Event of the year

In 2010, the most important event in Estonia related to food will take place right at the beginning of the year, on January 14. On that day, the final competition of Bocuse d’Or Estonia will be organised, the winner of which will represent Estonia in the world cooking competition. And the conference Food for Future will be held.

There are three candidates left in the cooking competition: Tõnis Siigur, Dmitri Rooz and Rene Uusmees (in the photo together with Dimitri Demjanov). The winner will receive the prize of great responsibility. It must be proved that Estonia did not accidentally become the country of high gastronomy in the year before last.

The conference Food for Future related to the competition should add encouragement. Its three performers Albert Adria, Fergus Henderson and Claus Mayer are the star performers whose presence in the same place at the same time immediately makes it a top event.

The food here should be one of the best that has ever been made in Estonia. Because it was one of the dishes that Vladislav Djatšuk prepared during last Bocuse d’Or where he was credited very highly by the judges.

Is it really so? For which food is the future and what must be left in the past? These topics are going to be discussed at Food for Future.

At the first conference, three radically different trends will be introduced.

Albert Adria belongs to the team of El Bulli, the best restaurant in the world. His area of responsibility is the desserts. El Bulli is the flagship of molecular gastronomy. The limit between food and art is virtually non-existent.

But everything made at El Bulli is still food. Not art or chemistry. Unfortunately, it is not clear to imitators for whom molecular gastronomy is like wearing fashionable clothes. Today one set, tomorrow another one.

The dedication of El Bulli’s team is admirable. Their activity is not merely the lifestyle. It is all their life as there is no time for anything else.

Natura, El Bulli’s first book of desserts, has been published. Albert Adria is going to tell the story of how it was written.

Fergus Henderson is the cook who does not like remainders. Everything from the tip of the nose to the stub of the tail should be used. The skills of the cook are not shown by frying the sea scallop or the goose liver. It is much more complicated to manage the glands, stomach, kidneys and other parts belonging to the intestines.

The garbage items prepared by a good cook become a delicacy. Animal kidneys should be more valuable than inner fillet as their quantities are smaller.

The mixed-up way of thinking is gradually becoming philosophy. More and more cooks are able to prepare wonderful dishes from formerly despised raw material. But too much good stuff finds its way to waste treatment facilities from the Estonian meat processing plants. Who will take a chance?

Without being himself a cook or a farmer, Claus Mayer has done more for Nordic food than many chefs and farmers together. Great cooking had been the area of big countries until Claus Mayer became active. As for the world’s attention, Denmark was practically as invisible as Estonia.

It was true three years ago. But not anymore. Claus Mayer’s Noma ranks third in the list of world’s top restaurants. The fact that using local raw materials in the local kitchen is very natural suddenly became clear to many cooks and farmers in different parts of the world.

Three very different visions of the future that are not the only ones. The only clear thing is that in the future there is no place for the makers of ordinary food. In order not to become one of them, it is better to register yourself for the conference Food for Future: here.