Doubts about sous-vide cuisine
What future awaits us when caprice and fallaciousness become the norm? Everyone has the right to think the way they choose, of course, in concordance with their personal qualities, preferences, etc… weighing in with their virtues and limitations, as well as their interests, but can we not ask, ‘How can we be optimistic when faced with constant subjectivism that seemingly holds complete disregard for objectivism?’ This discussion comes apropos of the high number of readers of these articles who are capable of disqualifying restaurants of 7.5 while at the same time praising the virtues of others that do not surpass a 5.5. The first case, for whatever reason, whether it was incorrect service on a given day or an anomaly that occurred, surely maintain, more or less, a certain level. The second case, even if these restaurants were voted for by God, The Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph and received five consecutive miracles, could not reach a 6.
We understand of course that truth is personal and temporary; of this we have no doubt, but by deifying objective mediocrity we create an inadmissible gap. One cannot affirm that the ox tail served at some unheard of restaurant in the middle of nowhere was phenomenal when, after following up on the lead we were given by the reader we deduced that it had probably been kept in a sous-vide bag for more than fifteen days. It is true that a chef must have great knowledge of technique to produce low-temperature, sous-vide dishes well… both knowledge and a strong sense of ethics.
Sous-vide cooking and conservation has given much to the restaurant business: the ability to capitalize on the chef’s work time, to “assemble” dishes with more mastery and with more complicated facets, to guarantee the preservation of the product, to raise the profits on certain products… many things. But the key to this procedure, in so far as meats are concerned, is to not be able to tell that the product has been previously prepared. In other words, that it doesn’t lose the freshness, vitality, and exultant and exquisite qualities of freshly prepared meats. Unfortunately, in very few cases and with very few products is this achieved. What’s more, there are very few chefs, probably less than fifteen to approximate liberally, who achieve the desired results with these shoulders of lamb, chickens, ox tails, pancetta and “other new stews”, and serve an end product that is indistinguishable from those meats that are freshly made. In general, the color of the meat, its juiciness and flavor, are altered due to improper technique and lapse of time. These consequences have certain commonalities with the derivatives of frozen products as well. For example, with red meat there are no juices that will flow from the cut.
It has become clear that a very large percentage of dinner guests cannot tell the difference. If this is the case, do not demand these types of meats that require a long preparation process and that cannot be done upon order. For those who can tell the difference, who seek the best, be conscious of the fact that ordering a shoulder of lamb of these types in a restaurant of haute cuisine carries with it this previous treatment. Two undeniable truths differentiate these factors. Objective reality: when there is no difference. Subjective reality: when the person who can’t tell the difference is the dinner guest.
Another similar thing happens with frozen products. At El Bulli, Ferran Adrià is capable of freezing a sauce without the possibility that a single human palate on the planet could even so much as intuit it. Who would say that the char-grilled cod and herring prepared by Bittor Arguizoniz at Etxebarri, maximum temple of raw product, are frozen? Do superior fresh products exist? The same goes for certain preparations at El Bulli. That is the only truth – be it objective or not.