To narrow my parameters, I break down the processes to seasonal, regional and dirt raised, which allows me to focus on things at hand and what they evoke. My thoughts may turn to an idealised New Zealand – languid, late summer afternoons … innocently swimming in the tidal rock pools of Makorori … looking for trumpeter to throw on the barbie.

For example, I have a sauce that we call in the kitchen “Low Tide at Makorori.” It looks like wet sand after the wave has broken onto the shore. The wave brings flavours of kelp, seafood and minerals; and the texture is fine yet damp. To create the wet factor and the colour, I turned to field mushrooms, redolent of mineral and fungal flavours. I shave off all the black mushroom fins, moisten them with miren and my own worcestershire sauce, and then sprinkle sweet marsala and pacific salt crystals over it all. The salt releases the mushroom juices. After about two hours, I quickly heat this mix, blitz in a food processor and, by adding a little cream, arrive at just the right colour … the colour of wet sand at Makorori.

On the plate, this can be enhanced with the use of Korengo, a native kelp that the Japanese use for Nori. I can then recreate my little rockpool by adding small clams, etc. Placed back of plate and slightly to the right, my composition follows a design principle similar to “the rule of thirds.”

In creating a dish, the real trick is to think flavour at all times and to make sure that the conceptualizing doesn’t outweigh taste and presentation.

Recently we have been exploring Hawke’s Bay Firstlight Wagyu beef – magnificently raised, seductive, textural and exotic. Inspiration comes from imagining the ideas and whispers in the kitchen of a faraway Japan, along with Kobe beef – really the sumo wrestler of the beef world.

As it happened, Steve at Mr. Bean offered me some nettles. So we simply ground some Wagyu with a knife, blanched the nettles, and then bound the mix with a little light soy. This we wrapped in a Peking duck pancake made from flour & water, and then popped the tube into a hot oven to crisp the pancake and just set the meat. We served it over a Miso sauce with a little Thai chili paste from Orcona Pepper Farm. A salad of rehydrated Wakame tossed in limes and toasted sesame finished my Japanese thoughts. The point was to create a Japanese feeling in the Kiwi vernacular, i.e., cannelloni. The good news … it was delicious.

These are just two examples of the way a dish might evolve and what it expresses for me. The final product, like a good painting, is art imitating life…or life imitating art. It’s all the same.

My grandmother Rona was the chef there, and she ruled her domain with a stiff wooden spoon.  This was a world where nothing was kneaded with anything smaller than an elbow. (It wasn’t until recently that I understood that comment, particularly with scone making.)

Rona’s was a kitchen of true passion and frugal, yet honest flavour. And, as I discovered hauling coal skuttles into that magnificent giant Aga range, hard work! It was on this range that as a six year old or perhaps even younger, I learned many things.  Most importantly: the right use of heat is more important to flavour than just about everything.

A busy Saturday night in Rona’s kitchen was an evening of moving the embers to generate or dispense heat, and coming to understand that those wonderful aromas were actually developed through the maintenance of the fire. This is how you get flavour, along with knowing the right pan or dish and its reaction to the medium.  That’s all you really need to know about cookery. Yet it is this knowledge that takes all of your life to learn.

Another life changing gift from wonderful Rona was the comment “You have to be in control of it and it not in control of you.”  To this end, her aim was to kill or grow her foodstuffs in the most natural, organic way.  To her, the season was a gift and the first strawberry was the rarest diamond.  And a happy herd with the sun on its back was a sure bet to ultimate, perfect flavour. It was nothing to slaughter and use the offal at blood temperature, but I digress.

Rona’s day started by digging the veggies at 5 a.m. Later in the morning, the stock was purchased at the Matawhero Sales Yards.  Harry would buy the stock and invariably get stuck with his cronies at the Jolly Stockman, the Pub across the road, much to Rona’s distraction.  So much so, she would walk to the Stockman and drive the stock back to the farm herself. That stock was fattened and killed on the property for the restaurant.

