Ben Roche: So I'm Ben, by the way. Homaro Cantu: And I'm Homaro. BR: And we're chefs. So when Moto opened in 2004, people didn't really know what to expect. A lot of people thought that it was a Japanese restaurant, and maybe it was the name, maybe it was the logo, which was like a Japanese character, but anyway, we had all these requests for Japanese food, which is really not what we did. And after about the ten thousandth request for a maki roll, we decided to give the people what they wanted. So this picture is an example of printed food, and this was the first foray into what we like to call flavor transformation. So this is all the ingredients, all the flavor of, you know, a standard maki roll, printed onto a little piece of paper.
Ben Roche: Ja sam Ben, inače. Homaro Cantu: A ja sam Homaro. BR: Mi smo kuhari. Kad se Moto otvorio 2004. godine, ljudi nisu baš znali što da očekuju. Mnogi su mislili da je to japanski restoran, možda zbog imena, možda zbog zaštitnog znaka, koji je nalikovao japanskom znaku, ali u svakom slučaju, imali smo mnogo narudžbi za japansku hranu, a mi je stvarno nismo pripremali. Nakon desettisućite narudžbe za svitak Maki, odlučili smo dati ljudima ono što žele. Ovo je slika primjera otisnute hrane i to je bio naš prvi izlet u ono što volimo zvati transformacijom okusa. Ovo su svi sastojci, sav okus, znate, uobičajenog svitka Maki, otisnuto na mali komad papira.
HC: So our diners started to get bored with this idea, and we decided to give them the same course twice, so here we actually took an element from the maki roll and and took a picture of a dish and then basically served that picture with the dish. So this dish in particular is basically champagne with seafood. The champagne grapes that you see are actually carbonated grapes. A little bit of seafood and some crème fraiche and the picture actually tastes exactly like the dish. (Laughter) BR: But it's not all just edible pictures. We decided to do something a little bit different and transform flavors that were very familiar -- so in this case, we have carrot cake. So we take a carrot cake, put it in a blender, and we have kind of like a carrot cake juice, and then that went into a balloon frozen in liquid nitrogen to create this hollow shell of carrot cake ice cream, I guess, and it comes off looking like, you know, Jupiter's floating around your plate.
HC: Našim je gostima polako dosadila ova ideja pa smo im odlučili dati isto jelo dva puta, tako da smo ovdje zapravo uzeli jedan sastojak iz svitka Maki, fotografirali to jelo i zatim poslužili tu fotografiju s jelom. Ovo konkretno jelo sastoji se od šampanjca i plodova mora. Šampanjsko grožđe koje vidite zapravo je pougljeno grožđe. S malo plodova mora i vrhnja slika zapravo ima jednak okus kao i jelo. (Smijeh) BR: Ali nismo radili samo jestive slike. Odlučili smo učiniti nešto pomalo drugačije i transformirati okuse koji su nam vrlo poznati -- u ovom slučaju, imamo tortu od mrkve. Dakle, uzmemo tortu od mrkve, ubacimo je u mikser i dobijemo nešto poput soka od torte od mrkve. Zatim smo to stavili u balon zamrznut tekućim dušikom i dobili šuplju školjku torte od sladoleda od torte od mrkve, više-manje, i to je na kraju izgledalo, vidite, kao da vam Jupiter lebdi na tanjuru.
So yeah, we're transforming things into something that you have absolutely no reference for. HC: And here's something we have no reference to eat. This is a cigar, and basically it's a Cuban cigar made out of a Cuban pork sandwich, so we take these spices that go into the pork shoulder, we fashion that into ash. We take the sandwich and wrap it up in a collard green, put an edible label that bears no similarity to a Cohiba cigar label, and we put it in a dollar ninety-nine ashtray and charge you about twenty bucks for it. (Laughter) HC: Delicious.
I tako mi to pretvaramo u nešto što zaista nemate s čime usporediti. HC: Evo i nečega što ne znamo kako jesti. Ovo je cigara. To je u biti kubanska cigara izrađena od kubanskog sendviča sa svinjetinom. Uzeli smo začine koji se dodaju svinjskoj lopatici i samljeli ih u prah. Zatim smo uzeli taj sendvič i omotali ga u list kelja, stavili na to jestivu naljepnicu, koja nimalo ne naliči naljepnici cigara Cohiba, stavili to sve u jeftinu pepeljaru i naplatili vam dvadeset dolara za to. (Smijeh) HC: Vrlo ukusno.
