By Barbara Santich
Was it Parkinson's Law, which decreed that the job
expands to fill the time available? The same could almost be said of the
Symposia of Australian Gastronomy which, having begun as a discreet Monday-Tuesday
affair, have now encroached on the preceding weekend and extended into the
morning after. This fifth symposium was actually incorporated into the two-week
long Adelaide Festival of Arts, which itself recognised the gastronomic domain
by organising a session on food writing as part of the Writers' Week program
and by partly sponsoring a Food Fair near the city's retail market, which saw
restaurateurs cooking and serving on one side of the street (lined with a
seemingly unbroken succession of white-clothed tables) and on the other side,
producers selling potted herbs, organic vegetables, German sausages, sun-dried
tomatoes and wonderful baguettes.
The session on food writing was, for me, inadequate
and unsatisfying, as though the subject itself were far too elusive to be
contained and analysed. Indeed, the speakers seemed much more comfortable
talking about food. Perhaps all writers have difficulties in abstracting
themselves from the subject of their writings. Stephanie Alexander offered a
clue when she said that writing about food was, for her, a substitute for
communication through food, the dishes she would have liked to cook and offer
to all her readers.
The Gouger Street Food Fair was an unqualified
success. The burghers of Adelaide know well the progressive-dinner formula,
first associated with the Clare Gourmet Weekend and since adopted for many
similar food-and-wine events throughout Australia. One advantage of the street
setting was that it was only a few steps from one 'plat du jour' and glass of
wine to the next! Table Talk, held the next day in the Writers' Week Tent, did
not have the same popular appeal but succeeded on its own terms. Here Anthony
Corones and Don Dunstan discussed Greed, and suggested that we might make some
headway in solving the problems of the world were we to take to heart the
lessons of Brillat-Savarin and promote a gastronomic perspective, respecting
our food at the same time as we share it. Lunch that day was a practical
demonstration of these principles; many of those who came to listen also
brought, as requested, a basket of 'loaves and fishes' to share, and it was
soon obvious that no supernatural powers would need to be invoked to see all
the faithful fed.
The problems of the world solved, talk turned to
more personal interests, The novelist Marion Halligan read an excerpt (from a
forthcoming book of essays) on her gastronomic education (sauternes with
everything in her early impressionable years) and philosopher Graham Pont
recounted similar stories (fuelled by red wine) of culinary adventures in a
university college, and of discovering Elizabeth David, Italian wine and Soho
markets in swinging London in the 1960s. Finally, four restaurant critics
defended their profession with assurances that they really were public
stomachs, their role being to guide towards those eating establishments that
deserved to be patronised and to prosper, and at the same time to act as a kind
of bridge between the restaurants and the public, by helping people to
understand restaurants and their different cuisines. Were any of them guilty of
deliberate ambiguity, I asked, of insinuating a different sort of message
between the lines? Only Tom Jaine, (then) editor of the (English) Good Food Guide, would own up.
For the next two days, the sixty-odd symposiasts
were cloistered in part of a seminary in the Adelaide foothills. The living-in
experience was certainly a valued one, and could well be repeated - in another
place, at another time. The theme of
this fifth symposium was 'The Pleasures of the Table' - as both a general
concept and the title of Brillat-Savarin's Meditation 14 in particular. Not all
sessions related directly to this theme. For example, Dr John Possingham talked
of current efforts to apply genetic engineering to plants to delay the
softening of fruits which is usually associated with ripening; if the fruit can
stay on the tree or plant a day or so longer, he argued, without getting soft
and falling off, it can be picked closer to full maturity and will have a
better flavour than fruit picked when very firm and green, as now (apricots,
for example).
But the table and its pleasures were central to this
symposium. Anthony Corones, arguing that food technology is a modern form of
witchcraft and a perversion of nature, proposed that we institute a new order
of eating, and re-humanise food; and Michael Symons proposed a re-humanisation
of Christianity, based on 'table fellowship, as in the first centuries of the
early Church'. He may well be right in insisting on the importance of the
shared meal, but I find it difficult to agree with his subsequent suggestion,
that people get married to make a meal union! Housing adviser Susan Parham
demonstrated the relevance of 'table fellowship' and gastronomy to town
planning, and argued for a more sympathetic treatment of public space.
My own paper took Brillat-Savarin's Meditation 14 as
its subject, and speculated on the origins of, and inspiration for, this text.
