VOLUME 42 NO.01 JAN 2010 MICA (P) 031/01/2009 A PSEUDO-PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH TO EATING guest editorial PHILOSOPHY OF FOOD By Dr Wong Chiang Yin, Guest Editor Snowflake wagyu, special grade karubi beef in Japan. any of my friends We should realise that good food has been invented ask me what my philosophy of food and evolved over decades and centuries and is. Actually, I haven’t is a distillate of a people’s culture, history and given much thought environment. This distillate should be respected to this at all. This is my first attempt and enjoyed, not adulterated or twisted to conform Marticulating my take on food, so please to our local norms and preferences. forgive me if some the points made here are not agreeable with you. We take history from our patients. or sashimi in fine Japanese restaurants. of the rice or the fish. We end up eating Taking history is likened to “his story”: At such places, the nigiri sushi already wasabi, not sushi. I think Singaporeans the patient’s story. comes with a dab of wasabi beneath the add much more wasabi because we like Food is no different. Every dish fish. That is really all the wasabi that is spicy food and try to make the sushi as tells a story. Food is an integral part of needed to enjoy sushi. There is no need spicy as possible, and that maybe we are culture and we learn more of our own to mash a huge glob of wasabi into ignorant as well. and other peoples’ culture when we a small plate of soya sauce and then soak We should realise that good food understand this. Many people and guides the sushi thoroughly in this concoction. has been invented and evolved over tell others where to find good food. That In fact, most Japanese do not put any decades and centuries and is a distillate is important. But more fundamental is to wasabi into the soya sauce when eating of a people’s culture, history and understand the definition of good food. sushi. They only do so for sashimi and environment. This distillate should be The first thing I believe in is that even then, they use only a little. Too respected and enjoyed, not adulterated one should always meet food on its own much wasabi simply masks the flavour or twisted to conform to our local norms terms. I see many Singaporeans who and preferences. bring jars of belachan, chili and so on The next thing is that we need to and add them liberally to anything they understand the ingredients and the eat while they are overseas having foreign quality of the ingredients. To do so, food. This is not meeting the food on its we need to have a little knowledge own terms. of geography and environment. For Another example is wanton mee. example, why do Russians make good I hear comments like, “I don’t like the vodka, French wine and cognac, wanton mee in Hong Kong: no chili” and Germans beer, Japanese sake, Scottish other similar refrains. That is trying to malt whiskey and so on? The answer is make Hong Kong wanton mee become pretty simple if we know it – alcohol Singapore’s version. The fascinating is simply the enzymatic process of world of food becomes a lot smaller converting sugar to alcohol. So farmers when we adopt such an attitude. simply laid their hands on whatever Food is about diversity and confluence sugars or carbohydrates they could find of cultures. Appreciating this diversity in their environment and then converted and confluence is key to eating well. it to alcohol. In Russia, the climate is Another common example is when too cold for grapes and hence potatoes you see many Singaporeans eat sushi A little wasabi would do.... were used. Similarly, this was the case 6 SMA News january 2010 guest editorial for barley in Northern Europe. With the steak could have weighed maybe 700g advent of metals that can withstand before ageing. That is why a dry-aged heat, distillation was discovered and beer steak is so expensive. could be converted to whiskey, wine into But even with ageing, marbling cognac and so on. (that is, fat) is still desired for texture Another example is beef. Soft, juicy and flavour; hence the premium one and flavourful beef is prized. How is pays for a sirloin or a rib eye steak. that achieved? There are basically two Fatty meat is also more forgiving when ways but first, we have to understand it comes to cooking. You can overcook what makes beef (or any meat) tough. a fat cut but a thin cut will taste terrible. Meat is tough because it is mainly Another example is that of pasta muscle, fascia, fibrous tissue and some and sauces. Why do certain sauces go fat. Meat gets tough because of fascia better with certain types of pasta and and other fibrous tissue content, as well not with others? Why is angel-hair as muscle hypertrophy from muscle use. pasta almost always paired with a light (Remember anatomy and histology? sauce and not with a heavy one? The Photo Credit: Dr Wong Tien Hua Tien Photo Credit: Dr Wong Useful here too.) Unhealthy fat on the reasoning behind it can be traced to the other hand, is soft and flavourful. flavour-intensity of a sauce versus the The Japanese created the famed marbled surface area-volume ratio of a particular Wagyu beef. wagyu by giving the cow plenty of rest type of pasta. The higher the ratio, the and lots of food (to fatten it). The animal less intense the sauce and vice versa. actually the fallopian tubes and uterus of is massaged often from young. The result So an understanding of what sort of the gravid snow toad. is that tough, thick fascia doesn’t come ingredients and the environment you Understanding the cooking method into being and fat is found inside the are dealing with is important. In fact, is the third point in appreciating food fascia and between the muscle bundles. bakers, salad bars and Japanese udon for me. Basically cooking (other than The meat is soft, hence the Japanese makers will tell you that even the when we eat raw food), in its most and Chinese term “snowflake beef” to humidity level is important. elemental sense, is really about bringing describe top grade wagyu. But I have to admit that some other physical and chemical change in food The Western world, in particular information may actually not be very ingredients through the transference of the Americans, have another approach useful to the enjoyment of food. For heat energy. The transfer of heat is by altogether. They also feed the animals example, you may not want to know that three ways – radiation, conduction and well (but not to the same extent as the the fragrant orange bits of sea urchin convection. I am no big fan of molecular Japanese). They then hang the beef (AKA uni) you eat in Japanese food are cuisine, but cooking is really simply the in cold rooms (not freezing) for a few actually the gonads of the echinoderm. use of a combination of convection, weeks to induce a slow rot. The rot Or that the sweet double-boiled Hashima conduction and radiation to change softens the muscle and fascia. Most of served as dessert at Chinese dinners are food (primary school science). But to the rotting flesh and fascia is removed before the steak is carved out of good meat. When we eat an aged steak, we are actually eating partially rotting meat (that’s the truth folks) and maybe you will notice this the next time you eat an aged steak – the muscle fibres are not as clearly delineated in the cross- section surface of a muscle (say a rib eye or a tenderloin). The next thing is that aged beef doesn’t quite bleed even when it’s cooked rare. That’s because the red blood cells have haemolysed during the ageing process. Dry-ageing also has the important feature of letting water evaporate (as compared to the cheaper wet-ageing method). As water evaporates, flavours concentrate and the steak is tastier. But a 500g dry-aged Live uni sashimi on sale in fish market in Hakodate, Hokkaido. SMA News january 2010 7 guest editorial master cooking or just to appreciate food But some steamed fish are eaten cold. Another example is the humble soon requires more in-depth knowledge. An example is the Teochew steamed kueh snack. Our local Teochew version is A simple example is stir-fried vegetables mullet. You can eat it hot when it is stuffed with a turnip-based mixture. in a wok. A traditional cast-iron wok steamed with preserved plum and salted The truth is that the real soon kueh in is shaped such that most of the heat is vegetables with lots of sauce. You can also China is stuffed with bamboo shoots, concentrated in its small centre area. steam it dry without any soup or sauce. hence the name means “bamboo cake”. The whole point of stir-frying is that the Cool the fish for about half an hour and But when our forbearers from China first intense heat concentrated there cooks and yes, the fish does taste a little fishy but migrated to South-East Asia, bamboo desiccates the vegetables quickly, leaving the sweetness of the flesh really comes shoots were impossible to come by in a them crunchy and tasty.