BR: That's not it, though. Instead of making foods that look like things that you wouldn't eat, we decided to make ingredients look like dishes that you know. So this is a plate of nachos. The difference between our nachos and the other guy's nachos, is that this is actually a dessert. So the chips are candied, the ground beef is made from chocolate, and the cheese is made from a shredded mango sorbet that gets shredded into liquid nitrogen to look like cheese. And after doing all of this dematerialization and reconfiguring of this, of these ingredients, we realized that it was pretty cool, because as we served it, we learned that the dish actually behaves like the real thing, where the cheese begins to melt. So when you're looking at this thing in the dining room, you have this sensation that this is actually a plate of nachos, and it's not really until you begin tasting it that you realize this is a dessert, and it's just kind of like a mind-ripper. (Laughter)
BR: No, to nije sve. Umjesto da radimo hranu koja nalikuje stvarima koje ne biste jeli, odlučili smo obraditi sastojke tako da nalikuju poznatim jelima. Ovo je tanjur nachosa. Razlika između naših nachosa i nekih drugih nachosa jest u tome da je ovo zapravo desert. Krumpiri su kandirani, mljevena govedina zapravo je od čokolade, a sir je napravljen od ribanog šerbeta od manga, koji smo naribali u tekući dušik kako bi izgledao poput sira. Nakon što smo toliko dematerijalizirali i rekonfigurirali ove sastojke, shvatili smo da je to prilično cool. Naime, dok smo to servirali, primijetili smo da se jelo ponaša kao pravo, gdje se sir počinje topiti. Kad gledate to u blagovaonici, imate osjećaj da je ovo zaista tanjur nachosa, a tek kad ga kušate shvatite da je to desert i da vam se igra s mozgom. (Smijeh)
HC: So we had been creating all of these dishes out of a kitchen that was more like a mechanic's shop than a kitchen, and the next logical step for us was to install a state-of-the-art laboratory, and that's what we have here. So we put this in the basement, and we got really serious about food, like serious experimentation. BR: One of the really cool things about the lab, besides that we have a new science lab in the kitchen, is that, you know, with this new equipment, and this new approach, all these different doors to creativity that we never knew were there began to open, and so the experiments and the food and the dishes that we created, they just kept going further and further out there.
HC: Stvarali smo sva ta jela u kuhinji koja je više nalikovala mehaničarskoj radnji nego kuhinji i idući logičan korak bio je da ugradimo najsuvremeniji laboratorij, i upravo to vidimo ovdje. Ovo smo stavili u podrum i počeli se ozbiljno baviti hranom, ozbiljno smo eksperimentirali. BR: Jedna od zaista cool stvari u ovom laboratoriju, osim činjenice da imamo novi znanstveni laboratorij u kuhinji, jest da su nam se s tom novom opremom i s našim novim pristupom otvorila mnoga nova različita vrata u kreativnost koja nikad prije nismo znali otvoriti, i tako su eksperimenti i hrana i jela koja smo stvarali postajala sve neobičnija i neobičnija.
HC: Let's talk about flavor transformation, and let's actually make some cool stuff. You see a cow with its tongue hanging out. What I see is a cow about to eat something delicious. What is that cow eating? And why is it delicious? So the cow, basically, eats three basic things in their feed: corn, beets, and barley, and so what I do is I actually challenge my staff with these crazy, wild ideas. Can we take what the cow eats, remove the cow, and then make some hamburgers out of that? And basically the reaction tends to be kind of like this. (Laughter) BR: Yeah, that's our chef de cuisine, Chris Jones. This is not the only guy that just flips out when we assign a ridiculous task, but a lot of these ideas, they're hard to understand. They're hard to just get automatically.
NC: Hajdemo sada preobražavati okuse i stvarati neke zaista cool stvari. Vi vidite kravu kojoj jezik visi van. Ja vidim kravu koja se sprema pojesti nešto ukusno. Što ta krava jede? I zašto je ukusno? Krave se u biti hrane trima osnovnim namirnicama: kukuruzom, ciklom i ječmom. Ja zapravo izazivam svoje osoblje svojim ludim, divljim idejama. Možemo li uzeti to što krava jede, ukloniti kravu i zatim napraviti hamburgere od toga? Reakcije koje dobivam uglavnom su ovakve. (Smijeh) BR: Da, to je naš šef kuhinje, Chris Jones. A on nije jedini koji poludi kad mu dodijelimo smiješan zadatak, ali mnoge od tih ideja teško je shvatiti. Teško ih je automatski shvatiti.
