Keju sebagai komoditas penting dunia kuliner sehari-hari didominasi dari susu yang berasal dari sapi serta domba. Dari keju komersil hingga artisanal cheese yang berkualitas tinggi, mungkin ada ratusan hingga ribuan jenis yang kini beredar di pasaran.
Namun bagaimana dengan keju yang terbuat dari susu keledai? Satu peternak asal Serbia konon dengan resep rahasianya mampu membuat keju keledai dan ia memaparkan tingkat kesulitan tinggi untuk mendapatkannya. Walhasil, ia menyatakan bahwa inilah keju termahal di dunia dengan harga USD 500/pon!
Bagaimanakah menurut Anda? Ayo kita saksikan bersama!
Words can’t tell how much I admire Dan Barber even from only a fragment of what he’s telling us about food. As an advocate of farm-to-table and sustainable farming, the second episode of Chef’s Table with him explains so much about his vision to provide not just good food but to feed the world as well.
One episode about him explaining how he fell in love with the fish, the enlightening yet hilarious speech he had with TED in 2010, and now with Chef’s Table should be more than enough to understand that Dan Barber’s vision is really in line with our well-being for the future.
There are movements of locavore or farm-to-table concept restaurants found in many places around the globe now including Bali and some of classy establishments in Jakarta. However, aside from utilizing the local produce to help sustain the farmer’s welfare, how would we know about the rest of this mechanism?
Not only that Dan Barber is an accomplished chef and restaurateur with his Blue Hill restaurants, he is also mentioned as an “investigative journalist” said one of his partners. He traced back thoroughly and asking everything about how good food should came from and that ultimately, the answer lies in his late grandmother’s dream to sustain their family farm in Massachusetts.
With a clear and colorful explanation that good food should came from good resource, Dan Barber departs on a venture to maximize the quality of the source, which can only be accomplished through completing the cycle of sustainability farming.
For example, he eloquently told us on how to produce good milk and that should came from good pasture. Quality grass and hay can be achieved with good manure coming from the kitchen. With the forest starting to encroach the farm, he also needs goat to sweep away the “threat”. Only by then, the result of good pasture can be seen and consumed by the cows. Thus, they will produce good milk.
With his Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture, he and his team develops the best way for farming while also cooperating with other local farms around them. The goal is to introduce people again with the food, the quality, and the farmers; while also appreciating the hardships to grow these fine ingredients.
The rest is history. His devotion in the kitchen, his family life, his teamwork, his creativity, and everything altogether evolve into something that most of us never seen before, something that perhaps each and every one of us should be aspired of.
I am sincerely hoping to grab the knowledge from this chef and to share it with the whole world about the importance on sustaining the nature. That one lecture at TED was the gateway for seeing the reality and also to idealize ourselves to achieve the grandeur. With people like Dan Barber and other brilliant people from different industries, we may well be ready to see that future not long from now.
At least while in the process for that, I’d love to visit Blue Hill also someday soon! *crossing fingers
As a fan of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, my eyes and ears since then have been always following the footsteps of David Gelb – the director for the critically acclaimed food documentary about the sushi chef.
Several years later, I accidentally stumbled upon a trailer on Youtube signifying that a new documentary series is already being produced by Netflix in recognition to selected chefs from around the world, renowned for their dedication in the hack-and-slash world of restaurant competition. The producer is none other than Mr Gelb himself!
As a producer now, he recreated the nuances and the ambiance that were once found in Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Unconfined anymore within a small scope anymore, he sent his directors traveled around the world to produce Chef’s Table. I consider this series by far as “a beautifully taken, viscerally artistic, and profoundly poetic life stories about the some of the brilliant chefs in the world”.
Fast-forwarding to the first episode, Chef’s Table is closing in to the lives of Chef Massimo Bottura and his American wife, Lara Gilmore. During his aspiring younger days, Massimo Bottura was an adventurous chef with an experience living in America, meeting his future wife there, and his skills even intrigued Chef Alain Ducasse himself back then.
This episode also recalls the struggle of young Massimo in his aspiration to become a world class chef and at how Lara became his inspirational muse to achieve that greatness. For me, the most captivating moment from the whole episode was when Lara took Massimo on a trip to perfect his crafts so that he became not just a chef, but a prolific artist.
Which is in turn, Massimo’s restaurant – Osteria Francescana, becomes a renowned establishment and considered as one of the best in the world thanks to his crafty initiatives and at how he keeps on pushing the boundaries.
In this episode, I guarantee that you will be amused and also amazed by his creativity and the perseverance to give all the best, despite the initial dismay from the people of Modena and some influential critics.
Chef’s Table is an important documentary of our lifetime and this will clearly set new boundaries at how chefs should operate their restaurants and creativity with hope that future, fledgling chefs would be inspired to follow. The first episode with Massimo Bottura was not only a feel-good episode but also heartwarming and inspiring at the same time. A treat for the family, I should say!
I am not actually a fan of general Indian movies involving treechasing scenes or the high pitch vocals of the music and dances.
However, I am now watching again The Lunchbox upon seeing Chef Bradley @expandingpalates timeline which is a great reference for previously unknown food films.
By the way, not only that this movie involves good looking home Indian food and describes the astonishing yet complicated dabbawala system, it also takes us on an epistolary journey of love between two people who actually never met before over an error of the lunchbox delivery.
The Lunchbox is poetic, affectionate, tenderly humorous and also vividly portrays the struggles of life in India for common people.
Everything about corn is interesting. If you take a look first at Food, Inc. (2008), you will know there’s a lot of power play and eerie stuff behind the booming of corn in America, at least for the past decade.
With King Corn, it seems that the premise would be a bit different but it will relate to political stuff at certain point and that would be the time when we will acknowledge that the truth might be scarier than how innocent the corn appears to be.
But anyway, I’m still looking for means to actually watch this documentary. So if you have one in your hands, lend me or ask me to watch it with you and let’s discuss it together. It would be fun!
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The trailer is courtesy of Cinedigm as found in Youtube