Rona would preside over every service, and in between times, pickle, bottle and store all the season’s bounty from the farm or from favoured growers, and set aside for the year. Her pantry was an amazing place for a youngster to behold. Rows and shelves of the most beautiful foods, including fat golden queen peaches, sweet from being picked at the last possible moment, capturing the sun itself in the jar.

Thinking that sleeping under the stars and life on the road would be a blessing, Rona had a soft spot for drovers.  She would house them for the night on their way to Opotiki or Napier, and over the years learnt their stories.  Eventually, when they were unable to carry on, she would have them stay in the hotel and look after them until it was time for a burial.  One by one, the hotel filled up with retired drovers…in every room!

Running a busy farm to feed the hotel’s kitchen, managing the staff, baking and cooking…really, Rona’s day never ended.  From stoking the fires in the morning and cooking the breakfasts, then boiling all the hotel sheets, to be air dried of course, that the maids brought down in large coppers; to fixing the dinners and suppers.  Using only Irish linen, Rona embroidered late into the night, sitting on the safe in the public bar while Harry had his dinner; and retired, finally, in the early hours of the following day.

Rona’s cooking career started at age 14 and she walked out of her kitchen at 86!
She never took a drink of alcohol, coffee or tea and never wore makeup in her life.  She believed strongly that the seasons would provide all a body could want and that hard work would see her to a “ripe old age”.

It was a different time and a different pace back then, but it offers much we can learn. For me, I feel more at home in a kitchen than anywhere else in the world, comforted I guess because I spent the first years of my life in a bassinette in the bay window of Rona’s kitchen. But even more because of the pleasure of seeing a team of young chefs trying to create perfect food with the best seasonal produce we can lay our hands on, trying to do her proud.

I’m shouting last minute instructions to a staff that look as anxious as I’m feeling and yet the waiters seem content to chat behind the bar and fold napkins even though the front deck now looks completely full and tables are filling up inside as well. Happy groups of people and families streaming through the doors and past our wood fired ovens.
Now there’s a waiter asking me to explain the Fish of the Day dishes…again! and I’m getting scratchy.

It’s day 50 of the season and I have had all of three days off.  We will feed 1500 people a week in the high weeks of the season between December and April and provide continuous food service for 10 hours a day, each and every day, with 4 flames and a semi trained team of me, my sous chef and 3 cooks.  And the heavy part of the season is still to come!

I love it!

I decide to ring the bell and get the waiters to collect orders, talking over their objections that the tables aren’t ready to order….the last thing we need is 30 table orders all at once…and my pizza chef is asking me if she can have a break? Kerran, my sous chef, just raises an eyebrow.

The kitchen order printout machine starts to clack and I’m barking out the orders to the staff.  “Calling table 48, 2 classic pizza, 2 focaccia to go, stand by mains, 3 paella, 3 fish of the day, 1 pork belly, 3 mesculun sides and 1 steamed greens!”

Order machine continues to spit out more and more dockets.  Seventy-five percent of the dishes are on my section.  I fight for one of the four flames and now I’m yelling that we have 75 dishes on order and need to move. Dishes are coming up onto the pass—the dispatch table—and the waiter’s bell is ringing, once, and then it breaks, as it always does. The pass is covered now with dishes destined for tables, we have food gridlock and where are the food runners! My head is spinning looking at everything and everyone, watching the dishes going out.

“NO! That’s table 36.  Check your dockets before you grab the dishes!  Come on Kerran we need more speed on 53. Hustle!” The machine clackers along unmercifully.  “6 sashimi, 10 oysters natural, 6 tempura, 3 line fish, toasted brioche.”

I will stand in my position for 12 hours today and cook to order constantly, and prep when I can to replenish quickly diminishing stocks. Every now and then making sure everyone is ok, and we are traveling well.

