Daily digest for Food and Wine Gazette, on October 24, 2021
Ivan Brincat posted: " David Martin (left), host and mentor of the San Pellegrino Young Chef Academy with Michael Vrijmoed and Stephanie Le Quellec It is a crisp autumn morning. The fourth session of the Saint Pellegrino Young Chef Academy is taking place in a new spot crea"
David Martin (left), host and mentor of the San Pellegrino Young Chef Academy with Michael Vrijmoed and Stephanie Le Quellec
It is a crisp autumn morning. The fourth session of the Saint Pellegrino Young Chef Academy is taking place in a new spot created by chef and entrepreneur David Martin. It is in an idyllic spot, perfect to transmit knowledge.
For this session, six chefs have been invited to work with mentor chefs Stephanie Le Quellec of La Scene in Paris, France and Michael Vrijmoed of restaurant Vrijmoed in Gent, Belgium.
The focus is on the green revolution. Michael Vrijmoed has been serving a vegetable based menu since he opened his acclaimed restaurant Vrijmoed in Gent. And it is well known because he leaves no stone unturned in making sure that what he serves is just as delicious. "What's important for me is that a dish tastes excellent. My main focus has always been that of getting the best taste out of ingredients. Making a dish look nice only comes second in importance," he said.
Stephanie Le Quellec explained that while it is still hard in Paris to offer a fine-dining vegetarian menu in its entirety she is also working on a number of stand-alone vegetable dishes in her menu at restaurant La Scene. And while demand for a more vegetable-centric approach had been increasing even before the pandemic, she has clearly noticed an upward trend in people who demand vegetable based menus or dishes at the restaurant.
"We have dishes that can be easily adapted if customers demand without losing out of the flavour that comes with say using caviar," she tells me.
For this occasion, the six chefs at the Young Chef Academy coming from various spots across Belgium are able to look at the work of Stephanie and Michael on beetroots and mushrooms. It is a coincidence, the two chefs had not discussed the menu or their dishes before the event.
Michael Vrijmoed made a spectacular beetroot dish that was served with a classic béarnaise sauce and a surprising and intense bordelaise sauce of mushrooms which was completely vegetable based. The beetroot was cooked in a salt-crust and beautifully shaped before being stuffed with beetroot mixed with the béarnaise sauce.
He also worked on a 'ravioli of mushrooms' again packing the flavours with a white garlic and a tomato and chilli sauce that really worked harmoniously to make for a satisfying start.
Stephanie's beetroot dish was a work of art. She served beetroot in various forms and textures and added a touch of coffee which worked perfectly with the beetroot.
For her work with mushrooms she prepared a medley of dishes that is normally served just before the meat course at the restaurant. The first was a 'tagliolini' of dried porcini mushrooms which she just dressed with olive oil and herbs, the flavour coming from the actual pasta. She cooked a large mushroom poached in smoked tea and combining it with a delicious shallot sauce. The third was pickled mushrooms with a vinaigrette with the idea being to refresh the palate similar to ginger in Japan for sushi or sashimi.
During the morning, Stephanie told the young chefs of the importance of having different options and not putting all eggs in one basket. Apart from the two Michelin star restaurant La Scene in Paris, she also operates a bistrot on the ground floor of the same location. She said that the same team work in both the bistrot and the fine-dining restaurant. The bistro serves a more accessible cuisine but ultimately the customers of the bistro are the same as the customers of the fine-dining restaurant. "Some of our guests might come to the bistro three times for lunch and come to the fine-dining restaurant for a special occasion in the evening. It is important to offer staff the possibility of working both in the fine-dining restaurant and in the bistro. We don't have dedicated staff for one place or the other but it is important for our staff to gain experience in the two different places," she said.
On the other hand, Michael Vrijmoed emphasised the importance of working of making food taste good. He told the young chefs that more and more people are opting for vegetarian based menus and this tendency is set to continue. Unlike restaurants which ask the whole table to order the same menu, at Vrijmoed it is possible for guests to mix and match. "We can serve a fish and meat menu and a vegetable-based menu at the same table. Ultimately, this is important for us because guests that might not otherwise try a vegetable based menu can see that is can be equally satisfying and they can also taste what its like."
The San Pellegrino Young Chef Academy has so far organised four sessions for young Belgian chefs.
The first session with Filip Claeys and David Martin focused on local cuisine. Eric Fernez and Lionel Rigolet worked on sauces. Yves Mattagne and Heiko Nieder focused on a taste of Asia in the third session.
The fifth session called Back to the Roots will feature Tim Boury and Cyril Molard with the final session focusing on Experience first and the mentors being Maarten Bouckaert of Castor and Pierre Resimont of L'Eau Vive.
