About /
A project about experiencing textures, temperatures and tastes in combination with carefully designed eating utensils, based on different material combinations.
Ingredients:
Black truffleSilver
Rice cream
Warm
Porcelain
Rosemary oil
Cold
Ginger
Lemon peel
Glass
Cinnamon dust
Aroma
Tea
Sugar
Chestnut
Wood
Diner
To assemble and serve the dish:
One chef and four designers come together to create a dessert. Each element to be prepared mixed thoroughly and executed for a full sensory experience.Serve delicately.
Introduction /
Simon Fraser, London 12th January 2009
Simon Fraser works as a jeweller, consultant and runs a Masters program in Design at Central Saint Martins, London. He is also a founding member of design strategists Ultramarine. Drawing on his long term work with live-art and performance and a lifetime of interest in food and how we eat.
If the collective process of refining luxury and sensory experiences has always been a dialogue between the makers of it and the experience for the client, then it requires serious minds to develop change at this level.
In One Part Chef / Four Parts Design, the inspirational food talent of Roberto Cortez meets the innovatory silver and cutlery talents of Katja Bremkamp and a team consisting of Andreas Fabian, Elizabeth Callinicos, Tomás Alonso together with Simon Fraser to explore the nature of what we eat and drink and how we do so.
We are living in a period of intense experimentation about the nature of what we eat and how it is cooked and presented. The rise of provenance in food and the understanding of local and international ingredients has been a strong theme for the gourmet mind. Others have brought attributes of scientific exploration to such thinking. Yet a further strand has been the exploration of traditional Asian cooking techniques for non-Asian ingredients or French cookery using, say, Japanese historical foodstuffs.
If we examine alongside this the growth of silver and metal smithing artistry over the same period and the highly original utensils and artefacts that have resulted we can trace a development of paralleled inventiveness and innovation with Exhibitions such as ‘table d’ouvrage’, Galerie Sofie Lachaert, Belgium 2003, ‘Lepels/Spoons’ Galerie Ra, Amsterdam The Netherlands, 2003 and more recently, ‘Moments of Indulgence’, The Millenium Gallerys, Sheffield 2007.
Yet the culture of eating in Europe has remained resistant to change since the fork joining from Byzantine culture the existing European knife and spoon, lead directly to the haute and baroque 19th Century dining systems. A culture of worldwide influence still despite the increasing global usage of chopsticks.
So why has a cross fertilisation of these vibrant cultures not really happened before?
The ideas and energy to make a change results from the meeting between Los Angeles based American, Cortez and London based German, Bremkamp who discovered in a 2006 series of email conversations and finally a meeting in London in 2007 that they share characteristics. That they were both; exacting, patient and uncompromising. That quality, inventiveness and exploration are key to innovation. That no step is too big to achieve what they want, and in explaining their professional worlds to each other that they had found a natural collaborator.
Their joint determination and Bremkamp’s previous collaborations are what brings together an august team of London based practitioners including Greek jeweller, Elizabeth Callinicos, German table ware designer, Andreas Fabian, Spanish furniture designer, Tomas Alonso and Scots curator and host Simon Fraser to re-consider, re-imagine and explore what it might mean to make objects to be eaten from that inspire an experimental chef.
Provoked by the enduring charm of the Poynter Room at the Victoria and Albert museum, created as a tea room, Cortez and Bremkamp offer together with Alonso, Callinicos and Fabian for the first time a ‘service of dessert’ in a ground breaking exploration. All artefacts including the table itself and the recipes for this event will be newly and especially created.