HB: Is that also because you’re self-publishing, and presumably you’ve got fewer middlemen to get involved? I don’t actually quite know how that works.
GA: Yeah, basically—you are the one controlling costs, and you have the power to hire the photographers you want and the writers you want. But ultimately we wanted it to be approachable on the price scale. If we make less money we make less money, but I wanted people to be able to pick it up. I think it would be great if we could get aggressive amateur cooks, and even people in the industry—it’s priced at that point where it might infiltrate the market a bit more. It might educate people on what this cuisine is and why we do what we do. We focus in the book on dispelling some of the myths and some of the negativity that swirl around this type of cuisine. The critics are saying this is emotionless cuisine, it has no soul; so we’re trying to combat those kinds of critiques, and when people get their hands on the book and read what we have to say, they might actually understand our cuisine a little better. It’s worth the effort.
HB: I actually have agreed with the publishers that after a year, we’re going to do a £30 one. So the book will get scaled down; it’ll still have all the information in there, but it will just be a smaller book, so the accessibility comes in at that point. But to hear those comments that [our style of cuisine] is dehumanizing cooking and reducing it to a test-tube, people are completely misunderstanding it. If you really wanted to be a purist about it, man should only ever cook over fire, not use anything electrical.
CH: That’s interesting, because it seems like your cuisines are actually so much about emotion and imparting some sort of feeling to the eater.
HB: I’m not saying that Grant or I are any more emotional than a classically minded cook. Chefs take ingredients, do things with them, and serve them to people; but we have more ingredients, more equipment, and more knowledge than we’ve ever had—so it’s even more exciting. And excitement is an emotion. And do you think that we get any less excited than somebody who serves a nice roasted leg of lamb with some rosemary and onion compote or something? That could form part of any of our dishes anyway, but it’s just that we interpret them in our own style. And that actually becomes—I don’t dare to say more emotional, but it’s certainly a way to give excitement and pleasure to the people eating your food.
CH: So do you guys foresee that these books will make the scientific approach to cooking more common in everyday households? Or will it still remain a specialized niche for people who really want to challenge themselves?
GA: Well, I don’t think it’s going to become mainstream for people to cook like this every night, and that’s certainly not my intention. But, for instance, I know a lot of people who aren’t cooks but who enjoy throwing dinner parties and entertaining at home—and they’re cooking out of the French Laundry cookbook, or they’re cooking out of Charlie Trotter’s cookbook. When those books came out 8 or 10 years ago, people were like “oh, we can never do this at home”—and now people are cooking out of them regularly when they entertain. So now there are books coming out that show updated versions of what the greatest restaurants in the world are doing, and I think it’s just going to keep filtering down. I don’t think people are going to be running out and buying a lot of expensive equipment for their home; but a lot of the ingredients [we use] are things you can go to the store and buy, which is another misconception. And I think people will buy [our] books and pick the recipes they want to try based on their skill level.
HB: One of the ways these books could have real influence is when people thumb through the index and say “I wonder what he’s doing with potatoes,” and they pull out one of the techniques used in the process of making a dish. I don’t think people will pick up the Fat Duck cookbook or Grant’s cookbook and fall over in shock because they’ll never be able to do any of it. We’ll still have lots of little bits and techniques that people can pull out and use at home—or even better, that might spark off an idea for somebody to go and give something else a try.
GA: Yeah, in fact, we’re going to have a paragraph in there about how it would carry on the spirit of the restaurant if people didn’t carry out the recipe verbatim, but if they read the recipe, looked at the photo, and were inspired to do a dish of their own. That sense of creativity is what we’re trying to convey. It would be really cool if people did that.
CH: And Grant, people who buy your book will also get access to the “Alinea Mosaic,” the companion website where readers can give feedback and ask questions.
GA: Yeah, we felt it was really important to do an online component. We’re all kind of web geeks.
HB: We’re getting there, but I don’t want to talk about my website, thank you very much! We’re planning on having it launched sometime near the time of the book coming out, but at the moment...oof.
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