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JP McMahon is a man who never sits still, even in a pandemic. When the Food on the Edge (FOTE) conference couldn’t take place last year, the Galway restaurateur got onto his chef mates from across the world to compile an e-book Lessons from Lockdown – a series of encouraging letters to young chefs. It’s a book filled with inspiration, a unique record of an unprecedented time for the restaurant industry.
“Dear Young Chef,” writes Elena Arzak, the award-winning chef from Arzak in San Sebastian, one of Spain’s most famous restaurants. “It might not seem like the most inspirational moment but we do have the rare gift of time that we almost never have in this line of work. Time to be creative. Time to try new things and create new dishes. Time to challenge yourself to work with a more limited range of ingredients or even things you don’t like. To experiment, to probe, to take risks. Crisis sets the stage for creativity. It’s not a time for complacency.”
New location
A year later, it is time to bring the creativity together once again as FOTE returns, taking place in Dublin on 18 and 19 October. The two-day event is a coming together of the world’s top chefs to discuss (and often debate) the future of food. Now in its sixth year, it is moving outside its anchor of Galway to Airfield Estate, the urban working farm in Dundrum, Dublin.
“FOTE is certainly going to feel different this year,” explains JP, who is co-founder of FOTE. “But that’s something chefs are used to these days, we’ve definitely been pushed outside of our comfort zone in the past year.
“The pandemic has given us the time to re-look at FOTE. For years, we’ve been talking about moving it around the country. As the event didn’t take place last year, we took the time to consider places like Airfield. The farm is a great representation of Irish food and will really showcase another area of Ireland to the chefs who are travelling from abroad.”
This year FOTE will be a hybrid model but whether speakers and attendants are there in-person or virtually, the conversation is bound to be lively.
Social gastronomy
The focus for this year is social gastronomy – the concept of caring for food in a more holistic and total manner. JP explains: “Over the years at FOTE, there has been a lot of talk about where our food comes from but this concept brings it a step further, looking at communities and how we can make them better through food, as opposed to just making food better.
“Of course, making food better is a good thing, it’s an important pursuit, but there is no point in food being great if the community it comes from is not. It needs to happen at all levels-on [a] governmental level in terms of initiatives; in restaurants when chefs create workspaces for employees; for diners in the sense that dining out doesn’t just have to be about entertaining; but also education – an informative experience.
“And then you look at institutions. For example, big offices, companies that are feeding thousands of people every day. How can we communicate to people about what they are eating? How can we teach them about the importance of food and the role of food, rather than just feeding them? The same applies to hospitals and prisons. It’s a large enough movement and it’s very much trying to use food as a vehicle for change.”
Food education
Of course, so much of this education starts at a young age and the topic of food in schools is one that is frequently discussed at FOTE.
“It has often been suggested that we should have a subject about food at primary school level or that home economics [should] become compulsory for the Junior Cert so students can not only learn the valuable life skill of learning to cook but also look at the purpose of food.
“For example, my daughter has started secondary school and is trialling home economics. One of her first pieces of homework was to create a diary of everything she ate over one weekend. Even that in itself is interesting. How often do we have the reflective space to think about food and what we eat?
“Food needs our focus in order to produce long term solutions and that is the purpose of social gastronomy as a movement, to try and ask more questions and produce more answers.”
Real change
FOTE isn’t all talk though. The discussions at the event have led to real tangible change. For example, it was the inspiration for one of the degree courses in Technological University Dublin (TUD), the BA(Honours) in Botanical Cuisine. Course co-ordinator Annette Sweeney says: “The inspiration created by FOTE exploring the future of food, was ground-breaking in terms of culinary education here at TUD, Tallaght campus.
“In 2015 – thanks to Matt Orlando, Sasu Laukkonen and JP McMahon, who envisioned a future where chefs are competent growers of their own produce – our inspired action was to create a European first in culinary education: the BA(Honours) in Botanical Cuisine, where chefs learn to grow their own produce and innovate menus using a plant-forward approach. Those three chefs are now the patrons of the programme.
“The focus on chef self-care and social gastronomy has also influenced the establishment of The Mindful Kitchen Project. Embedded in this project are related research at master’s level, and two of the modules taken by culinary students include health and wellbeing for chefs; and mindful creativity and social gastronomy.”
No doubt the discussion at this year’s event will continue to lead to inspire.
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