Guest Post posted: " Author Tom Benjamin talks about what inspired his critically-acclaimed Bologna-set novel The Hunting Season. Today, authenticity is everything – we may not be able to travel to Italy but at least we can savour the flavours of the country, pa"
Author Tom Benjamin talks about what inspired his critically-acclaimed Bologna-set novel The Hunting Season.
Today, authenticity is everything – we may not be able to travel to Italy but at least we can savour the flavours of the country, painstakingly following recipes proclaiming they've been handed down from one nonna to another using ingredients from Tuscan farms and Pugliese olive groves. Italians have an appreciation for food unlike any other culture I've experienced – they make small talk about it the way the British discuss weather, and have as many regional varieties as Inuits have words for snow. Italians take authenticity seriously.
But 'counterfeit' food is a serious global problem, so much so that the FDA has stated the "sheer magnitude of the potential crime" makes prevention difficult. In short, where there's money to be made, crime will inevitably follow, sniffing out a potential scam as efficiently as a Romagnan truffle dog.
Speaking of dogs, I caught scent of the second in my series of Bologna-set mystery novels when chatting with my friend Paolo over a traditional appetizer of fried egg topped with white truffle (it was October, and the beginning of the season) as we lunched in the hills abutting Bologna.
When Paolo was growing up, truffles were viewed much like any other fungi locally, and his grandfather Enrico's fondness for heading out in search of them with his trusty Lagotto Romagnolo was regarded as a harmless eccentricity. Paolo recalled he would return with so many truffles his grandmother Agnese didn't know what to do with them. She used to complain about 'the stink' and threw the excess out of the kitchen window until there was quite a pile outside.
Today, truffle hunting is a serious business in Paolo's home town. In a few months a truffle hunter can earn enough to support them for a year, and if they're really lucky, they can hit the jackpot – uncover a white truffle that might be auctioned for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many hunters only venture out, illegally, at night to avoid being tracked. Dogs are raised and kept under high security, but this doesn't stop some being poisoned.
This high-stakes, high-finance dimension to truffles means counterfeits smuggled in from abroad have become a real problem.
Even in the early days counterfeits cropped up, but the trade consisted of little more than a chap turning up at the back door of a restaurant with a pocket full of Albanian truffles and a cheeky smile. Now, what was once a cottage industry has turned into a major criminal enterprise, and legitimate truffle traders and restaurateurs have to be on their guard.
In The Hunting Season, my Bologna-based sleuth Daniel Leicester is tasked with finding a missing American truffle 'supertaster' hired to check the provenance of the local truffles. With the aid of a glamorous TV reporter, the trail takes him through the city's trattorie and on to its surrounding countryside – commonly known as the calanchi, or 'badlands'.
It was a joy to write The Hunting Season not only because it gave me an excuse to sample plenty of truffle dishes in Paolo's hometown which, for the purpose of ever being welcomed into a restaurant there again, I have rechristened 'Boscuri', but I was able to learn about a phenomenon that has yet to truly emerge from the shadows – everyone, it seems, has a vested interest in keeping counterfeits quiet.
And just as my debut, A Quiet Death In Italy, explored the tensions around the gentrification of Bologna with Daniel's investigation into the death of an ageing political activist, The Hunting Season invites the reader to a modern Bologna marketing its 'authenticity' to tourists but treading a fine line between what Italy values, and its ever-present shadow.
Follow Tom @tombenjaminsays on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and pre-order The Hunting Season through Amazon, Bookshop.org, or your local bookstore.
The Hunting Season
It's truffle season and in the hills around Bologna the hunt is on for the legendary Boscuri White, worth more than its weight in gold. But when American truffle "supertaster" Ryan Lee goes missing, English detective Daniel Leicester discovers not all truffles are created equal. Did the missing supertaster bite off more than he could chew?
As he goes on the hunt for Ryan Lee, Daniel discovers the secrets behind "Food City," as Bologna is known—from the immigrant kitchen staff to the full scale of a multi-million Euro business. After a key witness is found dead at the foot of one of Bologna's famous towers, the stakes could not be higher. Daniel teams up with a glamorous TV reporter, but the deeper he goes into the disappearance of the supertaster the darker things become. Murder is once again on the menu, but this time Daniel himself stands accused. And the only way he can clear his name is by finding Ryan Lee...
Discover Bologna through the eyes of English detective Daniel Leicester as he walks the shadowy porticoes in search of the truth and, perhaps, even gets a little nearer to solving the mystery of Italy itself.
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