I really need the pizzas to be moving out faster.  There’s a line of them waiting.  The crockery is running out and I’m screaming for pans.  Suppliers ringing me and waiters getting short tempered.   “Would it be possible to do seafood surprise platters for a table of 20 in the dining room?”

Responses of “Yes Chef!” are tinged with exhaustion and impatience as the machine spits forth its never ending orders.  But we are going ok.  Putting out 90 dishes last hour, moving at the right pace, the plates looking good…and thank the lord they are eating the rare tuna today!

Suppliers with laden trolleys are streaming in the back door and coming around for me to sign off their deliveries, expecting the general camaraderie that comes with the chef vs. delivery guy routine.  Boxes get rapidly opened and the fresh produce comes to my station just in the nick of time.  We are running out of fish.  I ring the supplier and the woman who answers the phone must be having a bad day!

“Our trucks leave at 10 am, you can’t ring us now!”
“Do you have any fresh fish?”
“We can’t deliver it!”
“Do you have any?”
“We have some groper,”
“Can I send a runner to grab it now?”
“Ok.”

Kerran looks at me.  I tell him he can pick up the fish on his break.  We should be ok till five…the lunch is winding down. Kerran is busy writing down instructions.  He will cover all the stations and the freezers and fridges and start calling the suppliers to get us through the next 24 hours. Finally I am on my own for a couple of hours and start the set up for the evening.  The owner swings by, “Had a great lunch, thanks, loved the sushi!”

I’m cursing that I let the kitchen hand go off early as I build a small landscape of pots and pans and assorted kitchen battery items on the benches.  I am hanging out for a coffee.
A waiter walks past and asks me what I did for Christmas.

What Christmas?

Tim Turvey of Clearview Estate is one such winemaker. Way back when, he was studying town planning at varsity and known for, as he says, “fermenting anything in his cupboard.”  Finishing his degree, Tim worked for exactly one day at a town planning firm.  That was enough to launch him down the path of being a grower.  On to Australia to grow pineapple and, eventually, back to Te Awanga.

In 1986 he started developing a delightful 8 acre property near the beach at Te Awanga. Together Helma van den Berg, they planted 2,500 trees over the years, grafting all the vines by themselves.  They dug the holes, cut the posts, poured the concrete, and even made the tables: a true hand made winery.  Sure, it’s taken seven days a week of effort, but as Tim says “It is all about fun!”

Growing grapes is a pretty easy thing to do, in as much as if you do nothing they’ll still grow.  Making great wine is another story.  Tim’s maxim: Minimize disaster!   He consults each and every morning with his winemaker Barry Riwai and vineyard manager Russell Mayne, the brain trust if you will, that analyzes the long range weather forecasts and figures out what to do.  They will crush 120 tonnes of grapes from Clearview’s 8 acres and use juice from another 30 acres to make 23 varieties of wine.  Tim, with Charles Gear, will devise the marketing plans that will whisk him to as many as 8 cities around the world in two weeks.  And he’ll be on hand at many of the small promotions for the local community, and tastings for staff at various restaurants across the country.  This is part of what separates Tim from a lot of his peers. He is tireless in the perfection of his own wine and its journey.

“You grow the grapes, you crush the grapes, you ferment the grapes, you bottle the wine,” says Tim.  But really hard work from the whole vineyard team is the secret.  He has assembled a great grew, uniting them all with the passion of a man driven to extract every last drop of flavour and body from each and every grape. Tim says the blending of the gapes begins in the vineyard, and what he means is that they sacrifice bunches from the vines so the remaining crop will flourish and ripen better. Then comes the picking which is a dangerous game.  Tim will wait for the absolute last stages of ripeness, often well into the autumn, to get optimum results of sugars and berry flavour.  The grapes are then all hand picked by local, loyal supporters who have, in the main, picked every vintage since inception.  Such is Tim’s way: everyone is included in the cycle and few leave.

Grapes are crushed and then the winemaking begins.  The wine is watched and constantly tasted.  The tannins will fall and integrate so that a holistic product will emerge, a wine without gaps; and one that will mature in its casks to be the wonderful, award winning wines that Clearview is so proud of.

