Fusion and confusion

When East joins forces with West, the sweet snuggles up to the savoury, the bitter collaborates with the sour, traditional speech is mingled with the futuristic, and conventional emotions become tied up with the extreme. What is fusion? Fusion is where flavour rules

“Simplicity! I think that’s where the future lies. You don’t need two types of source and four garnishes on the same plate. You need one dominant spice, and invention. And the creativity to take to flavours that, at first glance, seem to be far removed from each other, and combine them so as to create a harmonious whole. In my cooking the chocolate soufflé meets the five Chinese spices. Chutney meets with duck, wild garlic with spinach, and sweet potato with coriander. Surprisingly, they’re incredibly harmonious together. That’s the secret: harmony. The fusion movement started out from California, where Japanese, French and American chefs began to experiment with merging their national dishes. It has been amazingly successful over the past twenty-odd years. It’s not by chance that I emphasise the word “harmony”, because gastronomic fusion was really inspired by jazz. I, too, like south-American jazz. That’s fusion as well. The essence of it is that, just like the music, the food should also have harmony. In the old days dishes were named after regular customers. Now this whole concept has been reversed. Today, people go to a restaurant because of the chef. The chef is the star, not the guests any more. Things are beginning to get out of proportion, and that’s not right. I’d like to start something. I’d like to instil in people a desire to experiment, to try new spices and unusual combinations of flavours. Because it’s important to reform our own cuisine. It’s no coincidence that the Italian and French cuisines have maintained such high standards for centuries on end – they dare to accept new ideas. If we become insular we’ll be left behind. A revolution is under way, in the world today, and Hungary is being left out. We shouldn’t stand for this. As customers raise their standards of home cooking, the quality of catering establishments will also change. And then at last we will get a sense that something has happened – when we finally accept that there’s more to life than goulash.