The Malaysian Insider :: Food
The Malaysian Insider :: Food |
| Chef Alex Atala, Brazil’s taste ambassador Posted: 21 Nov 2013 08:24 PM PST From an almost accidental start in the business — he took a cooking class in Belgium in order to get his visa extended — Atala is using his star status to promote Brazilian food and defend sustainable production. "Cooking is a mix of magic, alchemy and exact sciences," Atala told AFP in an interview at his award-winning D.O.M. restaurant in his native Sao Paulo. Atala grew up in suburban Sao Paulo. As a punk youngster, he experimented with drugs and embraced tattoo art. At age 45, he still cuts a rebellious figure, with his numerous tattoos and graying red beard. When asked what remains of his edgy youth, he says enthusiastically, "Everything!" But with success — D.O.M. ranked sixth this year on the British magazine Restaurant's list of the top 50 eateries — has come some mellowing. "Life forced me to mature. Cooking gave me method and discipline," said Atala, clad in his crisp white chef's attire. In his late teens, Atala went backpacking across Europe. In Belgium, he painted houses to make money and when his visa was about to expire, he enrolled in a cooking class in order to extend his stay. He began his culinary training at the age of 19 at the Ecole Hoteliere de Namur. He later headed to France and Italy to widen his repertoire. In 1994 he returned to Sao Paulo, having learnt one lesson. "I realized that I would never be able to cook Italian food like an Italian chef. But I could distinguish myself as a Brazilian chef with recipes and ingredients of my country," he notes. In 1999, Atala opened D.O.M., which stands for Deo Optimo Maximo (or "To God, most good, most great") and is viewed as the best restaurant in South America. The menu there notably features unconventional ingredients that includes palm heart fettuccine; pirarucu (Amazonian fish) with tucupi (traditional Brazilian sauce from wild manioc root); and banana ravioli with passion fruit sauce and tangerine sorbet, as well as insects burnished like jewels. An eight-course dinner cost around $250 (RM802.75). "The Amazon is the new frontier of taste. Its richness and possibilities are infinite," says Atala. "Everybody knows the word Amazon, but nobody knows the taste associated with it." In 2009 Atala opened his second restaurant, Dalva e Dito, also in Sao Paulo, to critical acclaim. He has also worked in advertising and runs the ATA foundation, which champions the indigenous people and produce of the Amazon. Atala says he likes to eat street food, especially Brazil's popular fried empanadas. As a child, he used to go fishing and hunting with his father and grandfather, and he says he is trying to resurrect such memories by promoting an "emotive cooking". Time magazine included Atala on its 2013 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Fellow chef Rene Redzepi described him in his introduction as "the most dedicated person in his field". "Selflessly, he has surrendered to the enormous task of shaping a better food culture for Latin America. His philosophy of using native Brazilian ingredients in haute cuisine has mesmerised the continent," wrote Redzepi, a Dane whose restaurant Noma in Copenhagen tops the World's 50 Best Restaurants list. A restless traveller, Atala attends conferences around the world, cooks in Chile or Singapore and occasionally treks into the Amazon rainforest in search of exotic new tastes. He insists that Brazil is a country "which still has a lot to show" if it decides to follow the example of countries such as Peru, which have learnt to promote their cuisine. "Food is the best link between nature and culture... The modern chef and many of us today have become disconnected from the original ingredients." During a recent event in Denmark, Atala was criticised when he killed a hen in front of his audience, but he dismissed the issue. "Today, a chef sparks a controversy if he kills a hen, but our grandparents did this routinely. They used the feathers to make pillows and the legs for other things. They made full use of everything. "At the same time, there is a lot of waste in the food business. We need to rewrite this story and value life, vegetable or animal," notes Atala, who says he likes to spark debates. Atala has three sons from two marriages and says that if he had not pursued a culinary career, he might have become a veterinarian or a biologist. - AFP, November 22, 2013. |