Looking at the results of the last 9 vintages, there must be a great locational advantage at play: the sea breezes bring in cool winds in the hot afternoons and carry salt traces which settle on the vines, strengthening their flavours.  The frosts are mitigated by the warm water temperatures and the recent investment of a large windmill.  Perhaps the foothills behind the winery and 2,500 trees help as well.  Whatever it is, the last 9 vintages have been fantastic.

Much of the wine will be sold in the vineyard restaurant.  A fore runner of the oh-so popular winery restaurants these days, it has been operating in its low key, relaxed way for 20 years.  Helma and Tim make it sing. You will see Tim talking happily about his wine, educating the diner on the range of his cellar.  This is the human face of a business that is becoming increasingly mechanized, increasingly impersonal.  Neither Helma nor Tim would every dream of not being on site.

It’s a labour of love, tinged with humour, kindness and optimism as well as careful management and an eye for success.  And a great drink.  Salut Tim!

I mention this simply because we all know Melbourne to be one hell of a town for dining and yet we face the same dilemmas here in Hawke’s Bay. Helma Van den Berg from Clearview Estate Winery agrees.  It’s hard, she says, to sustain full-time staff at a good rate of pay when business is light early in the week but balloons on Saturday and Sunday.  And public holiday weekends really don’t help, as the staff costs rise by a factor of three.  Helma mentioned that there’s no problem finding the top staff-Chef and sous chef-but the mid level part of the brigade-the chef de parties and commis, the general hands–virtually doesn’t exist anymore.

Head chefs in New Zealand on average get paid between $45-55,00 per year (of course there are exceptions). Judging from the personnel emails I receive, these numbers are the same in Australia, and even in Dubai and Saudi Arabia. It has been this way for nearly 20 years, yet the average working week for a head chef of a good establishment will be 50 to 70 hours a week-or should be if they are taking the task seriously. Hours for other staff are similar; and 80 % of the hospitality work force is earning minimum wage or slightly more at fourteen dollars an hour.

Several years ago, we had kids coming out of trade schools and indeed high schools clamoring to join the hospitality ranks. This seems to have dried up for us here in Hawke’s Bay, with many of our top-line future talent fleeing to major cities and the perceived better restaurants, or just a great restaurant scene.  And others are fleeing to more lucrative trades.  Young builders, electricians, etc. can easily get to twenty five dollars per hour, generally clock off at 5 p.m., and have off weekends, public holidays…even Christmas!  And there’s no need for the expense of tertiary hospitality education, so they have no student debt either.  Just straight to the earning position.  Who can blame them?

Chefs too, are leaving their chosen career because they can’t raise their families and have a normal car-mortgage-kids kind of life.

Clint Toomer of European Gourmet is one of these chefs.  Four and a half years ago he and his lovely wife Regina made the break from the kitchens as chefs and started their own business making exceptional stocks and classical sauces, etc. for home and supermarket sales. Clint says it was a lifestyle choice.  Now he can raise a family, take the kids to school and be there for them in the evenings…in short, have a normal life.  Since that decision, they now have three children under the age of four! Income might not be all that different, but he has many more benefits in his new business compared with the old seventy hour weeks on the pans.

In all honesty, if restaurants were airlines or a power companies, our prices would rise with the cost of living, as they should. If our staff were unionised like most other trades, we would get annual pay increases along the same lines. But, restaurants have to keep prices down to remain an attractive option for the diner. According to a formula employed by most restaurants, labor costs and food costs can’t exceed more than 66 % of every dollar of food sales, give or take a percentage here and there.

The food index rose over 23 % last year, and two months ago, we had the highest increase in food prices in one month since 1989. Luxury dining rooms in New Zealand have had a fairly difficult time of it and have had to increase their prices, quite justifiably, to provide the same level of service.

