A sensual night of taste & touch

held at a secet masonic temple at the Andaz Hotel

21/09/2011

http://www.franklintill.com/2011/08/franklintill-presents-secret-sensory-suppers/

*Free of forks, knifes, spoons, plates, glasses or other conventional culinary instruments

You are part of an experimental eating performance

Manual

Sourdough rolls suspended from the ceiling. Syringes filled with elderflower vinegar, roast hay oil and fresh mascarpone

Inject the floating sourdough rolls with the filled syringes and eat mid air.

***

Cured and cold-smoked mackerel sticks accompanied by a communal chalice holding tomato and sherry gazpacho

Receive the cured mackerel directly into your mouth from your assistant.

Take it and eat. Take the cup and drink from it.

***

Pork rillettes, Jersey Royals, pickled asparagus, rhubarb compote

Extend your arms with the branches of trees and reach for rilettes, jersey royals, pickled asparagus and rhubarb compote.

***

Strawberry in jelly on strawberry caviar

Suck the jelly and caviar straight out of the Petri dish.

***

Fresh mint globe.

Pop the ballon and smash the fresh mint globe with a hammer. Eat.

The meal is accompanied by wine and water. Imbibe via thin transparent tubes supplied.

you can book tickets for the public night here:

http://blanchandshockfooddesign.blogspot.com/

A bit of work in progress of my cutlery implosion – I love working with metal. Very proud to have invented a fork/toothpick combo en route…

I have been comissioned to do a food performance piece for the Gwangju Biennale directed by the missing Ai Weiwei. For an artist who is actually arrested or missing in art action he is involved in a lot of projects and exhibition openings.

I am preparing a performed dinner with the wonderful team from Blanch & Shock in June in London. This dinner will be filmed and projected as part of an installation in Gwangju in September. The dinner will be eaten entirely without crockery and cutlery. Diners will be forced to find new ways to ingest food. Nibbling it suspended from mid air, injecting oil directly into bread rolls, reaching with tree branches into rilettes or having ceviche placed directly into the mouth like an Eucharist. It is a revolt against the mindless acceptance of everyday design objects. Will the food taste different if eaten without fork, knife or spoon? Will the wine taste purer if sucked straight from the bottle with a long tube?

Suspended form mid air will be a cutlery sculture – a cinematic slow motion implosion of all the cutlery we use everytime we eat as if magically pulled together by an invisible force:

I am welding the final piece on Tuesday…If Ai Weiwei can direct a Biennale from a prison cell I can weld a few forks together…

After making the individual parts in Berlin I flew the whole thing over to London and after 2 manic- frantic fondant icing rolling days the cake was finished and installed at Selfridges.

Quite proud of the psychedelic fondant marbling. Felt incredible intimated by the fellow cake- makes real professional – it didn’t help that AnOther billed it as 10 of the world’s best cake makers. Now that is a lot of spin on my humble cheesecake.

The cake in action during the party.

The original masterplan.

Very inspired to make more edible cake sculptures. An alternative Royal Wedding cake is in planning.

The wonderful Annie Nicholl asked me to take part in Another Magazines 10th Birthday celebration at Selfridges.

They asked 10 Fashion Designers ( think Dolce & Gabbana, Givenchy, Lanvin, Missoni…) to team up with 10 Food Creatives. ( think Bompass & Parr, Mark Hix and me?????)

I was given Missoni after Christian Louboutin had what gay shoe designers have apparently all the time in order to stay sharp – a strop. And didn’t wanted anything to do with Selfridges, Another Magazine and me. Well at least that was communicated though his press assistant number 3 to the press assistant number 36 at Another Magazine.

That leaves me colour mixing and marbling for Missoni

.

On my recent trip to Poland we stayed at my uncles farm in the Carpathian mountains. My daughter Mimi was in milky heaven. 40 or so cows chewed on juicy grass all day to produce the perfect milk, which after the daily milking by hand and machine she drank and drank. Her ideal world would be formed in butter, yogis, creams and quarks. So strange that milk has had so much bad press recently. There is almost a witch hunt out there. If you have bad skin, digestive problems or are simply a bit down it’s probably because you are lactose intolerant and not cultured enough to have your decaf latte with soy milk.

There is nothing more comforting than a glass of hot milk with honey on a dark chilly evening.

For the time being I might be soy- intolerant. No soymilk, tofu or sprouts for me.

I am very excited and a bit nervous about my next project which brings me to Karachi in Pakistan.
The recent floods have caused food prices to triple in the already poor and politically unstable nation.

For 3 month the Zagreus project in Berlin will become a humanitarian aid station of a different kind.
It will host a dinner for paying guests each night. A mouthwatering 5 course menu will be prepared.
The menu will be delicious wintery German interspersed with the herbs and spices of the east: Cardamon, cloves, mace and saffron, caraway and cumin seeds flavour the elaborate banquet like in medieval times.

The identical ingredients up to the last grain and seed will be packaged up in a large parcel each night with exact instructions on how to prepare them and send to a host in flood ravaged Pakistan. One of the worst-ever natural disasters has caused food prices to triple in the already poor nation. Pakistanis of different classes and religious backgrounds are all invited to make a meal for friends and family.
All ingredients are of course useful in their own right, but a special recipe book will be illustrated and translated into Urdu and added to the package with the hope that they will experience a parallel banquet in very different circumstances.

At the end of the night diners are invited to write a note and the parcel is closed together and send to the specific parallel dinner party.

The recorded delivery slip is kept each night and framed and hung on the wall of the gallery with photographs of the diners.

Menu *

Berlin Taftan- leavened bread flavoured with saffron and cardamon, sprinkled with caraway seeds.
Food parcel Pakistan Breadmix with saffron strands, cardamon pods and caraway seeds.

Berlin Goosepate on dried prunes with chutney
Food parcel Pakistan Can of goosepate , a pack of dried prunes and a jar of chutney

Berlin Mushroom Risotto with Parmasan shavings with mace and black pepper.
Food parcel Pakistan A sack of Arborio rice, a bloc of Parmesan, dried mushrooms, mace and pepper

Berlin Sauerbraten (Beef stew) marinated for a week in bayleaves, juniperberries and cloves with a traditional potato dumpling
Food parcel Pakistan Canned beef,  bayleaves, juniperberries and cloves, vinegar and dried potatoe dumplings

Berlin Marzipan Stollen
Food parcel Pakistan Marzipan Stollen

BerlinLebkuchen Kulfi Popsicle
Food parcel Pakistan, UHT milk, wooden lollipopsticks, Lebkuchen

* subject to change after my trip to Karachi at teh end of October.

http://www.zagreus.net/

Mitessen dinners and the accompanying exhibtion will run from 20th of November 2010- 26th of January 2011.

It’s amazing how something we desire so much, which looks so appetizing, for which we would sacrifice so much- turns

disgusting and disturbing the next.

the leftovers are still there.