Minneapolis chef and 2009 Beard Award nominee Stewart Woodman opens up a can of worms on his blog as he strings together interesting if poorly documented molecular gastronomy–related health concerns:
The temporary closing of Heston Blumenthal’s (pictured above) Fat Duck due to a food poisoning scare;
The charge by Chef Santi Santamaria that “recipes made popular by Ferran Adria and his court of followers are putting people at risk”;
And (this last observation shows up in the comments section, added by food writer Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl) Grant Achatz’s bout with mouth cancer.
Pouring gasoline on the fire, Woodman then observes:
“For the conspiracy theorists out there, if it’s worth anything, Ferran Adrià, and Heston Blumenthal are regularly crowned the best chefs in the world by the British publication Restaurant Magazine, sponsored by Nestlé (San Pellegrino), the world’s largest food processing company.”
Anyone who lives in the Twin Cities (especially those that work in food service) knows Woodman to be an ass. How else would you characterize the bio on his website that begins, “Often these days words like gifted, and talented are bantered about. So much so that they have begun to lose their meaning, that is until the actual thing comes along and reminds us of what those words mean.” Perhaps he should concentrate on making food rather than presumptions.
I find it ironic that someone who is worried about words losing their meaning used the word “bantered” when it should have been “bandied” and in the article linked, used “effected” when he should have used “affected” (among other grammatical errors).