Appetites: A visual masterclass from a master chef
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Innovative food doesn't just show up on a plate. The creative process behind it is on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Art's new exhibit — Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity. As Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine's Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl says, "He's not a great draftsman. It's not like we're looking at the work of Raphael. What we're looking at is his raw creativity."
Instead of focusing on the actual drawings on Adrià's working boards or in his notebooks, exhibit curator Brett Littman wants people to see how Adrià visually works his way from concept to finished product.
"One of the points that I wanted to make with this exhibition is that Ferran is a visual thinker," he said.
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"La Menestra"
"This is a little bit painful for me because I want to eat this. I want the fourth thing to be the food."
"La Menestra" exemplifies this process of creation. Originally a common dish made in various regions of Spain, it took Adrià three years to create his version of this textured vegetable panache, and the exhibit lays out the process step by step. The dish begins as a drawing in a notebook, where Adrià sketches out his idea.
The sketch starts to take shape with colorful molded plasticine, meant to show the exact dimensions and proportions of each element of the dish — cauliflower mousse, tomato puree, almond sorbet, beetroot foam, basil jelly, corn mousse, peach water ice and "the buttery texture of avocado in its natural state." The process concludes with a photo of the finished product.
There is no food at the exhibit, of course. But Adrià will be in town for a sold-out discussion on October 9, followed by a "Ferran Adrià-inspired tasting menu" from local chefs.
The exhibit is small — taking up just two rooms in MIA. But that doesn't mean there isn't a lot to see. "I think that chefs are going to come here and it will be an eight-hour day of not leaving these two rooms," Moskowitz Grumdahl says.
"What's important about this is that this idea of pure creativity is a real thing," says Moskowitz Grumdahl. "He has accessed it and it has huge implications for the world of cooking."
Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity is free and runs through January 3, 2016.
from the curator: Why Ferran Matters: Brett Littman, Executive Director, the Drawing Center
