Rosengarten On Forbes: Whither Fusion?

Rosengarten On Forbes: Whither Fusion? 150 150 David Rosengarten

As seen on Forbes.com

Without doubt, many grown-up chefs would prefer the name of this article to be “Wither, Fusion!”…as in a culinary command! Chefs with experience don’t like the term “fusion,” never have. In a recent rant on Nation’s Restaurant News, Brett Thorn…one of our most perceptive overseers of food trends…offered a short history of “fusion,” and the emotions it elicits:

It’s a term that went out of fashion almost as soon as it was uttered in the late 1980s. Florida chef Norman Van Aken claims to have coined the term, and a dozen or so years ago he sent me a 1,600-word treatise on the subject that he said he wrote in late 1988 or early 1989. In it, he described how he was incorporating the flavors and dishes of the Caribbean with European cooking techniques and traditions…

…that idea was a cornerstone of the Floribbean cuisine that emerged in South Florida…it also was much of what happened in fine dining in the 1990s as American chefs, whose education was almost universally rooted in French tradition, tried to reconcile the innovation of Nouvelle Cuisine with the ingredients and cultures around them.

It also came to mean the combination, often self-consciously, of elements of different cuisines in a single dish, like wasabi mashed potatoes or barbecue chicken pizza…

For some reason, that really pissed people off, especially chefs. ‘Fusion confusion’ became one of the most-repeated things chefs said, and they eschewed the term…chefs (were telling us) things like ‘I don’t like to call it fusion, but I’m combining Asian flavors with European cooking techniques.’

Then, in his post, Thorn applies the coup de grâce which identifies the rampant hypocrisy:

“Call it whatever you want; it’s fusion!”

And I so agree. The name is not everywhere today…but the practice is, more than ever!

Is that good?

Not for me. I have a decidedly negative view of “fusion” cooking—both the name and the practice! Now, I’m not saying that the history of cuisine isn’t dotted with important moments of fusion. Where would we be if Italians hadn’t picked up on New World tomatoes in the 1500s? No pizza as we know it! Where would be if Indians hadn’t picked up on chiles at about the same time? No vindaloo! In our time…we can thank the flexibility of Japanese chefs for allowing New World avocado to join the sushi bar pantheon of ingredients!

fusion-1

But the problem with modern fusion…is that it encourages young chefs to think that blending miso and butter is just about the coolest thing they can do in a kitchen! Once upon a time, French chefs, say…spent every day of their lives making coq au vin, or blanquette de veau. That’s it. No lemon grass additions, no Mexican herbs, no Scandinavian curing. But every day of their lives the coq au vin, or blanquette de veau, got better, as little by little they made observations and improved the execution.

Many young chefs today are lacking this traditional base—which means that in general their food is not grounded in technique. They’re likely to do anything, and serve it to you as a $35 special.

Famous chef Rocco di Spirito, back when he was wowing us at Union Pacific 

in New York, once told me that he “has to” include creative things on his menu. Why? “Because,” he said, “if I ask a young chef to braise a piece of beef every day…he’ll quit! Despite the fact that you learn something new every time you braise a piece of beef…the younger generation is bored by this.”

And there’s the underlying reason that big-deal restaurants, all over the world, have become increasingly inadequate to guys like me who respect perfection.

That said…I had a delightful “fusion” experience recently that made me think…”maybe there IS room for fusion in our culinary lives!”

On Christmas night in 2014, I attended a dinner at Mile End Delicatessen in Manhattan (they also have a place in Brooklyn, not to mention Montreal from whence they come)…billed as: Traditional Jewish Christmas a.k.a. a Chinese Feast!

There’s a joke buried in here: Jews in New York City (and elsewhere, now) are famous for going to Chinatown on Christmas! There’s no goose waiting for them at home…and what other night has such a paucity of Christians competing for tables in Chinatown?

So these clever Mile End guys, for five years now, have been creating a Chinese-Jewish fusion menu on Dec. 25.

Here’s a peek at this year’s:

mile end jewish christmas

I can’t say it all worked perfectly (though my favorite dish was the corned beef wontons, fried.)

corned beef wontons

…but there’s an idea in here that I really, really like: the occasional Fusion Dinner! And I mean occasional” in both senses.

Let restaurants dedicate themselves to single-cuisine types, as they always have (French, Italian, Chinese, or even Provençal, Neapolitan, and Sichuan). But I think that nights should be set aside for special Fusion menus that make sense on those nights. Mile End’s Chinese-Jewish concept is perfect. I can’t tell you the groans I would have uttered facing a regular menu like that. I also can’t tell you the excitement that I had about facing this menu on Christmas Eve, with all its ironies built in. Not to mention the buzz in the room.

Whither Fusion?

I hope towards a special-occasion future that stops messing with my coq au vin.

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