"I cook with a computer," says leading chef Peter Thornley, opening the
door to a state-of-the-art kitchen and a food future to set traditionalists at
boiling point. He's only half-joking, but while his tools are high-tech his
approach is refreshingly direct.
"There's more stainless steel in there than in five herring-boned milking
sheds," he says of his gleaming new purpose-built kitchen at Bracu,nestled among
the olive trees in New Zealand's largest olive estate.
The outlook over 30,000 olive trees in the Bombay Hills is rustic, but the
interior is a glimpse into a post-microwave world, where machines can grill
steaks to order, chill wine and churn sorbets in minutes.
Home cooks looking for help will be waiting for the technology to downsize
and drop in price. Those who make their living cooking a cut above the rest may
be rattled, until, like Thornley, they embrace technology as a tool rather than
a threat.
"All this is doing is being able to deliver a consistency and give you more
time to do other things ... to make a better sauce, for plating up, to perfectly
caramelise the onions served on the side."
Along from the rows of gas cookers is a computer where menus and rosters are
planned.
While that's not unusual, fibre-optic cables connect the computer to a
soon-to-be installed screen where the ideal image of the upcoming meal will be
shown near the plating-up area.
But what really catches the eye is Thornley's combination cooking oven, with
its 500 sensors. Looking like a giant pie warmer crossed with an automated
espresso machine, it has stacks of racks and a bunch of buttons, except these
say "grill, medium rare" rather than "froth" or "steam".
Programme the right setting, walk away, wait for the buzzer and out comes a
perfectly cooked steak. Gone is the messy rotating of pans, the standing over
hot flames and stooping down to warming ovens.
What this guarantees Thornley, and the diner, is, for example, a perfectly
cooked steak - every time. And unlike a steak cooked the traditional way,
medium-rare means medium-rare all the way through. "What you normally get is
well-done beef with a medium-rare chunk in the middle."
The steak moves down the cooking chain from what Thornley affectionately
calls "The Beast" to be seared on the stove top and then: "You can cut through
the meat with a butter knife."
Thornley can rest secure that each steak is cooked to exact specifications,
provided, of course, the right cut and weight is selected in the first place.
"If you're five grams out with the weight it won't be cooked properly."
So output still depends on input, but even then there's a clear bonus - the
cooking method reduces the costly shrinkage, where a 220g steak loses 40g on the
stove-top to a loss of just 10g. Times that by 500 diners and you're talking
hundreds of dollars in savings.
The technology is in use in a few of New Zealand's bigger kitchens, Thornley
thinks he pretty much leads the race across the board.
He became interested during his time at Icon at Te Papa, partly to deal with
labour costs, but as he swatted up overseas he became a convert to using
technology so he could spend less time slaving over the stove. He jokes his
traditional ovens are now there just to hold the top up - and for a bit of
baking.
"The Beast," he says, "will handle all the things that require complex
cooking. Anything you can put in a pan - except pasta - you can cook in this
oven."
And it can cook simultaneously in different modes, handling different meats
at once, adjusting colouring on each rack. Water quenches odours out of the oven
on regular cycles, and it self cleans.
For around $16,000 it's not expensive compared with top-of-the-line cookers.
A smaller six-tray version means domestic application will soon be within reach.
"I think it's got a huge appeal to the home user. It's got the security of
putting in a piece of meat, broccoli, whatever, and it comes out to
specification."
He points, too, to his Paco jet machine, which whizzes up sorbets for 20 in
five minutes. This, he says, costs no more than a good home-espresso machine and
also allows the easy preparation of sauces and chutneys using the freshest of
ingredients.
A blast chiller is another way to capture produce at its best - and get wine
to serving temperature between courses - but that needs an industrial-sized
kitchen, for now.
Thornley rejects the notion that all this technology will inevitably lead to
a lessening of real cooking skills or that the role of chefs will be reduced to
plate decorators.
But he says it will be vital for good cooking techniques to remain the
bedrock of good cheffing.
"Whatever we do we cannot say this is the only method of cooking."
So chefs don't forget their stock in trade, Thornley wants industry training
groups to ensure "culinary history" is on their menu. Once, that might have been
called Cooking 101; now that time might need to be spent on understanding that
mastering technology is a tool, not the cook's true talent.
With Thornley, the future is already being served.
In the thick of it
Diners at Bracu can book a table for four to six in
the middle of Thornley's kitchen. The top chef says there's no set menu and
chefs will chat to the customers.
"They can see if Gordon Ramsay is for real."
Sitting next to the plating-up area and near doors opening on to the
verandah, they should be well protected from the full heat and any fury, but get
a bird's-eye view.
"To eat in the kitchen is to become totally and absolutely involved," says
Thornley. "To feel the food, the heat, the environment, the pressure, to see the
orders being taken." Sounds like fun.