One does not have to look too far. Brillat-Savarin was an eclectic, and he
picked up many of the ideas that were circulating in post-Revolutionary France,
especially those relating to a new form of society. In particular, he picked up
ideas from a near-relation, Charles Fourier, who outlined many of his utopian
ideals in a book written about 1819 while he was living in one of his in-law's
residences in Belley. This book (Le
Nouveau Monde Amoureux) did not appear in print until 1966, but there are
clear echoes of it in La Physiologie du
Goût. Nevertheless, I suggest that the real inspiration for Meditation 14,
which sets down the 'rules' for successful dinner parties, was not Fourier but
the Banquet of the Gods on Mount Olympus.
Stepping back even further, Graham Pont proposed an
evolutionary explanation for the typically female habit of 'snacking'; it was
consistent, he remarked, with their role as 'gatherers'. (Perhaps it is also
relevant to remark that, according to most dietary surveys, women typically eat
more fruit and vegetables than men, while men eat more meat.) On the other
hand, Elaine Chambers, in a survey of kitchen technology from Roman times to
the present day, argued that good technology is essential to good eating, and
that changes in taste result from technological change.
There was rowdy debate over the topic of 'French
domination' in cuisine, David Dale suggesting that we replace the word
'cuisine' by 'cucina' - English is not a culinary language, he added. Yet there
was plenty of evidence of French influence at the 'communal' dinner on Monday
night. We had been divided into five groups, and in each group some shopped
(having been allowed a budget of $7 per person), some cooked, some served. But
the groups were interrelated - for example, the ingredients bought by group A
were cooked by group B for table C (it sounds much simpler on paper than it
worked in practice). At times the kitchen scene was chaotic, but it was a joy
for me (a server) to see the energy, passion and enthusiasm (not to mention
fellowship!) radiating from these cooks, amateur and professional. And what was
I offered, on table B? Baby leeks, cooked in a sweet-sour tomato-based mixture,
served lukewarm and topped with crisp-fried slivers of prosciutto and shavings
of parmesan; wild pigeons, the breast rare-roasted and the legs stewed,
accompanied by a rice-and-lentil medley and small whole beetroot; and saffron
pears, in a sticky glaze, with cream.
And for the other meals? A mediaeval offering, the
standard monastic meal of three dishes only, two cooked and one uncooked:
Platina's herb salad, a basic broad bean puree, and the Arab-inspired
escabeche, pieces of fried fish marinated in a sweet-sour sauce thickened with
pinenuts. And a wrapped lunch, courtesy of Don Dunstan - various curries and
other spicy concoctions folded into rice pancakes, Indian breads and other
wrappers. And to conclude, a Middle Eastern-Bedouin-Passover meal structured
around spit-roasted lamb, almost the best part of which was the rice stuffing,
so beautifully and subtly saffroned and spiced.
So, after breakfast the next day - those beautiful
baguettes and home-made jams and good, strong coffee - it was all over until
the next time. Though it might almost have been all over for ever. Michael
Symons dropped a bombshell when he proposed that the Fifth Symposium of
Australian Gastronomy be the last.
It was inconceivable to me that a series of
gatherings which had made some achievements, had progressed, and promised
still more, should be abruptly
terminated - guillotined in its prime - when its increasing strength and
confidence was evident with each gathering. Fortunately, audience reaction was
so strongly against the idea of finality that there was no question of ending.
The question now is, what form will the symposia take in the future? How will
they be structured? Who will be responsible? Will they be externally funded?
The Australian symposia have always differed greatly
from their English forebears. The Oxford Symposium is always held in the same
place, follows the same format, and has the same two father figures, Alan Davidson
and Theodore Zeldin, in command. In Australia we have alternated seasons,
cities and conveners, and have attempted to break out of the rigidity of the
traditional conference mode. To date, these changes have worked well - but
should we continue to change, for change's sake?
What is the purpose of our symposia? Is it just to
get together and party? Is it to exchange ideas? Is it to have our minds and
senses stimulated, our batteries recharged? Or do we seriously believe that we
should reform Australian food and eating? In other words, encourage structural
changes, changes in society, its outlook and its perceptions? These might be
desirable, even admirable goals, but can they be ordained? And are we the ones
to ordain them?
No; we are not militant, we are not even organised.
But we do, I think, share some common beliefs. We enjoy the pleasures of the
table, we enjoy our (gastronomic) way of life, which involves a respect for
food and the nature from which it came - a measured respect, which condones
neither waste nor destruction. It involves a respect, too, for our own
gastronomic predilections, which are honest and (we hope) non-perverted. And
because we believe that many others would like to enjoy a similar life, we
offer to share our philosophy with them, that they, too, may be happy and
healthy.
If this is our raison
d'être, then we are following exactly the same path trod by Brillat-Savarin
almost two centuries ago. He, too, had ideas of reforming society - doucement, gently - by encouraging it to
adopt gastronomic ideals. As Don Dunstan and Anthony Corones pointed out at
this symposium, these ideals are still supremely relevant.