Friday, March 17, 2006

The Taste of Guilt

In a recent issue of "Bon Appetit" there was an article on the recent
debate on the ethics of Fois Gras. I'm naming this article in a similar spirit as the author. I just had a meal that just seemed to taste better because it was guilty.
First and foremost, the meal was held in a small unlicensed restaurant. Actually, it's not a restaurant, it's the home of the cook. The cook himself is an elderly gentlemen name Lee. He is the nephew of a Chinese Chef which was the cook for a government official of long ago. He has one sitting for twelve five nights a week.We are served in his living room, inside a rickety old walk-up in Hong Kong.
Mr. Lee cooks very traditional, very labour intensive, very decadent Cantonese Cuisine. While almost all homes nowadays is outfitted with a gas or electric range, he prefers to cook over coal in an iron wok.
I've been to this "restaurant" once before. I remember turning to my sister after the last meal I had there and said to her " I feel single handedly resposible for endangering rare animals. I just ate a half dozen for them!" Which is sort of true. In the last meal I had I remember eating a rare spiked sea cucumber, as well as shark fin, which in itself, is a guilty pleasure.
Tonight, however, we had two courses of shark fin, one stirred fried and one braised in a ham and chicken broth. Both delicious, both decadent, that is, until you remember that shark fin is actually prepared in such a way that it doesn't smell or taste of anything. It has the texture of cooked rubber bands. So there is an enormous amount of work and other ingredients going into both these dishes to make it taste like something.
The third course is a dish of abalone cooked with geese feet. Abalones are large, single shelled shellfish that, once dried, become a delicacy. There was a pair of feet for each person attending, so that's a dozen geese that gave up only their feet to lend the abalone its flavor. Again, the abalone itself doesn't taste much like anything, but it is the liquid that it's cooked in that gave it the earthreal flavor.
Young Chicken cooked with Young Ginger was sublime, as was the Young Bamboo shoots, as was the fried rice. It is the Three and a half ounces of Swallow's Nest double braised and served with thick coconut cream that shocked me. Three and a half ounces sounds like nothing, but in reality, usually only a portion of about a tenth of an ounce makes up a portion. I, personally, got three and half ounces, with a second helping of about two ounces. In terms of chinese medicine, this is the equalvilent of about a year's worth of facials for a girl. (Swallow's Nest is reputed to be excellent for the skin.) For a third time, Swallow's Nest itself (by the way, it'd effectively Swallow's Spit) taste like nothing. When it is cooking in rock sugar it transforms into something else.
How is it the three most expensive items on the menu taste like nothing itself? All three items, the Shark Fin, the Abalone and the Swallow's nest all require extensive cooking over a period of days to make it taste like what it's cooked in. And all these items, in one way or another, belongs on one endangered list or another. But everytime I come home, I look forward to maybe be extended an invitation to this place. I think it has to do with the fact that the elderly Mr. Lee must think about retiring soon, and taking with him the secrets and the know-how to prepare dishes like these. I know I'll never taste anything else quite like it in a proper restaurant. Maybe it's the knowledge that I'm part of a small group that has tasted something unique and, okay, I admit it, something that is rare, not unlike the Ortland.
This philosphy of food is the polar opposite of how chefs like Alice Waters would treat food. But something to be learned here is that even through the ages, the care that is put into a meal is relection of how a meal will taste. Afterall, with all the rare and unusual ingredients in my meal to night, the cost per person is about $150USD, the same as in any five start restaurant in New York City or Napa. The difference here is that I wasn't served yet another rare seared tuna, I was served somthing truly unique.

For those of you wondering, I'm paying for all this with sever indigestion. I would , however, do this again in a heartbeat.

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