7 July 2011
WORSHIPPING AT THE TEMPLE OF SCHWASS
I was privileged to attend a Masterclass, sponsored by Dish and Gaggenau this week, with Jonny Schwass, cooking ‘the versatile world of duck’. Jonny is one of the top chefs in our country, a Christchurch restaurateur who lost his restaurant in the recent earthquake, who has managed to keep going in a restaurant-without-walls mode. He’s retained most of his staff, doing dinners in private houses, catering and he appears personally wherever he’s asked.
Jonny Schwass has a “whole animal sensibility”. If we’re going to eat meat like pork or lamb or duck, he thinks it imperative that the whole animal be consumed. It is not on to take the best bits, but every part must be turned into something delicious. The chefs in his kitchen learn to break an animal down and keep all the bits and pieces for different parts of various dishes and for roasting off and making stocks and sauces.
His class started with a whole duck, complete with webbed feet and head still attached (!). He boned the duck expertly in about three minutes, and shared three recipes; confit of duck, liquorice and coffee spiced duck breast with chocolate ganache and fresh cranberry, and quack and crack salad. Suffice to say the recipes were fabulous, as we tasted each and I am confident in recommending Jonny doing duck anytime, anywhere.
However a Masterclass is not about the recipes, alone. It’s about discussion and the huge opportunity to learn about the chef’s philosophy for food, to share the passion, and to understand the heart and mind behind the individuality and personality that might appear on the plate. Jonny is a cook not a chef. Food is very important, but he feels a chef’s obsession with food is not the path to success. He buys the very best products he can, and then explained, “I put myself and my soul into the food, the customer eats it and that is how the relationship develops.”
Food for thought. Truly passionate and I only wish some of the more fly-by-night chefs had been there to partake in an extraordinary Masterclass.
PIC: ducks feeding after the rice harvest at the Chedi Club, Ubud in Bali.