Open Sauces Dinner @ FoAM, Brussels

Nov. 22, 2008

Open Sauces
theme:
open source & open sauces
the sense of taste & the sense of smell
food crisis, trading, logistics,
future of the food etc.etc...

Not to forget: to taste!


welcome drink


12 course dish starts. Get ready!

Menu
http://lib.fo.am/open_sauces_menu


parmesan cheese + honey = super!




cauliflower + cauliflower + cauliflower....




Sprouts on alga + black sesame rice cracker + water cress jelly.

(It's all edible, just for your information.)


What impressed me the most was this dish. Surprising, but tasted also good in a subtle way. And I got the feeling that I was positively experimented. As a native Japanese I missed shoyu & wasabi for this sort of texture, and I found out that they had already 'composed' them alternatively by placing sesame-shoyu cracker & water cress jelly next to the sprout. This was amazing. The level of play was very well balanced in that dish.



Green Peas & Mint Soup in different versions

• gaseous <---- the perfume dish that I contributed
• fluid
• (half)solid

It was my role to give a toast for this course.
My toast:

If you pinch your nose when you eat, you wouldn't taste much flavors. The role of smell is quite crucial in cookery, because 70 % of tasting is said to be smelling. The rest 30 % is saltiness, sweetness, sourness, bitterness, umami, and some texture. The smell or aroma of the food comes in to the nose through the nose holes, but also from the back of the nose by chewing. Good test would be to chew the food with the mouth open. You wouldn't taste much.

This transparent liquid in the perfume bottle is distilled green pea & mint soup. The aroma's of the soup is condensed and concentrated in this liquid. In other words, it's the same liquid that you can also find on the lid. Now, what happens if we don't close the pan when making a soup? You might find an answer in this perfume. You can spray it in your mouth.

The toasts are related to the each dish like this.


Chicoli cooked in coffee.


Different versions of sexy 'stamppod'.





All the dishes were served with a touch of elegance. The tastes were finely tuned with the drinks.

Only pity thing is that everything was following (too) proper western formal style. I was expecting to get even more surprise with a lot of plays and experimentations. I hope they get even more crazy the next time...!