An exception seems to be the luxury lodge. Larry Blume, proprietor of the Masters Lodge on Napier Hill (rated as one of the top five Art Deco lodges in the world) says that the normal rules of food costs and such that apply to a la carte restaurants don’t feature in his market. He knows his guests’ wishes and plans before arrival and can staff accordingly.

But the pressure on New Zealand restaurants is coming on and restaurants are downsizing labour and the price of their produce to keep prices favorable for the client.  For example, in the Shed 2 Gastro Pub, I use a lot more pork belly, ox cheeks, and beef short ribs than I ever would have.  The dishes are delicious. I still purchase from the same single farm that delivers amazing quality; but ten years ago, it was a different picture.  I could buy premium cuts for less, with free delivery.  My margins were better and enabled the operation to supply at a friendlier market rate.  In my fine dining restaurant we have increased prices to cope and still provide all the luxury items you would expect.

So, what do we do?

We go dining and consider ourselves lucky that we are spoilt for choice by the dedicated professionals that truly love their industry. It is times like these when you gain more respect for quality operations that have been on the map for over a decade and longer. Establishments such as Clearview Estate, Vidals, The Mission, and so on.  They deserve our patronage now more than ever.

One such revolutionary is Jeremy Rameka of Pacifica restaurant. I recently spent some time with him in his restaurant. He and wife Rebecca own and operate their own dedicated dining room on Marine Parade in Napier. Jeremy, like many of the line cooks that I know and love, is driven–driven to perfect his cuisine in a town that generally overlooks the small establishment.

At Pacifica, an inspired chef cooks to a controlled audience of 34 with 4 cooks, rather than 4 cooks trying to feed a crowd of hundreds in three hours with hit and miss results. And guess what? Jeremy wants more cooks, so that YOU, the diner, will have better food. He doesn’t want your praise or accolades. He’s the sort that doesn’t want to be led around by a ring in his nose by people in organisations that stand for terribly important things. He doesn’t want to cook in your home or on a stage in a ballroom, doesn’t want to go to dinners and hang out with the “it” crowd. He wants to cook his wonderful cuisine in his restaurant, with his wife and staff to pamper you. He and his staff want to take you to their place, their table, because that’s what it’s all about. That’s all it’s about!

I wonder why it is so hard for people to understand that great cooks wake each day to please their diner. These cooks want to delight and amaze you with their craft, and take you away, just for an evening, to their vision of your happiness. This is Haute Cuisine and the culinary arts…not friggin wedges and nachos with bottled sauce.

Jeremy starts his day at 6.30 am and, like all great cooks, wants to be in his kitchens early. That magical time of the day when his bench is spotless, shined from the midnight cleandown the night before…and all is quiet: no phones, no interruptions, no people.

Make a cup of coffee, read the morning paper, all the while imagining the perfect menu for tonight. Fresh ingredients gathered, prepared, cooked and consumed by the day are a hallmark of great cooks. They don’t want the mindless humdrum of repetition, plating the same dish in the same way for weeks. They–and certainly Jeremy–want to see the seasons splash day by day against the plates going happily to delighted diners.

By 8 am he’s on the rounds of his suppliers…looking, tasting, smelling, bargaining and pleading for the very best…purchasing the local ingredients for the dinner this evening. On my rounds in the morning I will catch sight of Jeremy and sometimes bump into him in various locations…time for a quick chat and each of us eyeing the other’s goodies. So it goes on.

Back to his kitchens, he will lay out the provisions and prepare a rough mental note of the day’s plan, briefing the staff as they assemble. Coffee, maybe Danish, and a good chat about the dishes of the evening, a general thrust of an idea, but the dishes are never really finalised in earnest until seconds before the diner arrives. This is cooking. This is being a chef-your servant-and Jeremy is happy to oblige.

