Do you have those moments when the planets align? Where eveything clicks? Or falls into place? I had one of those earlier today. And it centred around that beautiful golden, aged wheel that is parmigiano reggiano. You’ve heard me many times before talk about the nutrition lessons to learn from chefs. So please indulge me this second food post as part of Good Food Month.
Speaking to a small room of food industry professionals, foodies and journalists, world renowned modernist Italian Chef Massimo Bottura explained his need to appreciate history at the same time as embracing the future. He challenged us all to never get complacent in everday life. The challenge is to know everything and then forget about everything. To look at the world from under the table. To look back at gastronomy and see what’s wrong and what’s right and bring it to the future. He credits Ben Shewry’s success, in part, to the ability to see Australia as an outsider from New Zealand. Ben’s under the table perspective allows him to see differently, forage differently and design differently.
An avid art collector, Massimo quotes famous artists and fills his new book “Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef” with art and music. Picasso, points out Massimo, used to paint like Raphael in his teens and it took a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child.
Massimo ate at Mr Wong in Sydney and barged straight into the kitchen to learn the secret to Dan Hong’s dumplings. Why would an Italian chef want to do that you ask? Because ravioli is just a container of ideas and there are lessons to learn in perfecting the delicate, gelatinous structure within each soft Asian pillow.
My new friend Juliette and I sat intently with major chef crush clutching our new bible and sipping vino rosso. Massimo didn’t want a sexy cover for his book. He wanted it to stand the test of time, like an enclyopedia. But there’s a cheeky sexiness to the way Massimo describes food. A sponge for technology and new age equipment from sous vide to rotovaps, he told the tale of Harvard loaning him a device that turns a food’s essence into an aromatic fog. What? Yes. You see researchers are looking at ways to prevent depression in space flights by giving astronauts the experience of breathable fogs of food, like pizza, as they so miss the experience of real food. Massimo tried his fogs out at a party claiming Kate Moss could not get enough of *ahem* sniffing the zero kilojoule food. They also sprayed “sushi fog” into the opening of a jean store in Japan to the bewildered hipsters. Anyway, I digress, back to cheese and a look at our antipasti snack box.
Massimo was challenged with expressing the rich terroir of his Modena food valley. The land of slow food and very fast cars. He’d already explored his four ways with parmesan on the menu. But something was missing? It wasn’t until he went deeper and realised his missing ingredient was, time. You see the ageing process is fundamental to parmesan cheese production. So they deconstructed the dish and concentrated each element on a different stage of ageing, adding the final fifth state of fog in – Five ages of Parmigiano Reggiano. Massimo’s list of criteria is that food has to 1. Be good tasting 2. Be healthy and 3. Be art. And to my pleasant surprise and nutritionists ears, he mentioned that: aged parmesan has 0g lactose content and therefore can be enjoyed by people with lactose intolerance. You can clearly see the art below.
It’s actually been a fast paced couple of days with dairy. Yesterday Scoop Nutrition hosted a dietitians bloggers briefing on behalf of Dairy Australia as part of a Scientific Symposium. We spent all day chatting and hearing from global calcium expert Professor Connie Weaver. And guess what she said? Aged parmesan has 0g lactose content and can be enjoyed by people with lactose intolerance. Lessons in cheese from a Professor in nutrition and one of the worlds top chefs.
Follow the photos from our event with #DASS2014 on instagram and on twitter for the blog posts. We’ll have details of the webinar recording and more soon lovelies.