There's a lot of research and a lot of failure, trial and error -- I guess, more error -- that goes into each and every dish, so we don't always get it right, and it takes a while for us to be able to explain that to people. HC: So, after about a day of Chris and I staring at each other, we came up with something that was pretty close to the hamburger patty, and as you can see it basically forms like hamburger meat. This is made from three ingredients: beets, barley, corn, and so it actually cooks up like hamburger meat, looks and tastes like hamburger meat, and not only that, but it's basically removing the cow from the equation. So replicating food, taking it into that next level is where we're going. (Applause)
Mnogo istražujemo i idemo metodom pokušaja i pogreške -- više pogreške, valjda -- u procesu stvaranja svakog pojedinog jela. Ne uspijemo svaki put i dugo traje dok to uspijemo objasniti ljudima. HC: Nakon što smo Chris i ja jedan dan zurili jedan u drugog, smislili smo nešto što je prilično nalikovalo smjesi za hamburgere. Kao što vidite, oblikuje se jednako kao meso za hamburgere. Izrađeno je od tri sastojka: cikle, ječma i kukuruza, i zaista se peče kao meso za hamburger, izgled i ima okus kao meso za hamburger i ne samo to, nego u biti izbacuje kravu iz jednadžbe. Kopiranje hrane, unapređenje toga jest naš cilj. (Pljesak)
BR: And it's definitely the world's first bleeding veggie burger, which is a cool side effect. And a miracle berry, if you're not familiar with it, is a natural ingredient, and it contains a special property. It's a glycoprotein called miraculin, a naturally occurring thing. It still freaks me out every time I eat it, but it has a unique ability to mask certain taste receptors on your tongue, so that primarily sour taste receptors, so normally things that would taste very sour or tart, somehow begin to taste very sweet. HC: You're about to eat a lemon, and now it tastes like lemonade. Let's just stop and think about the economic benefits of something like that. We could eliminate sugar across the board for all confectionary products and sodas, and we can replace it with all-natural fresh fruit.
BR: A to je definitivno i prvi vegetarijanski hamburger na svijetu koji krvari, što je cool nuspojava. Čudnovata bobica, ako niste čuli za njum prirodan je sastojak i ima posebnu osobinu. To je glikoprotein miraculin, prirodna tvar. Još uvijek me izbezumi svaki put kad ga jedem, ali ima jedinstvenu sposobnost da maskira određene recptore okusa na vašem jeziku, tako da na receptorima za kiselo stvari koje bi imale kiseo ili trpak okus nekako dobivaju vrlo sladak okus. HC: Spremate se pojesti limun, a on sad ima okus kao limunada. Razmislimo malo o gospodarskim koristima nečeg takvog. Mogli bismo potpuno ukloniti šećer iz svih slatkiša i sokova i zamijeniti ga potpuno prirodnim, svježim voćem.
BR: So you see us here cutting up some watermelon. The idea with this is that we're going to eliminate tons of food miles, wasted energy, and overfishing of tuna by creating tuna, or any exotic produce or item from a very far-away place, with local, organic produce; so we have a watermelon from Wisconsin. HC: So if miracle berries take sour things and turn them into sweet things, we have this other pixie dust that we put on the watermelon, and it makes it go from sweet to savory. So after we do that, we put it into a vacuum bag, add a little bit of seaweed, some spices, and we roll it, and this starts taking on the appearance of tuna. So the key now is to make it behave like tuna. BR: And then after a quick dip into some liquid nitrogen to get that perfect sear, we really have something that looks, tastes and behaves like the real thing.
