Does haute cuisine make sense?
"Cultural evolution equals remove the ornament of the object of daily use", Adolf Loos.
I don't want to sound like a frustrated straggler that he did not measure up and decides to do everything possible to lower the level to his average standard, but I have been questioning for a while the sense of haute cuisine , in the same way that Adolf Loos questioned ornament to the point of condemning it as crime.
In the years that I have gone from being a student of the hospitality trade to practicing and currently semi-professional, the feeling grows in me of absurdity when I see how it affects the lives of those who dedicate themselves to it. Reading the manifesto of the austrian architect , published in 1908 and aimed at the field of decorative arts, I find too many parallels with the current professional culinary scene.
"Yes for a box smooth the same is paid as for another ornate, the difference, in terms of hours of work, benefits the worker ”.
It is likely that the most successful restaurant team in Spain is the one that leads Borja Sierra of the Elena Farm , a small place in the free zone between El Prat and Plaza de España in Barcelona (which serves wonders such as hake cheeks linked with its pilpil with Sant Pau beans).
they only give breakfast and lunch from Monday to Friday and a service of have a fork lunch on Saturdays until 1:00 p.m. Not a day goes by without an amazed customer don't scold the chef, demanding to know why he is giving up the income he could generate if he were to open Wednesday through Saturday nights.
His answer is clear: quality of life , tea. At that location, all the employees they spend the nights with their families and they can enjoy a concert during the week if they feel like it.
Closing the weekend, a utopia for almost everyone
"The man of the twentieth century can meet his needs with much smaller capital and therefore he can save money. The vegetables that he likes are simply cooked in water and seasoned with a little butter. It doesn't taste so good to the other man until it's also mixed with honey and nuts, and someone has spent hours cooking it”.
Since he broke into kitchens of high end and I observe that advantaged clientele that has tried of everything in many places, He catches my eye when I see them shooing away the square plate with foam and crisps and begs us to bring him a supreme of hake with a little extra virgin olive oil, high in Omega 3.
"The ornate plates are very expensive, while white tableware, which tastes good to modern people, its cheap. One saves while the other borrows. So it is with entire nations. Woe to the people who are left behind in cultural development”.
I have to admit that St John's Bread & Wine in front of the market Spitalfields in London is one of my favorite restaurants for its staging, with white, round and short-stemmed wine glasses like the ones you find anywhere french bistro of province.
And that watercress salad with confit hake flakes, salt, freshly ground black pepper and olive oil. oh! And the cow marrow with its parsley salad and toasted loaf bread made in its own workshop.
"White tableware, which tastes good to modern people, is cheap"
However, good old Adolf he would snort over his shoulder if I saw the enthusiasm that French or English crockery provokes in me, with golden details , and he would laugh out loud when he saw that, by not holding up his drawings for too many cycles in the dishwasher, I wasted time scrubbing them by hand instead of leaning back on the couch to see how much fun others are having on Instagram.
“The ornamentist has to work 20 hours to reach the income of a modern worker who works eight hours".
cook's salaries they're short, because despite the fact that by law we should not spend more than eight hours in the game, I know few who go home without accumulating a minimum of eleven hours a day before sitting down with a bottle in front of the TV to watch telepoker games on local channels.
The more pretentious the letter, the more time you have to spend so that the yucca ringlets are perfectly fried and crispy, of which only two units will lie next to the pigeon breast that needed to rest on camera few days and go through the plank before meeting their destiny.
"The Ornament does not increase the joy of life ".
"The ornament is wasted workforce And because of that, wasted health. That's how it always was. Today, moreover, it also means wasted material , and both mean wasted capital ".
I have the image of those historic law firms in noble houses which surrounded a salmon in aspic with lemon slices and all kinds of vegetables worked as decorative elements -as they continue to do in restaurants with names like 'The Great Wall' or 'The Imperial Dragon', but in a menu of 8.95 euros-, and that no one puts it in the mouth.
The true cost of all that paraphernalia is seldom stress to the owner, who has his employees at bay with orders impossible to do on time, but they accept to prove themselves what are they worth , as people, what society or lack of self-esteem questioned.
If the goal is to please someone willing to pay above the neighbor makes me question the virtue of the labor
The kitchen is full of orders impossible to carry out on time