Yes, Chef - Gravlax

Yes, Chef: A Memoir

By Marcus Samuelsson and Veronica Chambers

336 pages, Random House, 2013

Chef memoirs can get repetitive after a while. The chef-to-be is initiated to the pleasures of cooking at a young age, either by an untrained yet gifted older relative, or through a multitude of influences. They go on to study in some culinary institution, where at some point they are yelled at, then do grunt work in a kitchen, where they get yelled at some more and learn to deal with the gruelling physical labour and surrounding machismo that come with the job. Then comes the reward, in some form or another, for all their hard work and daring.

I am, of course, exaggerating. Yet the chef’s journey, by this point, has become familiar to most readers interested in the genre. How, then, can one stand out? After all, not everyone has Gabrielle Hamilton’s insight and talent, or Anthony Bourdain’s bravado. Marcus Samuelsson’s memoir, Yes, Chef, stands out through the sheer uniqueness of its author’s personal journey, as well as the warmth and family love that pervades it.

It is of course unfair to reduce Marcus Samuelsson to his personal background – the man, after all, is an accomplished and recognized chef. Yet it is difficult to not focus on the more personal aspects of his journey. Born in Ethiopia and left stranded with his sister when their mother passed away from tuberculosis when he was three, Samuelsson was adopted by a Swedish couple. It was in Sweden that he basked in the kitchen of his own “untrained yet gifted older relative,” his grandmother. After losing out on a promising career in professional soccer, he turned to cooking and eventually climbed up the culinary ladder, passing through Austria and Switzerland and finally settling down in New York City. Samuelsson eventually went on to win the second season of Top Chef Masters, as well as a James Beard award, and overseeing President Barack Obama’s first state dinner. He also eventually tracked down his birth father in Ethiopia.

As someone who grew up on three continents, I couldn’t help but empathize with Samuelsson’s perspective. Growing up black in a small Swedish town was not easy at all times, despite his family’s obvious support. Neither, as most know by now, is being a black chef in Western regions, no matter what the context. Samuelsson makes clear that obstacles for black chefs are still very much present – and that even when people are open and accepting, being singled out as the “cultural exception” is not something to be necessarily grateful for. But Samuelsson has chosen to embrace the diverse culinary influences in his life, from his grandmother’s home cooking to the classic French recipes he learned in Switzerland to the Ethiopian berbere seasoning his mother must have used in her lifetime. He describes his constant desire for discovering new flavour combinations and blurring boundaries, something that most contemporary food lovers can only appreciate.

Although Samuelsson’s memoir does not stand out through a personal literary style (he appears to have enlisted the help of writer Veronica Chambers), it nevertheless shines with honesty. Samuelsson comes through as a confident, driven man, ambitious to a fault, who nevertheless does not shy away from his failings, nor from self-deprecation. He does not hesitate to narrate how he fathered a daughter at a young age and put off truly meeting her until he was an established chef, just like he confesses to missing his adoptive father’s funeral because circumstances prevented him from leaving the United States. Some may surely judge such decisions to be reprehensible, or at least unappealing, but Samuelsson does not attempt to gloss over them. Nor does he shy from telling us about his failure in launching one of his restaurants, thereby giving us a glimpse into the business. I for one appreciated the straightforwardness of this portrayal.

A part of me does feel guilty singling out Samuelsson’s personal journey as the main appeal of his book. After all, he makes clear throughout his memoir that he wishes to not be seen as the Swedish black chef. At the same time, highlighting such unique backgrounds is essential to making artificial boundaries appear as such. The cultural blending that Samuelsson has chosen to promote should not be smoothed away, but rather highlighted and celebrated as an opening to new possibilities. But his tale appeals to us also through its loving portrayal of the people he has met along the way, from his adoptive parents and birth father to his colleagues. While the language remains simple, the portraits ring true, and enable us to gain insight into these people’s hearts and what they mean to the author. To Samuelsson’s credit, he rarely indulges in nastiness towards the people with whom his dealings have been less than pleasant (although Gordon Ramsay gets a particularly harsh mention). What results is a warm depiction and a tale that is, in a lot of ways, inspiring.

Given Samuelsson’s multicultural approach, I had my pick of any number of recipes to illustrate this review. I chose gravlax, mostly because I had been wanting to make this Nordic dish for a very long time. Because this was my first attempt, I forewent the more whimsical recipes involving eccentric spices and booze (despite my profound love for both of them) and went for a classic combination of sugar, salt and dill. After consulting several recipes, I mostly followed an old Mark Bittman recipe from The New York Times, with some variations in technique and curing time. After four days in the fridge, the gravlax was on the saltier side, but with a lovely, silky yet firm texture.

 

Gravlax

Slightly adapted from The Minimalist

Serves four as a lunch or small plate

One pound salmon filet, skin on

125ml (1/2 cup) kosher salt

250ml (1 cup) brown sugar

One bunch dill, coarsely chopped

Cut the salmon in half, crosswise.

Combine the salt and sugar together. Rub the flesh side of the salmon with the mixture, making sure to use it all. Cover both pieces with chopped dill. Take one piece of salmon and place it on top of the other, so that both flesh sides are touching and the seasoning and herbs are sandwiched between the pieces of fish. Put any remaining dill on the skin sides of the salmon. Wrap tightly in plastic and place in a semi-deep dish (the fish will release a lot of liquid). Place a weight on top of the whole thing (I used two stacked plates). and put in the fridge.

Let rest in the fridge for three or four days. When ready to serve, rinse the curing ingredients off the fish and pat the fish dry. With a sharp knife, cut thin slices of fish, scraping the skin off as you work (cutting at an angle will give you larger slices). Serve immediately with a squeeze of lemon juice and a crack of black pepper, with lightly toasted bread.

The rinsed gravlax should keep in the fridge, wrapped in plastic, for a couple of days. If the fish has not been previously frozen, you can wrap it and freeze it for a future occasion, but the texture may be altered.