BR: Ovdje režemo lubenicu. Ovdje je ideja da uklonimo hrpu prehrambenih kilometara, potraćene energije i prekomjerni izlov tune tako što ćemo stvoriti tunu ili bilo koji egzotičan proizvod ili namirnicu iz vrlo egzotičnog mjesta, pomoću lokalnih, organskih proizvoda. Ovdje imamo lubenicu iz Wisconsina. HC: Ako čudnovate bobice kisele stvari pretvaraju u slatke, mi imamo drugačiji vilinski prah koji stavljamo u lubenicu i on ju pretvara iz slatke u slanu, pikantnu. Nakon što to učinimo, stavljamo je u vakumiranu vrećicu, dodamo malo morske trave, začina, zarolamo je, a ona počinje nalikovati na tunu. Sad je bitno dobiti da se i ponaša kao tuna. BR: Nakon što ju nakratko umočimo u tekući dušik kako bismo dobili savršeni rez, zaista imamo nešto što izgleda, ima okus i ponaša se kao prava stvar.
HC: So the key thing to remember here is, we don't really care what this tuna really is. As long as it's good for you and good for the environment, it doesn't matter. But where is this going? How can we take this idea of tricking your tastebuds and leapfrog it into something that we can do today that could be a disruptive food technology? So here's the next challenge. I told the staff, let's just take a bunch of wild plants, think of them as food ingredients. As long as they're non-poisonous to the human body, go out around Chicago sidewalks, take it, blend it, cook it and then have everybody flavor-trip on it at Moto. Let's charge them a boatload of cash for this and see what they think. (Laughter)
HC: Najvažnije je zapamtiti da nas zapravo nije briga što ova tuna stvarno jest. Doke god je dobra za vas i dobra za okoliš, nije bitno. No, kamo sve to ide? Kako ideja da prevarimo vaše okusne populjke može postati nešto što ćemo činiti danas i što bi moglo unijeti pomutnju u prehrambenu tehnologiju? Ovo je sljedeći izazov. Rekao sam osoblju, uzmimo hrpu divljih biljaka i smatrajmo ih sastojcima hrane. Dokle god nisu otrovni za ljudsko tijelo, šećite čikaškim pločnicima, berite ih, meljite, kuhajte i dajte svim gostima u Motu na kušanje. Naplaćujmo im masno za to i čujmo što misle. (Smijeh)
BR: Yeah, so you can imagine, a task like this -- this is another one of those assignments that the kitchen staff hated us for. But we really had to almost relearn how to cook in general, because these are ingredients, you know, plant life that we're, one, unfamiliar with, and two, we have no reference for how to cook these things because people don't eat them. So we really had to think about new, creative ways to flavor, new ways to cook and to change texture -- and that was the main issue with this challenge.
BR: Da, možete zamisliti, takav zadatak -- to je još jedan od onih zadataka zbog kojih nas je kuhinjsko osoblje mrzilo. Ali zaista smo gotovo morali ponovno naučiti kako uopće kuhati jer ti su sastojci, znate, biljke s kojima, kao prvo, nismo upoznati, a kao drugo, ne znamo kako ih pripremati jer ljudi ih ne jedu. Zaista smo morali smišljati nove, kreativne načine kako začiniti, kako kuhati i kako promijeniti teksturu -- i to je bio glavni element tog izazova.
HC: So this is where we step into the future and we leapfrog ahead. So developing nations and first-world nations, imagine if you could take these wild plants and consume them, food miles would basically turn into food feet. This disruptive mentality of what food is would essentially open up the encyclopedia of what raw ingredients are, even if we just swapped out, say, one of these for flour, that would eliminate so much energy and so much waste. And to give you a simple example here as to what we actually fed these customers, there's a bale of hay there and some crab apples. And basically we took hay and crab apples and made barbecue sauce out of those two ingredients. People swore they were eating barbecue sauce, and this is free food. BR: Thanks, guys.
HC: Time krećemo u budućnost i skačemo prema naprijed. Narodi u razvoju i narodi prvog svijeta, zamislite da možete brati te divlje biljke i konzumirati ih, prehrambeni kilometri pretvorili bi se u prehrambene metre. Uznemirujuća predodžba o tome što je hrana otvorila bi enciklopediju onoga što su sirovi sastojci, čak i kad bismo samo jedan od njih zamijenili brašnom, to bi uklonilo toliko energije i mnogo bi se manje rasipalo. Kao primjer onoga što smo posluživali gostima, ovo je bala sijena i divlje jabuke. Uzeli smo to sijeno i divlje jabuke i napravili umak za roštilj od tih dvaju sastojaka. Ljudi su se mogli zakleti da jedu umak za roštilj, a to je besplatna hrana. BR: Hvala, ljudi.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)