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Potatoes as luxury items Horticulturalists are returning to the centuries-old heirloom varieties that are far more fl avourful, including the most expensive potato in the world, La Bonnotte, which tastes like chestnuts. Rare varieties The taste of fresh vegetables is a reminder that no scientific process can replicate these vegetables’ real flavours. Modern technology cannot generate or duplicate the delicate notes of a perfectly steamed sunchoke or the tang of just-picked celery leaves. That’s why even the world’s most avant-garde chefs rely on rare vegetables. PHOTOGRAPHY: IMAGES ETC LTD/GETTY IMAGES
Tucked away on a dusty stretch of land in Rancho Santa Fe, the richest neighbourhood in the United States, is an unassuming wooden shed. The Chino Farm Vegetable Shop is small, and the 60-acre farm is nothing fancy. But as the rainbow of ingredients on display testifi es, the vegetables grown there are out of this world. There are blue carrots, candy-coloured Chioggia beets, purple-fl eshed Japanese yams and green-black bunches of dinosaur kale. Tiny Brussels sprouts, no bigger than fresh peas, nestle together in baskets like furled emeralds. The mara de bois strawberries are known to reduce grown men to tears. So many diff erent kinds of lettuce, radish and turnip are available that the diversity is almost dizzying. Numerous Chino Farm specialities — from stinging nettles to the Japanese green called mizuna — are never available in supermarkets, which is precisely why they’re so in demand at fi ne restaurants. Famed chefs including Wolfgang Puck (Spago) and Alice Waters (Chez Panisse) made their names by fl ying Chino Farm produce to their California kitchens. Celebrity chefs have come to rely so heavily on innovative producers like the Chino family that the term “rock star farmers” is often used in the media. There’s a revolution in motion, and vegetables are leading the way. Dishes listed on the menu as meat-based arrive at the table gloriously strewn with colourful plants. In the past, boring and bland vegetables detracted from enjoying the meat to the full. Today, however, meat simply amplifi es the taste of delicious, unusual and super-fresh produce. “When in season, fresh vegetables, herbs, spices and wild plants play a prominent role in our dishes,” explains chef René Redzepi of Copenhagen’s Noma (see also new spaces 04), widely considered one of the world’s best. “Consequently, greens take up more room on the plate than is common at gourmet restaurants.” Noma is not alone, as one can see from a visit to any restaurant that works with a grower like Chino Farm. The best place to do this in San Diego is George’s at the Cove. It is a sleek, ocean-front establishment in the seaside village of La Jolla, a San Diego enclave as exclusive as Beverly Hills and almost as ritzy as Rancho Santa Fe. One of its specials is braised oxtail. As carnivorous as it sounds, it is actually more vegetal than meat. The oxtail arrives entwined with tiny leeks, chanterelle mushrooms, baby chard, pan-crisped nettles and diced chives. Every mouthwatering bite of meat is complemented by the incredible tastes and textures of nature. About a decade ago, George’s had the reputation of a surf-and-turf tourist trap with a staid menu. Today, the menu is refreshing and vital — and its reinvention is due entirely to chef Trey Foshee’s decision to showcase Chino Farm’s vegetables. He and his team drive out there almost every day to source their ingredients. “We call it ‘intensely seasonal’ cooking; using ingredients that aren’t just fresh, but at their absolute peak of fl avour,” Foshee says. A typical Foshee menu item such as carrot salad might seem plain, unappetising even, at fi rst glance. But when made with a variety of Chino Farm’s luridly-coloured carrots — scarlet, white, violet — that have been mandolined paper-thin and served alongside kumquats, honey and spiced yoghurt, it takes on an almost overwhelming fl avour. Intensely seasonal ingredients don’t need to be transformed much in order to create something truly delicious. Often, the simplest preparations are the fi nest. The key is knowing how to present them, how thin to slice them, how long to blanch, roast or fl ash-fry them, and how to combine them with one another. Top chefs today can break down vegetables in the same way a butcher prepares choice cuts of meat. Readying these vegetables takes serious time, vision and experience, which is why diners are willing to pay so much for them. At the Restaurante Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, vegetables plucked from an outdoor garden adjacent to the iconic Geh ry building are treated with the same fi nesse as the priceless artworks within the museum walls. The poetic, Zen-like vegetarian tasting menu includes things like steamed black radishes and endive confi t. “I have started to plant wild vegetables like black salsify, lamb’s lettuce and red thistles,” explains the restaurant’s Basque chef, Josean Martínez Alija. “Eco-vegetables will be the new luxury.” Alija is articulating a growing realisation around the world that truly luxurious food isn’t about ostentatious, expensive ingredients; it’s actually about tasting the authentic bounty of the earth. These vegetables, rare and local, are a way of exploring the exoticism of our surroundings, of experiencing an elusive sense of place. “ Carrots will be the new foie gras.” Massimo Bottura Thinking the Future II 25
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