an all-day one.

They may start in Manila or Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur, but surely as their way around the South China Sea until they arrive in Hong Kong and Japan. Teage Ezard, a Melbourne-based chef who operates the Philippe Starcke-designed restaurant Opia in Hong Kong, for instance, learned much of his trade in Indonesia.

It was Nobu’s experience in Peru that catapulted him into a new way of thinking. “It was very uncomfortable, that South American cuisine, especially Peruvian cuisine, because the garlic, the oils, and I cannot eat this kind of food very much because the flavour is too strong.”

But something was gnawing at Nobu’s Japanese roots. “It’s the lifestyle, living every day, it’s the weather. I go to the restaurant, I sample the ceviche, sample the rice, sample the arroz con pollo, and it’s try little by little, pretty soon I start to change.” And the changes, of course, led to a brilliant new cuisine that took Matsuhisa from Peru to Argentina to Alaska and ultimately back to Japan, developing new gustatory experiences along the way. 

As healthy as Japanese food is, it is perhaps more stylized than any other major cuisine, taking its cues from refined aesthetics that emphasize simplicity and a strong Zen Buddhist elegance. The roots of the cuisine go back to the sixth to eight century. There are four principal cooking methods – agemono or fried, mushimono or steamed, yakimono or broiled and yakitori or marinated.  There are variations, but what Nobu started doing violated all the rules that went back 1,500 years.

He started putting coriander atop sushi, a departure not just from tradition but a violation of the very essence and philosophy of Japanese cuisine. The changes grew more striking.  Donburi, a typical Japanese dish of rice topped with a meat of some sort, grew to include chilli and garlic. Rice, an ingredient of Japanese cuisine so elemental that most good restaurants have a rice chef, was altered to include freshly grated parmesan cheese and thinly sliced white truffle.

Today Nobu’s kitchens, scattered across the earth as they are, are no longer Japanese.  The assembly lines are Western because Asian restaurants don’t have ovens.  Sushi chefs are a religion unto themselves, an oasis of calm, slicing up seafood in an almost mystical process deeply identified with Zen Buddhism. 

But here was Nobu, altering the process. And, as his empire has grown, his ouvre has expanded. Dover sole, its antecedents in the Bay of Biscay and the German Bight, are served up in Nobu’s London restaurant deep-fried, salted and dusted and served with Shizu Ponzu – a sauce of Nobu’s coriander as well as green Tabasco sauce, red chillis and soy sauce, among other ingredients.

Nonetheless, today Nobu describes himself as a Japanese chef. “I know the different products, the different fish, the different ingredients, basically my cooking style is still Japanese,” he says. “The different countries influence my Nobu food. But when I am going to make the food, I only look for what is gorgeous (in the market), but still the Nobu food is still very simple, like the taste, not too much complicated. I have respect for traditional Japanese cooking, Japan means Japan has four seasons, springtime, summer, winter, cold, sometimes snow, the seasons change color, it is very traditional. I have respect for that.”

Equally, when the master chef Joel Robuchon prepares his controversial Aileron de Reqin en croustille, petite fleur de capucine et feuelles de coriander en tempura or shark’s fin served with tiny crusty nasturtium flowers and coriander leaves in a tempura batter, he is absolutely a French chef, considered by many the greatest alive.

This is where the great chefs depart from fusion cuisine. Although they remain quintessentially a part of their own oeuvre, they incorporate other elements that they find on an international level. Robuchon, in an interview at his magnificent   Macau restaurant, Robuchon á Galera, said he looks for local ingredients, like Macanese crab, wherever he goes to add to his cuisine.

Donovan Cooke, brought in by the Hong Kong Jockey Club with the goal of turning the club’s Happy Valley Derby into Hong Kong’s best restaurant, is equally inventive. But, Cooke says, every facet of his cooking stems from the classic cuisine of France, starting with Escoffier.

Asked about his influences from the west, Nobu says that when he opened his first major restaurant, Nobu in Los Angeles, “It was Wolfgang Puck, then Jean-Georges Vongeritchen, Pierre Gagnaire.” 

Puck and Vongeritchen particularly have been involved in this culinary revolution, Puck initially by bringing previously unforeseen ingredients to pizza at Spago, then to opening his Chinois on Main in Santa Monica, blending Asian cuisine with California ingredients prepared with French cooking techniques. Vongeritchen  is equally eclectic, combining Thai, Vietnamese and Alsatian cuisines.

