on Olfactory Art
date: Nov. 22, 2008
concept, realization: FoAM
photos by: Alex Davies
FoAM and the Guild for Reality Integrators and Generators invite you to a synaesthetic dinner, to jointly sample, celebrate and debate the future of food.
Food is a nutritious and delectable product of our reciprocal, sustaining relationship with the environment. It is also one of the oldest cultural expressions, rooted in hospitality and sharing. As the gastronome Brilliat-Savarin noted three centuries ago, “the discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.”
Open Sauces will unfold in a sequence of experimental courses, matched with drinks, improvised music and esteemed guests. While savouring the foods, the guests will be engaged in table conversations, sharing experiences, recipes and ingredients needed to demystify cultural, environmental, technical and ethical aspects of contemporary food systems. From molecular gastronomy to fair trade, from permaculture to food-tracking, from open source to open sauces, we will blend seemingly unrelated elements of our food chain. In an era riddled with environmental and cultural anomalies, these transdisciplinary and trans-local connections will become one of the keys to our survival, as individuals, communities and species.
With: Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Kultivator, Sher Doruff, Maja Kuzmanovic, Alok Nandi, Sneha Solanki, Wietske Maas, Matteo Pasquinelli, Kate Rich, Femke Snelting, Andreas Strauss, Maki Ueda, Allison Zinder and other local and trans-local food experts and enthusiasts.
There are limited places for this event so please RSVP if you would like to attend.
The extended menu (in the form of a cookbook) is available online at http://opensauces.cc/open.sauces.pdf
Green Peas & Mint Soup
It was my role to give a toast for this course. (The toasts were related to the each course.) My toast:
If you pinch your nose when you eat, you wouldn’t taste much flavors. The role of smell is quite crucial in cookery, because 70 % of tasting is said to be smelling. The rest 30 % is saltiness, sweetness, sourness, bitterness, umami, and some texture. The smell or aroma of the food comes in to the nose through the nose holes, but also from the back of the nose by chewing. Good test would be to chew the food with the mouth open. You wouldn’t taste much. This transparent liquid in the perfume bottle is distilled green pea & mint soup. The aroma’s of the soup is condensed and concentrated in this liquid. In other words, it’s the same liquid that you can also find on the lid. Now, what happens if we don’t close the pan when making a soup? You might find an answer in this perfume. You can spray it in your mouth.
http://scent-lab.blogspot.com/search/label/%5BOpen%20Sauces%20%7C%20FoAM%5D
Food pairing:
http://khymos.org/pairings.php
A book that covers the whole evening of memorial dinner event Open Sauces is published.
ISBN 978-90-810733-0-1
download the electronic edition of the “Open Sauces” cookbook in PDF: http://opensauces.cc/open.sauces.pdf
From the introduction…
This book is designed as a collection of the “toasts” and their accompanying recipes from the Open Sauces dinner. It is a scrapbook – a “common-place book” in the parlance of earlier centuries – and a book of commons. Commons, a term denoting shared public resources, can be traced back to the sharing of provisions, of rationing limited amounts of foodstuffs to feed a whole community. Similarly, Open Sauces offers bite-sized morsels of diverse aspects of contemporary food culture – whether curious information, case studies, or specific techniques – to feed a diverse group of readers. The book also contains the recipes for the complete, seasonal Open Sauces menu, designed for twenty-five people. The recipes list the original amounts; however, as each course was quite small, the quantities cited in the recipes could be used for four to six people if served in a two or three course dinner. In several recipes the amounts are approximate, as this is the preferred method of cooking and sharing recipes at FoAM. The recipes and related texts are available online at http://opensauces.cc in editable form. Improvements, adaptations, comments, questions and suggestions are more then welcome. After all, Open Sauces should stay true to its title.
It is free of the eyes, ears, nose,
tongue, body and mind;
free of sight, sound, smell, taste,
touch, and any object of mind;
free of sensory realms
including mind-consciousness.
– The Buddhist Heart Sutra –
A unique food art workshop in a restaurant set-up. Each course is served with an intervention of one of your senses, such as blindfolding, amplifying or muting to enhance your sensitivities and experience new sensations. All in Japanese lacto-ovo vegetarian style prepared with organic ingredients.
The workshop is developed by Maki Ueda, an artist who is known for her artworks focusing on the olfactory sense.
Eating is something to appreciate with the five (or more) senses. In this extraordinary Japanese course dinner you will witness that, with full of sensations, inspirations, and findings.
photos: Moritz Bernoully
WELCOME DISH / お通し
for the sensory sounds with the hearing sense muted / amplified
PLEASE WEAR THE EARPLUGS
taste & smell experiments 1. smell the MISO SOUP PERFUME with the paper (or spray it into your mouth if you like)
1. MISO SOUP PERFUME is distilled miso soup. It’s transparet, but contains the flavours. See from time to time how the charactor of smell changes.
2. Taste the (real) miso soup.
MAIN DISH / 主菜
PLEASE WEAR THE BLINDFOLD
You will get exactly the same dish twice!
1st one:
2nd one:
DESSERT / デザート
surprising ice creams PLEASE WEAR THE BLINDFOLD AND EARPLUGS
SPECIAL DRINK
Green Tea for flavour pairing
Spray the orange juice perfume into your mouth, then taste the green tea. “Food combines well when they have major components in common” : the concept widely accepted in the molecular gastronomy scene (www.foodpairing.be)
This workshop is primarily inspired by the activities of artists-collective FoAM in Brussels. One of the inspiring events that Maja Kuzmanovic has developed at FoAM was Open Sauces (Nov. 2008). It was about the future of food in many different perspectives. The issues herein included were: molecular gastronomy, food pairing, eating and senses (where Maki Ueda has contributed), logistics and food problems, safety of foods, etc.
For the documentations, please visit the blog site Scent Laboratory [DINNER FOR MUTED SENSES]
concept & development : Maki Ueda
cooking : Noriko & Maki Ueda
service : Misae Endo & Maria, Tomoko Inamura
special thanks to : Camera Japan Festival