Art and Cooking are Similar: Wide Open School event with Shimabuku and Daisuke Hayashi, 1 July 2012

Acclaimed Japanese artist Shimabuku began his Wide Open Class at the Hayward Gallery  by humorously recounting a selection of his previous exhibitions and works of art, often alternative, which somehow included food.

A memorable one, hosted by the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, consisted of floating and sinking tomatoes in an aquarium. The curators had to replace the tomatoes every few days and, on Shimabuku’s urging as he was concerned that the curators worked too hard and didn’t consume enough vitamins and fresh food, ate those being removed.

The curators would regularly have to pop over to the local greengrocer to replenish the stock of tomatoes. They  would request  floating and sinking tomatoes to keep the exhibit ‘afloat’. Bemused at first, the greengrocer eventually caught on and prepared a bucket with water so that the curators could choose their ‘exhibits’.

Another weird and wonderful project was Shimabuku’s 2000 Cucumber Journey. He travelled from London to Birmingham by canal boat, which took him two weeks, and on the way learned how to make pickled cucumber. Initially unsure how to make pickles, he was relieved at how easy it was to speak to people on either side of the canal from his boat, and relied on such individuals for cucumber pickle recipes. He arrived at Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery, where he was exhibiting, with a fine pickled cucumber and quite the expert.

An earlier 1992 piece consisted of an enormous picture of a gorilla, made up of gorilla food. Shimabuku then fed the food to a gorilla. Gorilla feed turned in to a gorilla itself.

On another occasion, filled with poetic wonder at the beauty of fish and chips – the fish hailing from the sea and the chips from the ground, Shimabuku threw a potato into the sea and filmed it as it cavorted with fish. The resulting film is impressively beautiful; it was worth Shimabuku obtaining his diver’s licence in order to film this potato’s epic journey. The potato turned out to be a rather good swimmer, observed Shimabuku, never quite sinking or floating.

Shimabuku went on to discuss other artworks which feature food such as da Vinci’s Last Supper, which shows the disciples about to tuck in to a meal, and prehistoric cave paintings which depict scenes of men hunting for food. Then there is Diego Velazquez’s 17th century painting, showing an old woman frying eggs and Cezanne’s paintings of apples. More recently, Andy Warhol painted Campbell Soup cans, Roy Lichtenstein painted hot dogs, and Wolfgang Tillmans has been photographing fruits and cups of coffee.

Referring to Japanese examples of art, Shimabuku mentioned 18th century Jakuchu Ito who painted fish, chickens, birds and octopuses, and the first Japanese oil painting which depicts a salmon.

On this note he introduced the chef, Daisuke Hayashi, who hails from Kobe like Shimabuku.

Hayashi is a chef at the Japanese Sake no Hana restaurant in London. He began by listing the four types of Japanese cooking: imperial palace cooking, vegetarian cooking – usually for Buddhist monks, family cooking and ‘kaiseki’ cooking. Kaiseki was originally a light meal given to people before taking part in a tea ceremony as the tea given on these occasions, ‘matcha’ is quite strong, like an espresso. Kaiseki has now developed into a a rather fancy ten-course meal.

Decoration is extremely important when serving food and Hayashi assembled a starter. Shimabuku was extremely excited by this as it is a great privilege and hugely unusual to see a starter being prepared by a top Japanese chef.

While European cuisine is practical, symmetrical and flat Hayashi described Japanese cuisine as being emotional, asymmetrical and three-dimensional.

Using a ‘hassun’, a 24cm squared round plate, Hayashi visualised a triangle and placed the food strategically within. The optimum size for a piece of food is 3cm by 2cm by 1cm and the ideal length of a pair of chopsticks is 1.5 times the span between thumb and index finger. As Shimabuku interjected, in Japan you will find chopsticks of varying sizes made especially for men, women and children.

Hayashi spoke about the importance of colour when assembling a plate of food. Red and yellow represent appetite, green represents freshness, black is for colour-coordination and white suggests cleanliness and freshness.

There are also five tastes: bitter, sweet, sour, salty and umami. Umami, explained Hayashi scientifically, can be made with glutamate, inosinic acid and guanylic acid.

Japanese food shouldn’t be too tasty said Hayashi. In the same way that Japanese like flowers just before they bloom and they appreciate the moon on the day before the full moon they favour a less full taste.

Hayashi made ‘dashi’ (‘miso soup stock’) in the classroom using 1,800 ml of soft water, 30 g of ‘kombu’ (kelp), and 50 g of ‘katsuobushi’ (bonito flakes). Dashi can also be made with dried tomatoes and dried mushrooms instead of katsuobushi suggested Hayashi.

Hayashi then prepared miso soup by heating up the stock and adding clams to the pot. He then removed some of the hot stock in which to dissolve the miso paste. Miso paste, explained Hayashi, shouldn’t be heated up too much as otherwise the flavour dissipates. The miso paste dissolved in stock is then added to the pot which is quickly taken off the heat, poured into bowls and garnished with slices of spring onion. Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery, was in the audience. As he had specifically requested the miso soup and an accompanying recipe, he was asked to taste it. The aroma in the class  was mouth-watering. Taking a sip of soup, Rugoff declared it delicious.

At the end of the talk audience members were invited to a cupful of delicious, rich, mushroom-infused soup – the ingredients were kept secret as, said Shimabuku, sometimes you have to trust the chef; a skewer of caramelised onion with a strawberry which, though an odd combination, when eaten in one mouthful is absolutely delicious; a morsel of prawn sushi, and freshly grated ‘wasabi’ or horse radish. We were also given a few slices of wasabi, which is crispy and far less hot than the grated variety.

Wasabi, along with food and art, is certainly an acquired taste.

The Open School with Shimabuku and Hayashi was a huge success!

Wide Open School was supported by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation.