Foodtri.ps

It's already been a week, so high time to share some pictures and feedback from the Foodtri.ps London Weekend with you. For reasons of authenticity/laziness I've decided to let the attendees do the talking. The pictures, as so often are by the amazing Daniela Haug and lots more can be found on the Foodtri.ps Flickr group site.

"Imagine this: Travel to London, meet about a dozen people in a private dining room above a lively pub and have the Young Turks cook insanely extraordinary courses just for you. Can't be a better night out, right? Here is the thing: The next day, you'll find yourself with the same people on a market, where somebody set up a kitchen for you, hands out cash and you can buy and cook whatever you want from that market. A one of a kind experience, that I would not want to miss, whenever there is another foodtrip. Oh wait, Morocco..." Paul, Berlin

"The set menu for dinner in the Ten Bells was extraordinarily good in setting, produce and execution and the following days tour of Maltby Street market with the hands on cooking was eye-opening, fun and and delicious. The visit to the re-emerging Brixton Village market in the evening was a fantastic closure to the event. Mama Lan's Bejing style dumplings alone are worth a trip down to Brixton. Unfortunately, the trio that half way through the dumplings started playing Miles Davis pieces next door in the market corridor will very probably not be around next time as well, but i'm sure one will make some other amazing discovery. Thumbs up!" Stefan, Zürich

I'm looking very much forward to doing another one of those in London, such a great food city right now.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

When the last espresso had been drunk and a majority of the 50 people at Foodcamp Cilento had left there were still ten of us, slightly unwilling to acknowledge that it was all over. We had drinks that night and had some long discussions on the event. All praise aside I tried to keep the focus on what room there was for improvement as time would mask over glitches quickly enough. 

I have taken the feedback home with me, gathered some more data and have come up with a rough idea as to how the next Foodtri.ps Foodcamp could work. When I started planning the event in Cilento I used the metaphor of a package tour for myself, lacking a better idea. That meant joint travel arrangements, daily trips, a single hotel for everyone et al. It made a lot of things very easy, but it also made the event quite rigid: If you're on a coach with 50 people it takes a lot of self confidence to get up and say: "Hey, I just saw an interesting type of tomato growing there, can we take a detour?" 

Actually, that's exactly what Foodcamp should be about: Taking detours, creating experiences for yourself, trying things out that haven't been pre-validated. What was arguably the least planned activity in Cilento - going to a mountain village to buy truffles off old men - remains one of the most talked about ones. It was an adventure. But that can't serve as a blueprint for the whole event because it's nigh impossible to just meet at an airport with 50 people to see what'll happen because we'd end up wasting our time finding accomodation and hiring rental cars.

I want to create a framework that handles all the less exciting stuff like getting kitchens to work in, beds to sleep in, people to help with translations and the like and that leaves room for discovering, discussing, cooking and eating in the widest possible sense. I feel that it's necessary to be able to do everything on foot to enable people to change their plans quickly without overhead. I want to find a solution where people can pick from a range of accomodation options, I want students to be able to afford coming and I don't want to force silverbacks to relive what's less enticing about life as a student. I want to arrange very few actual activities in advance so that only the people who feel comfortable creating their own experience will come. And I want to do it in a place that is challenging, exciting, and that has been defining food culture in its region for a thousand years if not more.

Autumn 2012: Foodcamp Fez. Spice markets and lamb's testicles, sweet mint tea and majoun. Staying in the most beautiful Riads, chopping onions in secluded courtyards. Discussing and haggling, pacojet and tagine. It's what you make it. If you aren't already, get on the Foodtri.ps mailing list to avoid missing out.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

It's been really quiet around these shores, but with no places available for the past months I did not want to make people overly jealous by telling them about all the awesome food related bits that South Italy has to offer. Now the time to make people overly jealous has finally come.

Foodcamp Cilento has been an incredible experience and a lot of people have great stories to tell, here's a list of blog posts, I will add to this over time:

Fabatable

Glasklare Gefühle

Nutriculinary.com

Einfach lecker essen

Pastasciutta Blog

Luciano Pignataro

Eine Prise Salz

Little Jamie

Pictures can be found here:

Flickr Group

Eeek at 23

People Photographing Food  (properly meta, this)

It is quite hard to sum the whole thing up, especially from my perspective: How can I possibly pass judgment on something I organised? However, there's a great deal to be said about the people who took part: Extremely passionate cooks, writers, photographers, geeks, actors, hunters and eaters who easily spanned 25 years in age differences, lots more when it came to wealth or perceived status.

Of course we were all middle class, whom would I be kidding by pretending otherwise, but Foodcamp Cilento reflected a wide cross section of society, all standing around a fireplace rolling pasta. I mingled with people whom I normally wouldn't meet and had discussions on topics that normally don't come up. When all has been said about the great hospitality of the Cilento in general and especially Hotel Antonietta and their staff, the experience of bringing people together round a table will stay with me and do that warm fuzzy thing that's slightly kitsch.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Sometimes just looking at the calendar makes me laugh out in disbelief. It seems to want to tell me that it's June already, meaning: Only four months to go before Foodcamp Cilento takes off. And what am I to say: It's all coming along rather nicely and after a research trip last week I feel even more confident that we've chosen the right place. Robbin of Vineyard Adventures took a few snaps of San Marco, the local market, our hotel and importantly its kitchen and I'd like to share them with you. I hope you agree that San Marco and its surroundings seem like an achingly beautiful setting for this trip to the land of chickpeas, anchovies and wine. There's still a last minute chance to participate with four seats left, I suggest you get in touch very soon should you like to come.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

This last few weeks have just whizzed by, I am developing a distinct streak of grey hair and if Google Calendar crashed I could probably do nothing but curl up and cry on the floor. However, I am fortunate to know wonderful people who document Foodtri.ps events the way I should actually feel obliged to. So, move on to the Evidence Matters blog and let me just briefly add that I enjoyed the evening immensely, so many interesting people, so much to talk about. "Will you be doing any more of these in London?", Tim Hayward asked at the end of the night, and not in a threatening manner. I truly hope that I will, yes.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

It has been a long time in the making, but I finally feel confident enough to announce it here: March 31st is going to be Sous Vide Hack Day! There has been a lot of talk around Sous Vide devices and their use in the past few years: Professional kitchens have been using them for a while to cook ingredients so that they reach very precise temperature levels, thus creating steaks that are perfectly rare throughout and eggs with perfectly runny yolks and firm whites.

A consumer market is beginning to emerge in this field, but are these devices really worth the extraordinary amounts charged for them? And what are DIY ways around this? All this and more will be discussed at:

Sous Vide Hack Day

Program:

Talk by Michael Riemenschneider, the swiss born chef who held a Michelin star by his mid-twenties, then went on to do high level cookery classes and is now in the process of opening his first London restaurant. Michael claims to use sous vide for everything from starters to patisserie and has worked with both pro and consumer devices. He'll share insights into the gastronomic reasons for sous vide cooking.

Demo by Evidence Matters and Hackspace London of various versions of DIY sous vide equipment from slow cookers to Gallenkamp laboratory water heaters, chamber vacuum sealers and more. There will be lessons on how to assemble a basic kit for home use and more advanced projects featuring PID/Arduino/Auber elements to achieve even more precise results. If everything works out alright we'll even show the live assembly of a DIY sous vide kit. If you have an advanced interest in bulding a set up yourself at the event you should get in touch and we'll try and make that possible, too.

Fortunately demoing Sous Vide machines also makes it necessary to cook things in them. And that leads to food being available for eating. Alright, if we must...

So here it is: A wonderful geek extravaganza with exciting guests, food and electrical equipment stretched to its limits. Join us and please get back to me if you have any questions.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Late to the party, as several people have already posted their bits on the fantastic experience that was the Mixed Grill event, I nevertheless decided to contribute by elaborating a bit on the talk that I held at the event. Not to get it out the way but because it is something I have a strong urge to do I want to thank Tim Hayward for the opportunity to speak there and just about everyone I met on the day for being so enormously positive, interesting and generally nice.

I had thought about putting my slides up here, but on reviewing them realised that it would be a rather pointless exercise since a lot of them only contain a word or two and the gaps would be too large to fill for anyone. Rather, I decided, it would make sense to outline the general idea I had in mind for the talk and provide a few bits and bobs around it. When talking about what connects food culture to nerdism to an audience that is deeply involved in the former, it did seem to make sense to start with a definition of the latter. Wikipedia delivered the following:

Nerd is a term that refers to a person who avidly pursues intellectual activities, technical or scientific endeavors, esoteric knowledge, or other obscure interests, rather than engaging in more social or conventional activities. 

I was actually quite surprised just how well it fitted both groups, bar one exception: There are probably few activities with a greater social importance than the act of eating. However I do acknowledge that a lot of the food-related research we all do probably happens late in the evening, where we fire query after query at Google to force it to come up with a comprehensive list of cattle breeds in Slovenia, so that's a fit, too. The audience didn't need to be egged on to identify themselves as nerds at that point so that fact had been established early on. Good.

I did come up with a number of examples for nerdism in food: Heston Blumenthal's research into historic British recipes is one, as is the #meateasy, one man's relentless quest for the perfect cheeseburger recipe that regularly takes him to internships at backwater grill joints in the US. I actually had that cheeseburger on the night of the talk and am glad to report that it does indeed do a great job at being an excellent burger and that it's quite easy to see how much thought has gone into everything from the sourdough bun to the gherkins that came in larger chunks so that they would provide some texture. Great stuff, really, and nothing you could come up with if you hadn't looked into that topic at a very deep level.

This is the long tail of food nerdism and whereas a lot of people will find the amount of time I or others dedicate to it objectionable, noone I know has ever complained about a food nerd inviting them for dinner, providing them with a meal of carefully sourced ingredients and wines prepared imaginatively.

There is however, a second class of nerds. People who don't seem to be motivated by outcomes you can lay your hands or forks on. People who devise programming languages and network architectures. Builders of soft- and hardware that enables other people to complete their chores more elegantly or quicker. These people have always been the ones to reshape our world and for that alone are worth looking into. I've chosen to call them meta-nerds.

Their tools have already shaped the way we communicate: On both Twitter and Quora there is a wonderful culture of sharing insights and opinions, a never ending cascade of tweets, remarks, links, pictures that enable people to further enhance their experience with food. 

But there are concepts that the meta-nerds have developed that aren't quite as popular outside their domain. I feel that there is many a good thing to be said about open source culture, the sharing of knowledge free of charge. The professional food world is still obsessed with secret sauces and suppliers, not realising that by keeping a wider range of people from having great experiences with food they also keep them from caring about food at all.

Another idea that hasn't yet caught on are hackerspaces. These are basically shared workshop/office-type places that enable people to meet, discuss and try out ideas, traditionally with regards to software engineering or tinkering with electronics in general. I feel that this would be a wonderful concept for food culture, especially in places like London where rents are crippling and the idea of a reception room for 12 people adjacent to a large open plan kitchen will remain a fantasy to most. To have a joint space where equipment can be built or shared (who affords themselves a pacojet for the home kitchen), where elaborate cooking sessions and larger meals take place, all in the form of a club run and paid for by its members does sound very exciting to me. I did mention during the talk that we are planning a Sous Vide Hack Day in Hamburg to prove that you don't need to go near the four figures zone to afford a sous vide cooker and am glad to report that a group of people including me has already congregated to do the same in London this spring as a direct result of the event.

Of course we touched on unconferences and barcamps, because this is where the idea for porkcamp came from and I did  enjoy showing a few pictures and telling the story of porkcamp. Again as a follow up to Mixed Grill I'm already in touch with a group of Londoners who are aching to set up a porkcamp in Britain and I will help out with this as best I can. It is wonderful to see porkcamp grow, get yourself on the foodtri.ps mailing list if you want to be kept informed on this.

