I came up with the premise for Noisy Food in 2011 while I was living in Aachen, Germany. I thought it was a great way of describing
food. At the time I was eating a lot of
crusty bread from the local bakeries and enjoyed hearing it crunch as I ate. Eventually I began thinking of Noisy Food as a rating system to express
how complicated, tasty, or creative a particular food was in comparison to
others. The factors to consider include
the source of the food, the ingredients, the preparation, the tools used, and the
level of creativity. Generally speaking,
the noisier the better but it’s true that food could be too noisy; think messy
plates, muddled flavors, and haphazard color combinations.
The first criteria of Noisy Food to consider is the
source the food. Where did it come from?
How was it grown? For example if you
hunted, grew, or foraged for the food it would be noisier than something you
bought in the store. Organically grown food
is noisier than conventionally farmed food because the farmer must have a
greater understanding of the food; how it interacts with the soil and other
crops and what it needs to stay healthy.
The effort you put into sourcing the food makes it more interesting and
provides a dialog that would otherwise not exist. Noisy food should get people talking.
Secondly, the time input of ingredients used in a dish
make it noisy. If something had to die
to be harvested, it’s obviously noisier than an apple picked from a tree. The more work that went into growing the food
the noisier it is. Most fruit trees, such
as coffee, take 3-5 years to produce fruit but will continue producing fruit
for 20 years. Asparagus can take up to
three years to grow but will continue growing for 20 years. Pineapples take two years but only produce
one fruit in their lifetime. Papaya can
produce fruit in 6 months. To cook and
clean an artichoke might take an hour.
To bake a loaf of bread might take two hours. To produce sourdough bread it might take 12
hours. To ferment and produce chocolate
takes weeks. To brew beer might take a
few months. To distill and age alcohol may
take years. Taking time input into consideration, I conclude chocolate, alcohol,
and coffee to be some of the noisiest foods.
The preparation of food is vitally important in making
it noisy. Some foods are best left
uncooked while others must be cooked. I
believe a crisp raw vegetable could be just as noisy as a piece of homemade
bread. The cook must think about the
highest good for the end food product: what
is going to preserve the color of the food, what will boost the health benefits
of the food, and what is going to bring out its best flavors.
Let me digress and show an example of how a numbering
system could be used for cooking a chicken egg.
If you raised the chickens and harvested the eggs you get two points
right away. If you fry the egg in a pan
you get two points because the edges are crisp and crunch when you eat it. If you cover the fried egg in cheese you get
three points. If you whip the egg and
make scrambled eggs you get two points.
If you whip the egg and make an omelet you get three points and four
points if you fill the omelet with deliciousness. If you poach the egg you get two points, if
you cover it with Hollandaise sauce you get three points. If you hard boil an egg you get one point but
if you then peel the egg, split it, remove the yolk, make a spicy deviled egg
filling then pipe it back into the cooked egg white you get four points. You
get the idea.
The appearance of food is hugely important in making it appealing. I believe a beautiful looking dish makes it
noisy. Food presentation should be tall
and tight, clean, and have striking color combinations which all play into how
noisy it can be. Keeping food concise on
a plate looks better than having it spread out.
Controlling what sauces are used and where the sauce is applied should
be considered. The color of ingredients
is vitally important: for example, most vegetables retain their color when they
are fresh but lose their color when cooked, so blanching and ice baths are used
to hold the color. Think of your favorite dish: how does it look? Could its
appearance be noisier with a few tweaks?
The tools used to prepare the food plays into its noise
factor. A smoker is noisier than a
dehydrator. A broiler is noisier than a
convection oven. Cutting vegetables thin
on a mandolin is noisier than cutting with a knife. A deep fryer is noisier than boiling
water. The more complicated or unusual the
tool used in the preparation, the noisier the finished product.
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| Pecan Pie, Tangelo, Bourbon and a Braided Cream Cheese Crust |
Creativity is the last factor in determining
noisy food. We are driven by our
passions and that should manifest physically into our finished creations. Your unique ideas should come together
seamlessly to create the uniqueness of your finished dish. We each long to be
original once we tire of doing the same old thing. We want to contribute new ideas to the food
world. The goal of noisy cooking should
be to produce new types of food that get people talking about it. Take noisy food to the next level, let it
speak for itself.
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