DEAUVILLE, France (AFP) — When some of the world's top chefs put their talent to whipping up some fun, the results can be disconcerting: a salsify or vegetable oyster turns into a cork, watermelon becomes meat and dishes connect to a mobile phone.
At this week's annual Omnivore Food Festival in Deauville, some of the world's most avant-garde chefs had fun with trompe-l'oeil.
Spain's Andoni Luis Aduriz, the chef from "Mugaritz" in Errenteria, dished up thin slices of appetising red meat served with salad dressing and sorrel but left diners gaping when he revealed the meat was water-melon.
Another of his dishes was a bar of soap sitting on a plate in the middle of a cloud of bubbles.
"The world of cosmetics is increasingly stepping into the world of gastronomy," he said. "They put more and more cooking ingredients into shampoos, such as honey, barley, flowers or apples. So I am putting gastronomy into cosmetics."
The bar of soap was made of barley milk, rice and gelatine, but the hardest part was producing bubbles that did not burst, a task that took a year of research with an engineer. They now last and taste of honey.
He also likes to serve up burnt-looking meat, as black as coal. When the waiter carves the meat in front of horrified clients, lo and behold, the meat is rosy on the inside. He gets the black on the outside by using a vegetable dye, he said.
"None of these dishes will go down in food history," he said. "But they're fun."
Japan's Seiji Yamamoto, chaf at Tokyo's "Ryugin" restaurant, is no stranger to gastronomical jokes. He offers a "Chateau Ryu Gin 197O soup" made of potatos, seashells and beetroot, served in a bottle of wine with a label and is corked by a salsify.
He also adds edible decor to his plates such as pictures of sardines or a code "that customers can read using their mobile phone."
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