All in all it is fantastic to see the rough sketches of ideas in my talk come to fruition so quickly. Meta-nerdism and food culture seem to be potential best friends who just haven't met often enough yet. If I can do anything to set them up with more dates: Tell me!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

It took a few days to get round to writing this wrap-up of Porkcamp 2011 and all the better for it because, again, Porkcamp has induced serious behavioral change for me, but more on that later. So, how did Porkcamp turn out this year? There have been times where I questioned my decision to repeat it so soon but that was swiftly pushed aside: The event existed entirely in its own right and I am so glad to have done it.

We had a lovely dinner on Friday night, hearty kale and slabs of brined and smoked pork and spontaneously decided to visit the pigs in the sty they had been to transferred to in preparation of slaughter. For me that first glance of an animal that will die to feed me is still an emotional experience. Whereas I was the only one to see the pigs beforehand last year it felt good to do it in a group. Strong and hairy beasts they were too, after the best part of a year out on the pasture, including a very snowy December and temperatures well below freezing all day round. Saturday started early and again watching the slaughter of an animal in almost surreal quiet is an experience that I would recommend to any meat-eater. The difference in quality to conventionally farmed pigs soon became apparent: Thick layers of snow-white fat coated meat that wasn't in the slightest bit watery, the pigs weighed in at about 300 pounds total, 100 pounds heavier than their unfortunate industrial cousins.

The rest of the morning was spent filling sausages, we produced a massive variety this year, the Boudin Noir turned out wonderfully and after a few days rest the recipe I handed in, sausages with grappa, fennel and blood orange zest and juice, have mellowed to become something I am a bit proud of. There are still caraway salamis and Ahle Wurscht - a traditional german take on salamis - hanging on site, waiting for us to have them picked up after ripening.

Lunch was followed by an extensive tour of the farm, exhibiting new heights of geekdom as questions rose to ever more detailled/obscure levels. It served as a stark reminder to the morning's proceedings to visit the now empty patch of land that 24 hours prior had hosted the pigs, their footprints still visible, their huts now empty. Eating animals creates those moments and when Porkcamp makes them transparent it does something useful, I hope.

What became more and more apparent is that the absence of trained chefs brought out the best in terms of team spirit. Rather than have people take the lead every single recipe we worked on was the result of joint decisions and discussions. Yeah, so our knife technique is sub-par but hey, we finished preparing a massive buffet by 8 pm and that is a feat in itself. Very tasty it was, too, with dishes ranging from faggots to sticky ribs, accompanied by seasonal root vegetables, a wonderful caponata with bitter chocolate and followed by desserts that weren't strictly needed, but that's not the point of sweets anyway.

A lot of merriment followed thereafter and while there were plenty of discussions on husbandry, farming and butchering table talk soon enough took a lighthearted turn. The last guests turned in after an 18 hour day, tired but seemingly very content. The asian lunch on Sunday worked like a charm, a whole grilled pork belly filipino-lechon-style being the obvious centerpiece, accompanied by plenty of chinese and nonya dishes. After lunch we said our goodbyes, once again I've got the feeling that I'll be back before long.

So, what have I taken with me from porkcamp? Last year's porkcamp had fundamentally changed the way I source my meat privately, but there was still a blind spot: In restaurants I would still eat meat from unknown sources and especially with company lunches there would be meat dishes  far too cheap to contain anything else than industrial rubbish. I've now put an end to that: Either I know where the meat is sourced from or I won't be eating it. Life is too short for crap meat.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I am excited to the point of giddyness: I'll be speaking at Fire & Knives Mixed Grill in London, February 12. Mixed Grill will be a one day event featuring a series of lectures and performances, organised by the wonderful people who publish Fire & Knives magazine. It probably makes more sense to let them explain it themselves:

"It seems on the face of it like the daftest idea imaginable but in the last year we’ve met so many interesting people through editing Fire & Knives and we wanted to find a way to get them together. The nice thing about the magazine is that we can publish whatever tickles our fancy but food people are so enthusiastic, committed to what they do and full of arcane trivia that there’s more than we can get on paper. 

