Food Detective: Going for grotesque in cuisine

• Reprints

Chef Ryan Poli’s truffle-specked take on an Escoffier classic. (Courtesy David Hammond)

Updated: May 12, 2011 11:34AM

Last in a series on how chefs use humor in their cooking.

At a private event earlier this year, chef Ryan Poli sent out what looked like birds' nests filled with cracked eggs, inside of which were black particles.

Those dark spots turned out to be truffle shavings in Poli's riff on Escoffier's classic Oeufs Benedictine. Several people looked at the busted eggs in moss and seemed to silently decide, "Uh, not for me."

But these goodies were the highlight of the evening: rich, earthy, a little grotesque-looking - and funny.

There's something titillating and humorous about eating the grotesque, especially if what seems forbidding turns out to be tasty.

Grant Achatz of Alinea, 1723 N. Halsted, and Next, 953 W. Fulton, recalls one of his creations that was "maybe a culinary bad joke." At Christmas, he served venison with a pine branch and candy canes "so it would be kind of like eating Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer under a Christmas tree," he chortled.

With his "Foielipop," chef Graham Elliot presents fatty goose liver as a Pop Rocks-coated lollipop, leveraging the fact that liver goes well with sweet flavors . It's a limits-pushing concoction; putting an internal organ on a stick is unexpected and comedic.

Eating the apparently inedible is a theme in Modernist Cuisine, Nathan Myhrvold's recently published six-volume work that catalogs such food items: edible "clay and rocks" or a biscuit covered with bubbles of honey that resembles a bar of soap.

The grotesque in modern cuisine may have its origins in F.T. Marinetti's Futurist Cookbook, which details militantly "modernist" preparations, such as chicken stuffed with ball bearings and salami served in cologne and espresso. (Called "The Excited Pig," the latter dish got big laughs when I served it at a picnic last summer - and lots of people actually ate it.)

Chefs we've referenced in this series - Achatz, Elliot, Homaro Cantu and Michael Taus - spent time in the kitchen of Charlie Trotter. Dinner at Trotter's is no laughing matter, and there's a sobriety in his dining room reinforced by his refusal to serve liquor with his carefully orchestrated tasting menus.

Perhaps these chefs feel the need to do something just as delicious but very different - more humorous and even a little irreverent - than what they'd witnessed in the master's kitchen.

Whatever their motives, our appetite for humor is powerful. When we go out for dinner, we've come to expect that chefs will make us great food, and perhaps even make us laugh.

David Hammond is an Oak Park writer, Chicago Public Radio contributor and founder/moderator of culinary chat site LTHForum.com. Questions, comments, tips? E-mail detective@suntimes.com.