The joy of cooking...?


I've always felt vaguely betrayed by the fact that illegal drugs all taste bad.

As a chef, I dream of creating an experience for those who eat my food. I want them to have ideas that never would have occurred to them, to experience emotions that they wouldn't have otherwise had. Consequently I've always wished that I could incorporate mind-altering substances into my food.

But drugs taste lousy, and it seems like cheating to add an ingredient that doesn't taste good in order to get another sort of aesthetic effect.

Marijuana is strong and piney, and while it's pretty good with chocolate it's useless as an herb: a dose large enough to be effective would overwhelm any other flavors in the dish. A recent example of cannabis cookery in Britain emphasizes that dishes must be designed to work over, rather than with, the flavor of the plant:

A GREY-HAIRED gran is facing jail after cooking up recipes laced with CANNABIS. Patricia Tabram, 66, began using the illicit drug in her country kitchen as a "natural remedy" to ease a painful back injury after a car crash. Soon she was throwing dinner parties for elderly friends who chipped in £150 a time for the secret ingredient in her unique "hot pots". But local police were quickly on the scent of her mind- blowing soups, curries and chocolate cake.

And from a culinary/aesthetic standpoint, cannabis is the best of the lot -- it has a pleasant smell, just not a food-like one. Mushrooms, the next-most-obvious choice as an ingredient, taste like farts. They can be worked with -- the nasty taste can be covered by other strong flavors, and the active component (psilocybin) is heat-stable -- they just aren't a good ingredient per se.

I'm not widely experienced with other substances, but the stimulants I've tasted all taste really bad (usually quite bitter), and simply couldn't be cooked with, even leaving aside the question of expense.

I suppose I'll just have to dazzle my guests the old-fashioned way.

Posted: Wed - January 26, 2005 at 04:58 PM          

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