A Simple Question

The not so current trend of reinventing traditional dishes has exploded in a new way in the Bay Area, hot dogs anyone? Of course it may have started with pizzas, burgers,salads and Chez Panisse but the move to terrain usually occupied by large food manufacturers, chains and home cooks is both exciding and very telling. What is in one way a response to the current economic environment (on everybody's minds if not pocketbooks) looks, from another perspective, as a continuation and exploration of ingredients and technique. The Bay Area is familiar with simple food and superb ingredients (superb is a great word, isn't it?). We are lucky and seem to know it. Restaurants, chefs, grocery stores, consumers, etc. all seem to be focusing on the local, seasonal ingredients movement known to some as slow food. Although in a restaurant I’m not sure the word slow is really applicable. This isn't news to anyone, but is it technique or product that drives creation? I once had a conversation with a coworker about the difference between the NY and Bay Area food scene. He contended that technique drove the NY scene and product the Bay Area. I've been thinking a lot about this ever since. A little bit of childhood whimsy plays in the cooking of food that is, in my humble opinion, always driven by technique. Without good technique based on solid fundamentals even exceptional produce can't save you. If you’re cooking simply, only using a few ingredients with very little manipulation a mistake is glaring. Do chefs look at produce or protein and wonder what can be done with it, sure. That may even be and often is the starting point of a dish, but not always. There are many ways to approach a dish and none of them is the right one. Just as there are many ways to cook one item, there are many ways to approach the creative process. Sometimes it is trying to save money and find something to do with scrap, sometimes it is a desire to try a certain technique, sometime simple boredom and sometimes the product will lead the way, but without solid fundamentals of basic technique nothing will succeed. If the creative process starts with a question then questions and answers are found in technique and if that isn't solid neither will be. Everything may be driven by technique but in the end I think the most important part is curiosity, yep that childhood whimsy part. Without it questions aren't asked, answers never found and new perspectives are rare. Technique just provides a frame work for questions and tools for invention. Plato once said that necessity is the mother of invention and isn't eating a basic necessity?