Top Chef is back!

The first ses­sion of TopChef 2022 had me glued to the tele­vi­sion (and twit­ter) until very late. As usu­al, every­one com­plained about the length of the show, the com­mer­cials, etc. and this year, on top of that, about the absence of Michel Sarran.

As if we had for­got­ten the very long shows of pre­vi­ous years…

In short, like every year, the first show is not too excit­ing. Careful obser­va­tion of the can­di­dates who have been put for­ward by video extracts or by their bio gives a small idea of who will be elim­i­nat­ed. The lev­el of the dish­es is gen­er­al­ly below what the can­di­dates will pro­duce as they progress in the com­pe­ti­tion, and there are "types" in the cast: the good stu­dent, the trav­eller, the gap­ing, pos­i­tive opti­mist, the Belgians, the big head…

The new "prod­uct of the sea­son" is black gar­lic, after yuzu, lemon caviar, cromesquis are total­ly out, "green­stron­o­my" is enter­ing the pen of pompous neol­o­gisms des­tined to dis­ap­pear. But "eco / organ­ic / sus­tain­able" cui­sine will be the theme of the sea­son, after hav­ing been so present in pre­vi­ous seasons.

I enjoyed it. It was enjoy­able, appetis­ing and I like it long. I had a bit of a laugh on Twitter, we all thought one con­tes­tant remind­ed us of Justine, anoth­er of Michel Sarran and we start­ed to have a good laugh.

Now let's bitch a bit...

This unknown Oriental cuisine, that unknown : Baba Ghanoush, not "Ganoush".

Apart from cous­cous and basic mezes, this show showed a cer­tain lack of knowl­edge of the vocab­u­lary of ori­en­tal cui­sine. After Philippe Etchebestwho puts tajine in the fem­i­nine, it was Stéphane Rottenberg who got his feet wet with the pro­nun­ci­a­tion of Baba Ghanoush, in Arabic بابا غنوج , which is pro­nounced Baba Ranouch, Baba Ranouj or Baba Ranoug, depend­ing on where you are, but nev­er — at least among Arabic speak­ers — Baba Gannouch, as he said. The غ at the begin­ning of the sec­ond word is always pro­nounced like a rolled R in Spanish. You can lis­ten to some pro­nun­ci­a­tions on this site.

Well, it's just vocab­u­lary, but it offends my "Arabised" and very fond of Lebanese foodear.

Team Ottolenghi: burning your aubergines

I was more dis­mayed by the mock­ery of burnt aubergines, even though they are a del­i­ca­cy — which I make reg­u­lar­ly. Here are some aubergines at dif­fer­ent stages of roasting/burning:

There is the grilled aubergine and the burnt aubergine. The "burnt" aubergine, of course, is only the skin and, if it is cut in half, the slice, which is burnt. The rest, the inside, remains a melt­ing and tasty flesh.

The burnt part is very thin, a very fine film, which will break into flakes and sea­son the flesh of the aubergine. You don't swal­low all the burnt part, of course, but by scrap­ing the flesh you are going to eat, to sep­a­rate it, you raise it with lit­tle bits of burnt part.

So, yes, burnt flesh is car­cino­genic. It is also, in small dos­es, a deli­cious addi­tion to dishes.

Langoustine ice cream, fish livers, no, it's not disgusting

Je suis la seule à avoir un peu la nausée à enten­dre cet enchaîne­ment de desserts che­lous ? 😅 #TopChef pic​.twit​ter​.com/​z​h​w​9​5​m​x​XGw

— Emilie Lopez ⭐️⭐️ (@emilielopez) February 16, 2022

Here, we are, amha, in the lev­el of reac­tion of the ten year old who doesn't want to get out of his fries, and not in the state of mind of peo­ple who watch a cook­ing con­test and who should have an open mind to new experiences.

Cooking is all about mak­ing "unap­petis­ing" things (to taste, to whet the appetite, to awak­en the taste for…) delicious.

It's a trans­for­ma­tion process, and I would advise any­one who has been dis­gust­ed by fish liv­er condi­ment or blood sausage… have you ever won­dered how it's made, blood sausage? Or sausage? Or foie gras? Have you ever col­lect­ed meat before putting it in a tray and butchered it your­self? Or do you sim­ply refuse to imag­ine what will pro­duce your nuggets and chick­en legs?

Well, I admit, attend­ing the Eid sac­ri­fice in the coun­try may have tough­ened me up a bit. In fact no, even the first time I had no prob­lem. Afterwards, I skinned a half-boar giv­en to me in my kitchen, and fid­dled with fish in all direc­tions, I touched slimy, cold, coloured fish… but that's what cook­ing is all about, her work on the cat­fish was far from the grilled sheep's heads.

For your infor­ma­tion, fish liv­ers are deli­cious, like monk­fish cheeks, they can be used to give a kick (anoth­er Top Chef word) to a fumet, a sauce… and on a fresh fish, it is no worse than a tar­tar. And fish ovaries are the tara­ma base! (Oops, sor­ry for the dis­gust­ing revelation…)

As for snails, they are a clas­sic of French gas­tron­o­my. And when I was lit­tle, I liked to play with snails and let them walk around on my arms. Jesus Christ, peo­ple, get out into nature for a bit…

Being HPI is not having a big head

The link below explains things perfectly.

#topchef https://t.co/jRM1P7JZVM pour celles et ceux qui veu­lent avoir une idée d’une per­son­ne HPI avant de piétin­er un candidat.

— Myrtille (@Myrtill07135288) February 17, 2022

I must obvi­ous­ly not be the only one to have been shocked by the vio­lent reac­tions to the "HPI" can­di­date: one can be very intel­li­gent with­out being HPI, but an HPI has a par­tic­u­lar, "abun­dant" mode of func­tion­ing. If you mas­ter it, you suc­ceed and bor­der on genius, if you don't, you get lost and… as Eliott right­ly said, he lost his test because he couldn't concentrate.

Another exam­ple of what an HPI is is Audrey Fleurot in the excel­lent — but less real­is­tic — series of the same name.

What about my kitchen?

I've long since giv­en up try­ing to "repro­duce" TopChef recipes, but I did like a few ideas tonight.

• the cat­fish, unfea­si­ble in Morocco (go find a cat­fish in the small streams that dry up part of the year), but the fish liv­er condi­ment is tempt­ing me, I'm going to have anoth­er chat with my favourite fishmonger…
• the apple-celery mix (but you can only find very small cel­ery here, about the size of a large closed fist)
• the apple-chicken mixture
• apple and tuna ceviche
• the black gar­lic and miso ice cream, because I have some in my cup­boards and I know that black gar­lic is very mild, almost sweet, it's not a very spicy garlic
• the cauliflower-vanilla-pear mix

Taste com­bi­na­tions to be test­ed soon.