FOOD DESIGN CONFERENCE OFFERS UNIQUE EXPERIENCES TALENT IN DESIGNING FOOD By Noah Graham 18 JULY 2016 NIGERIAN CUISINE WITH FRENCH FLAIR By Noah Graham It is his unique blend of Nigerian cuisine and French flavours that has brought Michael Elegbede success in the food design world. Elegbede - one of the keynote speakers for the conference and until last year a pastry chef for the Nomad Restaurant and Daniel Humm’s three-Michelin-star restaurant Eleven Madison Park in New York – learnt about food from his mother and grandmother, who owned a cooking school in Nigeria. Now aged 26, Elegbede moved to America at the age of 13 and went on to study as a doctor at the University of Illinois like his father wanted. However, he swapped his stethoscope for a spatula upon discovering that food made him happy. It was at the Culinary Institute of America that he found there was a difference between cooking and culinary art. “I realised experiencing fine food and dining can be a memory,” he says. After living and breathing fine dining, Elegbede returned to his birthplace to introduce the idea of fine dining in Nigeria with a new restaurant. ”In Nigeria they cook stew just to eat. It should mean more than that.” His restaurant helps fine dining to flourish in Nigeria but without the usual food wastage that is often associated with the fine dining experience. The restaurant would source local produce and continue the idea of reusability. Dunedin has come alive in hosting hundreds of participants at its 2nd International Food Design Conference and Studio. Top food designers – including Marije Vogelzang from The Netherlands who has worked with Selfridges, Procter and Gamble, Virgin and Nestle, and Nigerian chef Michael Ade Elegbede – attracted attendees from around the country. Organiser Professor Richard Mitchell from the Otago Polytechnic’s Food Design Institute says this year’s event – first held two years ago – has been “an outrageous success," with all three days offering unique experiences to 150 delegates. The programme, based on sustainability, included some groundbreaking experiences, such as a day where all food served was made from ingredients usually discarded in a commercial kitchen. Lectures and hands-on workshops highlighted the people who grow, harvest, manufacture, cook and deliver food in New Zealand. Otago Polytechnic also hosted a workshop by Italian icecream maker Giapo Grazioli, and tested a new lowcost, healthy bread recipe aimed at reducing the risk of heart disease on Pacific Island children as part of a project combining elements of science, healthy eating and exercise. Christchurch chef Alan Davies looked at plant-derived foods such as vegetables, grains, herbs, spices, nuts and oils; and the ‘Love Food, Hate Waste’ lunch included contents of average compost bins such as battered and bruised apples, salmon carcass heads and cauliflower leaves. Marije Vogelzang is to the point…she says she was a lousy designer, until she thought about food as art. The first keynote speaker at the International Food Design Conference in Dunedin, Dutch chef Vogelzang told 150 guests that she had studied as a designer 17 years ago but realised it was hard because she was “no good at it.” It wasn’t until she got home and started cooking dinner that the penny dropped… her design flair came through food. Initially laughed at for her ambitions to combine food with design, she is now the one laughing after several successful international projects and now a pioneer in food design. It was the “verb of eating” that inspired her projects. She told of one which saw Hungarian gypsies telling the public their stories whilst they each sat in separate cubicles, the gypsies spoon-feeding the public. Her aim was to reduce anti-gypsy feeling. “I like to be something like an ethereal designer.” C O N F E R E N C E Al Brown Michael Elegbede Marije Vogelzang
FT-Jul16
To see the actual publication please follow the link above