There are too many of us to share dinner - it would definitely be a meal to remember but it would be a nightmare sorting out the bill - but we love the Victorian notion of the ‘Public Lecture’. It’s got all the right resonance of bonkers amateurism, enthusiasm and a starry-eyed desire to spread the word."

To prove that they aren't far off the mark on the "bonkers" bit I actually managed to sneak my way on the list of speakers and will be speaking on food culture, geekism & foodcamps and the things that connect them. I myself am actually far more pumped up by the prospect of meeting the likes of Bompas & Parr who will be doing an ether bar. Which isn't a code for anything. It's just that: an ether bar. I do hope they're on after me. But read for yourself! EXCITED! ME!

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

It's getting colder outside and that only means one thing: Porkcamp is drawing closer. I found a wonderful recipe for stuffed boar's head that was done by Heston Blumenthal and Karl-Josef Fuchs for one of Heston's TV shows and I would love to adapt it for porkcamp. Obviously, spending 500 euros on truffles isn't an option, but I'd like to tackle the challenge of deboning the whole head and stuffing it. I think foie and apples might be good. What do you think? Here's the video: http://bit.ly/a46B3t

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

I'll be speaking on Foodtri.ps and Foodcamps in general at Open Beta Breakfast, an event at betahaus Hamburg on the 2nd of December. It'll start at 9 in the morning, I'll be on a bit later and I'm currently pondering to set up some hands on cookery stuff for everyone to get the whole concept across a bit better. So, if you want to hang out, do a bit of cooking and listen to some inane banter: Do come along! You'll find the address here .

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

The second Porkcamp will build on this year's success but do a couple of things differently and, I hope, better. It will again be held at Gut Hesterberg, an hour's drive north of Berlin, from January 28 - 30, 2011.

There will be a welcome dinner and get together on Friday night, you will get to know the team of Gut Hesterberg and each other. There will be a very early start on Saturday as we witness the slaughter of the pigs. The free range animals have been raised at the Hesterberg's farm for nine months, a good three months longer than is the norm.

Saturday will be slightly different than 2010: We will craft dinner from exactly one pig in the evening and much of the day will surely be spent preparing and cooking that animal from head to tail with our own recipes. Additionally we will get the chance to see how our pigs were reared on the farm and to check out their wild boars and Galloway and Salers herds. There will be one slot for session suggestions, too. If this year is anything to go by, dinner will be a very joyous affair.

Sunday will see a very early start again. Our pigs have rested in the cooler and are now ready to be processed. With our own recipes, supported by their staff and their ideas we will produce sausages, cooked meats, head cheese and pretty much everything else we want: We have a full butchery and its team at our hands and it fully depends on our ideas what we do. After a late lunch we'll pick up our goodie bags: Due to new EU regulations the pork we have produced can't be used for commercial products, so we get to take it home. Tough.

This year's ticket is 275.- €. It includes all meals, some drinks, sessions, the use of the premises, ingredients and support by the butchers and chefs of Gut Hesterberg and a sizeable take away bag of free range pork products made by us. It will be ever so wonderful. Registration is now open.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

"The ad was supposed to paint a picture of wonderfully unique and free-spirited individuals enjoying the sophisticated taste of a chocolate mint after what we can only presume was an incredible gastronomic experience. It came off like a bunch of mentally maladjusted street performers terrorising an old age pensioner in his home, while eating all his chocolates."

If you aren't already subscribing to the world's best written and most beautifully designed food magazine Fire & Knives you should immediately do just that, if only to ensure that you can read the full piece on food marketing by Dave Ahern. It is slightly opionated. And slightly wonderful.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

"They assigned Katherine Beto-Albanese, their pastry chef, the task of taking a French pastry beloved by Italian-Americans and making it taste Chinese. (...) Their finishing touch: a 10-foot red banner with “Italian Food” written on it in giant, bright yellow Chinese characters."

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »