The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Alvin I. Dacanay
In MasterChef Asia, the pan-Asian edition of the popular cooking-competition program that debuted on the Lifetime cable channel on September 3, 15 home cooks from eight Asian countries submit their dishes for close judgment by three people, all lauded culinary experts: Susur Lee, Bruno Ménard and Audra Morrice.
If these cooks—who include Filipinos Jake Aycardo (who was eliminated in the second episode), Lica Ibarra and Rico Amancio—are nervous about offering their dishes to Lee, Ménard and Morrice for tasting, they have good reason to be. The judges have a wealth of culinary experience that makes them qualified for the task.
Take Lee, for example. Praised for balancing China’s epicurean traditions and the classical techniques of French cuisine, he is noted for his passion to create exciting dishes that harmoniously blend various flavors and textures. For this and more, he has been called the “Father of Fusion.”
Acclaimed by American magazine Food & Wine in 2000 as one of the “10 Chefs of the Millennium,” Lee helms four restaurants in Toronto, Canada—Lee, Bent, Luckee and Lee Kitchen—and another, TungLok Heen, in Singapore.
He is not new to television, having appeared on Iron Chef America and the second season of Top Chef Masters, in which he emerged as the runner-up. He also travels around the world as a guest chef and consultant.
Like Lee, Morrice has appeared on TV before, most notably in the fourth season of MasterChef Australia, in which she placed third—a fact, she said during a recent press conference in Manila, that puts her in a unique position and allows her to give a different perspective on the show.
Unlike the Hong Kong-born, Canada-based chef, the Indian-Chinese Morrice, who grew up in Singapore, spent much of her professional life in a different field—telecommunications—before pursuing her passion for food and competing in MasterChef Australia.
Since then, Morrice—dubbed the “Martha Stewart of Asia”—has established a successful catering business and holds regular cooking classes in Sydney and Singapore. She even has her own cooking show, Tasty Conversations, and recently unveiled a variety of food items in Australia and Singapore.
As for French-born Ménard, it’s clear that cooking is in his blood, since he has a chocolatier for a father and a patissier for a grandfather. In 1995 he went to Tokyo to work at a popular French restaurant there, but moved to Osaka two years later to take over another. He flew to the United States in 2001 to work at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, but went back to Tokyo four years later to lead L’Osier restaurant as chef.
According to that restaurant’s website, Ménard took the dining establishment “in a new ‘neoclassic’ direction that combined traditional French cuisine with the progressive concepts of the era.”
Thanks to his leadership, L’Osier received three stars—the highest rating ever—from the renowned Michelin Guide from 2008 to 2010. He now lives in Singapore with his wife and runs a top-tier culinary consulting firm.
‘Judging’ Filipino food
In an exclusive post-conference interview, Lee, Ménard and Morrice were asked to “judge” Filipino food—some of which they had sampled the day before—and share their impressions of it.
Ménard likened Filipino cuisine to Italian cuisine, describing it as “cuisine from the heart, from tradition.” He said Filipino food “is sincere,” adding that “it’s something you can have at any house, at any time.”
What surprised the Michelin-starred chef about it—“happily,” he emphasized—was how sophisticated, strong and unique its flavors are. “Everything we tasted could be in my home anytime, in the middle of the table, and (shared) with the family,” he said.
Morrice noted that Filipino cuisine is a “melting pot” of other cuisines. To prove her point, she cited the soy-based crispy pata, which has “a bit of Chinese in there, but Filipinos make it a lot sweeter”; pinakbet, which, she found, “has a lot of dried shrimp” and, thus, has “a bit of Malay in there”; and arroz a la Cubana, which is “like boulonnaise, if you think about it, in its most basic form. But it got so (many) hints of paprika and red peppers, so it’s very Spanish, in a way.”
“It’s the way cuisines (and) different cultural influences have come in, and (used them to create an) all-new cuisine. It’s beautiful and I love it,” she gushed.
Lee shared her sentiment, saying he really treasured “the cultural aspect” of Filipino cuisine. “They (Filipinos) haven’t forgotten (this) mix of cultures, and they recreated and turn (these) into Filipino cuisine, and I find that really fascinating,” he said.
“The very bold flavors that it has, the exoticness that you have…. I treasure those things, because those are things that (present a) learning (experience) for me in coming to the Philippines, and it’s so special. I felt like a student again,” he added.
“For Filipino cuisine, it has a strong pride on (what it is)…. If you don’t understand the fusion (in) Filipino food, you would have a hard time identifying what they (ingredients) are, until people actually tell you what they are.
“(Filipino) food is totally about celebration. You love to celebrate, love to eat and eat together, to make music together—(it) really shows togetherness and (being in) the moment.”
Considering the international attention Filipino cuisine has been receiving of late, what advice would the judges give to Filipino chefs and restaurants in having a solid spot on the world-cuisine map?
For Morrice, they have to “be very clear in what they are about. It goes across everything.”
“(If) you want to do something, you have to have a clear goal, you have to know how to execute it, and (you have to) be very true to yourself,” the MasterChef contestant-turned-judge said.
“Have that focus, and that focus should be spoken about all the time until someone else believes it. Be very confident about your flavors, but also get feedback, because you always wanted to improve on (them),” she added.
MasterChef Asia is shown on the Lifetime channel (SkyCable channel 65, Dream Satellite TV channel 28, Destiny Cable channel 44, Cignal Digital TV channel 63 and Cablelink channel 223) every Thursday at 9 p.m.