The Chefs Table

I have recently started watching the original Netflix series  "Chefs Table".  After three episodes I have found the series rather compeling, not because of the dishes, as this is not a series of films dedicated to teaching the audience how to replicate dishes served by these chefs.  But rather for the personal philosophy of each of the individuals, the way that they approached life and have contextualise food as a part of their personal philosophy.  Thus far I have watched the episodes featuring Ben Shewry from Melbourne's Attica restaurant and the exteremly interesting Dan Barber, one of the original farm to table chef's, from Blue Hill Mill in New York and finally the charming Massimo Bottura from Osteria Francescana. What is the message that I get from these individuals?  Its a message intertwined with the memories of childhood, of critical thinking, perseverance, hard work and luck. But most importantly love.  Cooking is an act of love, the act of cooking  is one of nurturing, sharing, of community and of love.  We Chefs are very quick to forget this, caught up in the relentless  brutality of the kitchen. All three of these chefs  acknowledges this strange paradox of the kitchen and the act of cooking and the effects on the staff and their families, the even their families.  There kitchen becomes family, for better or worse. defining themselves and the people that they grow and nurture in the process.

All three challenge the paradigm of food.  They approach it with critical thinking filtering it though the memories and experiences.  This is no more self evident than with Ben Shewry and his dish of potatoes cooked in soil.  Strangely enough we both shared a similiar early childhood, both growing up in remote rural seaside locations on the North Island of New Zealand.  I know from my own experience that these early childhood memories are the forge of our future, often defining us and our thought processes.  The food experiences in rural New Zealand were raw, to say the least.  I remember the large vegetable gardens, the home slaughtering of sheep and fishing in the blue green waters of the bay and its surrounds.  There was a certain degree of sustainability and community support, simply because we had very few shops.  The Maori way of cooking in the earth was a monthly community ritual.  To take this memory and turn it into a restaurant dish is a fabulous way of thinking about things.  The act of cooking in the earth is in a way a spiritual act as the food itself is grown and drawn from the soil that it is then cooked in and shared with the community of friends and family.   The very nature of the food and the act of cooking is assimilated into the individual and group sharing it.  This is an enduring memory from childhood.  Ben Shewry has taken this feeling and transposed it into the current.  An act of nurturing and of love.