In a world today where chefs can travel the world unlike their culinary ancestors, who made do with what they found in the Loire Valley or the Tuscan hills, they can increasingly find whatever ingredients they want. Hong Kong is perhaps the most extreme example, where according to a May article in The Standard, Cathay Pacific alone flew in 38,000 tonnes of fresh food in 2005 in temperature-controlled containers hauled by Boeing 747s. In all, Hong Kong imported HK$49.1 billion (US$6.91 billion) in fresh food, most of it flown in, meaning an egg laid by an Italian hen can be on a diner’s table in 24 hours.

Nor is this just meat and potatoes. It includes a million kg of avocadoes from Mexico and South Africa, 19,000 kg of artichokes from Italy.  It includes brilliant deep-sea langoustines from off the coast of New Zealand, Dungeness crab from California, Robuchon’s nasturtium blossoms,  Dutch chickens. From New York to New Delhi, thanks to long-haul jets, chefs can get anything they want if they have the customers to pay and arm and a leg for it – and they learn to eat it.

 

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Congratulations to our colleagues in Singapore **Gold**

The seven-member Singapore National Culinary Team arrived home on Friday evening after winning two gold medals in the Culinary World Cup to many cheers from family, friends, the press and of course, Minister Teo Chee Hean, Minister for Defence and President of the Singapore National Olympic Council.

The team emerged second runner-up in the prestigious Expogast 2006 Culinary World Cup held in Luxembourg earlier this week. The team bagged a total of two gold medals in the hot cooking and cold display categories. “This year’s competition was keen. Every team was all set to win glory for their country, and so were they. Their three-course menu for the hot cooking category that is Asian-inspired and prepared using European cooking methods, proved to be one of the most popular with the judges and guests”, said this year’s team manager, Randy Chow, Executive Chef of Mount Elizabeth Hospital Ltd.

Team Captain, Edward Voon, Executive Chef of Cannery Leisure Pte Ltd, commented, “Our team has spent many months planning, preparing, practicing and perfecting the dishes that were showcased at the competition. It was sheer hard work as the team had to devote many hours training and fine-tuning the dishes. But it was all worth it, and we are happy and proud to win glory for Singapore again.”

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The Secrets of Pumpkin Seed Oil in Steierland, Austria

During my holidays, I had the chance to visit an local oil factory, “Haindl Mühle Ölpresse” in Kalsdorf, near Graz in Austria. The business is run by family Haindl for nearly 80 years with a lot of success.

Therefore, I thought that it could be interesting to all Chefs to discover, or not, how oil is traditionally produced.

Producing oil by pressing, hot or cold, is an old system, used already long time ago by the Greeks. The system has been improved over the Centuries, but the principles are still the same.

First of all, only top quality pumpkin seeds will be chosen for the oil production. After a long and

sunny summer, pumpkin seeds are mature and ready to be removed from the fruit/vegetable. In the past, this was done manually, but nowadays, this is done mechanically.

The first step is to “dry” the pumpkin seeds, in order to remove the excess water, but also to concentrate its flavor.  This variety of pumpkin seed used in Steierland does not have a shell and can be eaten as it is, flavored with salt, sugar, cinnamon, etc.

After, the pumpkin seeds will be removed, and transferred into a pipe, where it will be filtered and unwanted “particles” removed.

The pumpkin seed will be then grounded and well mixed will a bit of salted water.

Next, the pumpkin “paste” goes back under heat, where it will be “roasted” or “toasted” until it reaches its full flavor, at a temperature of 80 *C. The water added earlier will avoid the “paste” to stick and burn on the bottom and the salt will increase its flavor and specific aroma. This process will be done slowly, under low heat. Once ready, the “paste” is removed immediately.

The pumpkin seed “paste” moves to the final step. It goes into a press, where the oil will be extracted, under a few tones of pressure. At this stage, we obtain two products, which can be used: a dark green oil and the remaining pumpkin seed, which look like a dry cake, with a water content lower than 1 %.

The so called “cakes” can be used in the kitchen as a replacement for walnut or almond for the confection of cakes or tarts. And the pumpkin seed oil of course to enhance dishes. This type of oil should never be heated and strictly use to enhance food items and for the confection of cold dishes.

More information about the “Green Gold” can be found on internet (available in German), at the following address: www.haindlmuehle.com.

Last but not least, many thanks to Willi Haider (www.kochschule.at) who kindly organized the visit and of course to Alois and Hanna Haindl, for their kindness and hospitality.

By Dominique Grandjean

 

 

   

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