Come evening, with its chaotic, speed-chess game of not enough space, time and hands, this restaurant delivers: perfection of thought and ingredient melded seamlessly and served up to the client-you lucky buggers sitting in the chairs. Slowly the last souffle rises, the service winds down and the kitchen cleanup begins. Waiters start the polishing of glassware and, generally, Jeremy has a beer and reflects on his day and looks forward to the day to come.

For this is the revolution, and Jeremy is the Ché Guevara against the tide of mediocrity and sameness: kitchens that prefer the safety and security of repetitive cookery, and establishments that favour decor over service and convenience over the craft.

I sent Jeremy a Q &A sheet and here are some his replies.

Philosophy:

“Simplicity and feeling are the basis of my cooking. I aim to preserve the best of each ingredient and complement them together in flavour, texture, and appearance.”

“The greatest challenge in cooking is the marriage of ingredients. For example: bread & butter are a simple, wonderful match. Two completely different ingredients which, when matched, elevate both to a new level. It is a simple concept…people never think about how & why it came together; they simply take the entity for granted.”

“The difference between a good chef and an outstanding one comes from the sensitive or spiritual side of cooking. Like music. Everyone has a personal touch or feel. Some musicians just read notes and play while others actually feel what they are playing. The same with chefs. The resulting dishes will undoubtedly taste different because of the feelings, techniques, and mana that go into the food.”

Top three things on your dream list:

“Three more chefs in my kitchen.”

“To change people’s attitudes toward food, and focus on food as an art, craft, & pleasure rather than just fuel.”

“To sleep better.”

Impressions of dining in Hawke’s Bay

“Overall, the dining should be better. The whole culture of dining here does not demand better service or food. We have some of the best fruits, vegetables, & seafood available in NZ. Not enough chefs take advantage of these fresh local products. Furthermore, chefs are governed by the owners of the establishments. They cannot fully realize their imagination and passion.”

Who is in charge of the dining experience: the dining room, the kitchen or the diner?

“Our restaurant is our home . . . we treat our guests as if they are visiting us because they want to see us and what we are doing. The chef determines the menu for the night, the waiters make sure that the expectations are set in place and interpret the chef’s view of the food, and the maitre d’ looks after everyone’s needs from start to finish. When a diner chooses to come to our restaurant, he or she puts their faith into the staff and trusts that we will spoil and excite their senses.”

Your favourite all time dish:

“Egg toasties”

Viva Jeremy. Viva La Revolution.

Pacifica Restaurant

Owners: Jeremy & Rebecca Rameka

Chef: Jeremy Rameka

Manager: Rebecca Rameka

Open Tuesday through Saturday from 6pm until late.

Closed Sunday & Monday. Closed 1 month each year for staff holidays (June 2008)

Address: 209 Marine Parade, Napier

Postal Address: P.O. Box 589, Napier

Phone: (06) 833-6335

Recently, from the English village of Bray in Berkshire (pop 6,000) we hear that Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck restaurant has again been named one of the best in the world by the Guide Michelin. Interestingly enough, one of its signature dishes celebrates the humble snail. Heston’s amazing Snail Porridge, a feature of his Degustation menu, is at least partially responsible for the The Fat Duck’s waiting list being measured in months, the tiny town of Bray’s global media attention, and the area enjoying a phenomenal rise in tourism. (“Degustation,” by the way, means taste or tasting…as in tasting menu).

Twenty four years ago in Wellington at my restaurant Petit Lyon, I created a way of dining that in 1983 was revolutionary: the “Surprise Degustation.” After introducing this format to the top chefs that flew in from around the world, it is no surprise to me that many acclaimed restaurant menus are now Degustation derived.

As an “amuse” each evening, we used a snail dish…and clients loved it. Snail cappuccino especially! (Yes, this was created when Gordon Ramsay, Great Britain’s most starred chef, was still in high school!) We did snail burgers, snail pizzas the size of the old 50 cent piece…you get the picture. I will admit we never did snail porridge…and when I first saw that dish I thought to myself: Damn! Over 3,000 snail recipes but not a one for breakfast. Nevertheless, we did get famous for our snail dishes.

