Stop! Drop! Food! (Don’t drop the food though)

I have recently taken up a job at a restaurant in step one in the process of working towards becoming a recognized chef. In the process, I’ve considered that it is necessary that my I take on a better-rounded outlook of the world as it is. As I understand it, in order to become a great chef, it is important to travel the world in order to learn secrets to the culinary world that the part of the world which you come from may not have understood. Holidays for gluttony are slowly approaching, and this, to me, is the most important time to reflect on the food we’re eating and why we have what we have.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the subject of Food travel lately and how many forget that it really is just a forgotten form of forced self-narrative. In (http://youtu.be/cicCuAYkLjA?t=3m) celebrity chef & writer Anthony Bourdain expresses that if the show were left up to his discretion, that the show would be focused a lot less on his face, but more so the contents of the food and the culture that the team has to try to capture. Examples such as Bourdain are used as symbols in order for the audience to be able to gain a connection for the food and therefore feel more attached with the show and its contents. Food can often be seen as a medium of transferring cultural practices and ideals and therefore, through watching someone from a different country create a vast variety of dishes, it becomes a lot easier to be able to connect with those who are creating.

Lately, many of the best restaurants in the world have also come to recognize the importance of learning from other cultures and going global through residency exchanges. An example of such would be through Coppenhagen’s NOMA restaurant recently did an exchange with restaurants in Nihonbashi’s neighbourhood. (http://www.foodrepublic.com/2014/10/06/entire-staff-noma-learning-japanese-right-now-why) Although they’ve been nominated to be one of the world’s greatest restaurants, they understand that if they want to become even greater, that they need to expand towards different countries in order to learn from their history and culture. By expanding their horizons towards a variety of cultures, they are able to add elements to the menu as a reflection of the personal narrative of the restaurant. Restaurants like NOMA have come to realize the potential of bringing home the perennial plate and infusing their own touches to traditional dishes, creating something of their own.