The Passion, the Probe, and the Problem

Margot Henderson, chef at London’s Rochelle Canteen, argues against current trends in fine dining in her MAD3 speech: “I think the male approach dominates and the female one is overlooked. Food in a lot of kitchens is treated as a problem to be solved, something to dominate, something that has to give up its secrets. Kitchens are turned into laboratories, filled with tools and weapons: vacuum packers, sous vides, probes, and all the other stuff. Sometimes the instinctive part gets lost. It almost makes me weep to be told that to confit a duck leg in plastic underwater is just as good as to confit in duck fat.”