| Beaujolais Nouveau - fruity fun but uncertain future Posted: 21 Nov 2013 05:30 PM PST As ever, the reviews were mixed for the purply-pink "primeur" wine that the vignerons of the Beaujolais country in eastern France rush to market within a few weeks of harvest, often having been fermented in only a few days. With many of them facing an uncertain future against a backdrop of declining demand, Beaujolais producers had promised a particularly fruity drop this year. And French intellectual Bernard Pivot, who tapped the first barrel of the new vintage on the stroke of midnight in the region's capital Beaujeu, was willing to back their claims. "I must admit I was a little afraid because the harvest was late but in the end it is very precocious," Pivot told AFP after enjoying his first few gulps. "Robust — with notes of blackberries and raspberries. There is maybe even a little bit of cherry in there." In reality, Beaujolais Nouveau is a love-it-or-hate-it sort of drink. With its bananas-to-bubblegum range of flavours and its sharp (fans say crisp) acidity, the variations in quality between different years are unlikely to change opinions too drastically. "More of an event than a drink," is the sniffy view of Hugh Johnson, the veteran British writer whose annual pocket guide is the world's biggest-selling wine book. This year's promotional stunts ranged from the cerebral — a Beaujolais-themed poetry competition at Moscow wine store Otdokhni — to the surreal — Brussels' most famous statue, the Manneken Pis, was peeing the wine instead of water. In its home market, Beaujolais Nouveau has suffered in recent years from the wider decline in wine drinking, tighter controls on drink driving and its association with hard-to-forget hangovers. But Cedric Vallance, manager of the Louis D'Or bar in central Paris, does not feel it has fallen out of fashion. "Maybe the 50-plus crowd are a bit fed up with it but the young still appreciate the festive side of Beaujolais Nouveau. All the tables we have booked tonight are by people in their 30s. It is a party wine." In the United States, Beaujolais Nouveau — which hits the market in time for the Thanksgiving holiday — is a reason for the Alliance Francaise, which promotes French language and culture abroad and has 114 chapters in the US, to throw soirees from coast to coast. Its Washington DC branch is hosting a "Beaujolais and Beyond Celebration" at the French embassy today that will also include "light fare from DC restaurants". On Wednesday, the Local Vine Cellar, a wine shop off Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Capitol Hill, threw an "Anti-Beaujolais Nouveau Celebration" to spotlight what it called "the complex side of Beaujolais", with tastings of such crus as Morgon, Fleurie, Julienas and Chenas. In the Japanese spa town of Hakone, west of Tokyo, Nouveau enthusiasts enjoyed the now-established ritual of bathing in a mix of spring water and the tipple. "It may shock some people but there is no reason why it should," said Thibault Garin, a vice president of French merchants Laboure-Roi. "The bath is not actually filled with wine (only a few symbolic bottles are put in and colouring is added to make the water a vivid purple). The point is the show." Japan is the young wine's biggest export market, having knocked back 8.8 million bottles of the stuff last year. With the Japanese market already a mature one and sales in Europe stagnating or falling, Beaujolais producers are looking to the rest of Asia to pick up the slack. In China, which is Beaujolais's sixth-biggest export market, one Beijing bar offered "Revolutionary Songs" along with its wine-tasting. Even in Muslim-majority Indonesia, where only a small proportion drink alcohol, a little piece of France came to a Jakarta mall, with an area of La Piazza decked out like a French street cafe in honour of the new vintage. Although the production of a young wine before the end of the year is a long-established tradition in Beaujolais and many other wine areas, Nouveau and its associate hype only took off in the 1970s. It now accounts for about 30% of the region's annual output of around 100 million bottles. But there are some in the industry who feel it has created confusion about the Beaujolais brand, to the detriment of the region's long-term interests. Despite increasingly positive critical reviews, producers of regular Beaujolais are now struggling, with many vineyards in and around celebrated villages like Brouilly or Moulin a Vent being ripped up as their elderly owners reach retirement age. "Beaujolais is in a dire situation," says wine marketing guru Robert Joseph. "It is neither fun enough nor serious enough." - AFP/Relaxnews, November 22, 2013. |
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