Not only are snails delicious to eat-and you’ll never know if you like them until you’ve tried-but they have a fascinating sex life. All snails are male until they mate, which is when something pretty strange happens. Below one eye, each snail has a type of penis that emerges during mating. This links up with the corresponding organ of the mating partner, and remains joined for up to 10 hours while the two politely exchange semen. One or other of the snails will then be inseminated, and will set off to lay several hundred eggs.

Snail caviar, as the eggs are known, was quite fashionable in gastronomic restaurants in the 1980s, but to tell the truth it does not have much flavor. Snail eggs look a little like grains of tapioca, and “pop” in the mouth, a characteristic that won’t appeal to everyone.

Anyway, assuming that the eggs don’t end up in the mouth of some discerning gastronome, each will hatch into a snail, which will form its shell as it grows. When they are about six months old, they are ready for the pot. Of course, many people (some of whom will never even have tried one) are quick to dismiss the snail as being not much different from a bit of rubber, cooking wise. But, properly prepared they are really pretty tasty.

All of this is to say that I can’t think of a single reason why snails shouldn’t thrive on the menus of Hawke’s Bay. This should come as good news to the folks at Silver Trail Snails, Hawke’s Bay’s illustrious snail farm, who asked me recently what I thought of the prospects for snail farming. Go for it!

Silver Trail Snails are easily available from the Hastings Farmers Market, are absolutely delicious and easy to prepare, and are-now that you’ve read this article-a remarkably reliable conversation piece. But take note: Silver Trail Snails have sold out for the season, so be early this summer or perhaps pre-order. Just give Raewynne a call (874-8554).

Currently, the only real local snail support is coming from Chefs Stephen Tindall from Craggy Range and Jeremy Rameka from Pacifica Restaurant. Isn’t it ironic that both these restaurants are finalists in the Cuisine Magazine Restaurant of the Year Award? (This is a “participation competition” whereby the restaurant enters the fray on its own behalf, rather than through a selection process.) Regardless, the snails must have taken them there.

But lookout: One of my ex-sous chefs at Petit Lyon, Martin Bosley (from restaurant Martin Bosley in Wellington, last year’s Supreme Winner) is in the running too; and I’m sure he’s using snails. (Actually, Martin is a contemporary of Heston Blumenthal. He may make the porridge for you…tell him I sent you.)

And this just in: Silver Trail Snails (with 43 other finalists from around NZ) has been nominated for this year’s Massey University Food Awards honoring “innovative food and drink” (to be decided this October).

Bringing it all back home, here is one of my favorite snail recipes from Petit Lyon (1983). This is a fun dish, very easy to prepare and a definite talking point. The most fun, of course, depends on keeping the main ingredient a surprise.

Snail Cappuccino

1 tbsp butter
6 silver trail snails
2 tbsp very finely diced mix of red onion, carrot, celery, kohlrabi, garlic (one clove), parsley.
100mls chicken stock (recommended from European Gourmet at Hastings Farmers Market)
75mls Lustau Pedro Ximénez Solera* sherry or good dessert wine
25mls cognac or brandy
milk foam (cappuccino foam by machine or whisk in pot to the boil on stovetop)

Heat butter in pan on med/high heat. Sauté vegetable mix briefly until colors brighten. Add snails. Slowly add stock and liquors, stirring until reduced by half, about 4 minutes, until thickened to soup consistency. Remove sauté from heat.

Divide snail sauté including dice and liquid evenly between two small demitasse cups. Top with milk foam and then cover with snail biscotti**

*Available at Liquor King and all good wine & spirit wholesalers
**for recipe, go to http://kentbaddeley.blogspot.com/

Remember this: Nearly two centuries ago, Brillat-Savarin wrote that “The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.”

Kent Baddeley is a nationally recognized restaurateur. He served as Executive Chef at a variety of Hawke’s Bay restaurants including Sileni, Clearview and Diva.