Mark Best, Chef and Owner, Marque Restaurant, Sydney

It may be hard to imagine, but one of Australia’s most acclaimed chefs used to work as an electrician in the mines of Western Australia. These days, however, Mark Best brings electricity to the kitchen of his award-winning, French-influenced restaurant, Marque. Located in the hip, inner Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, the sleek dining room of Marque is a far cry from the searing temperatures and dusty, ochre landscapes of outback Kalgoorlie.

What brought you from working as an electrician in the gold mines of Western Australia to your current place in the culinary world, as a symbol of new Australian Cuisine?

After working in the mines for four years, I spent a period of time refitting submarines for the Australian Government before finding my feet working with food. I simply found myself working in a job that I didn’t like and under quite arduous conditions, so at this stage, I was looking for any means to escape. Food revealed itself to be the answer to what I was looking for, and it just so happened that I was kind of good at it as well. Being a chef is obviously a stressful job and I went into it with a full awareness of that. I went into it purely for the love of cooking and that continues to be what drives me today.

What factors and influences have defined new Australian Cuisine? (I couldn’t help but notice the shocking absence of kangaroo and vegemite recipes in your upcoming cookbook, Best Kitchen Basics)

It’s funny actually because most of the general public here in Australia still struggles with eating at least one half of our coat of arms (The kangaroo part, that is, for those who aren't familiar). It’s the cute factor, I suppose.

In terms of influence, Australia’s geographical connection to Asia & given the fact that a significant part of our population arrive through immigration has had an enormous positive effect on our culinary culture. Nearly 40-percent of Sydneysiders speak a non-English language at home and more than 250 languages are spoken in Sydney. These language groups are quite concentrated in Sydney (far less so in Melbourne) That means that these language centers are also cultural centers of religion, food etc.

The biggest influence for me has been the way we as chefs eat in Australia via the continent’s multicultural diversity. It also means that we access the local ingredients grown and push our creativity to use them in unique, non-traditional ways. The Australian landscape is unique in that it is particularly rich in diversity -- rich, but also harsh. These environmental extremes define and bring the Australian ‘flavour’ to our cuisine. Indigenous ingredients are also now becoming more widely recognized amongst consumers and their supply is at a consistency to be taken on as everyday staples in our commercial kitchens.

How would you like to see the current face of Australian cuisine recognized on an international level?

I think that we’re already well on our way to being recognized internationally, however, it is mainly through travel by chefs as well as tourism that the awareness that something different and special is happening with our culinary community here, down under, is spread.

I don’t wish for Australia to be seen as better or more recognized for its cuisine than any other country, just different and flourishing, which is in an of itself something to be acknowledged and celebrated.

With the upcoming release of your book, Best Kitchen Basics, what statements on culinary culture do you wish to convey and what message are you attempting to bring into the home kitchen?

This second book of mine is a collection of home-style recipes that I want to add to the Home Cooking lexicon. I want to challenge tradition a little and get the average home cook to think a little more about what they are cooking, why, and where their ingredients are coming from.

These days, technology of all forms continues to have a exponentially growing presence in all of our lives, in our homes, and in our communities. As a chef, do you find yourself embracing these advancements as an asset in your kitchen environment, or does technological presence instead fuel a nostalgic tendency towards the use of more basic methods and techniques?

Technology is simply a means to an end and cuisine needs to either advance or atrophy in its wake. At my restaurant, Marque, we have always used the latest technology in conjunction with traditional and artisanal techniques. I don’t believe in using any technique as a gimmick or for theatrical purposes, but instead as a means to broaden my choices in the way that I use my ingredients.

This interview had been edited and condensed from its original format. 

Roni Saslove, Winemaker, The Tasting Room, Tel Aviv, Israel

Roni Saslove is a winemaker and and a viticulturist. Half Canadian and Half Israeli, she trained at Brock University of Niagara’s Tawse Winery before returning to Israel tending to her family's vineyards in the Golan Heights.  Currently she runs the very hip wine bar - The Tasting Room in Tel Aviv’s newly renovated Sarona district.

Tell us a bit about yourself….

I’ve been making wine full-time for over 12 years now, and have been a part of the winemaking process for over 20-years. Wine had always been apart of my life, something I enjoying drinking, but as I began working in the winery more and more, I became completely hooked.

Growing grapes and just experiencing all the parts of this process that are….both scientific and very magical. To make wine from a  scientific perspective is not challenging, but to create beautiful, delicious wine, is a product of so much more than academic knowledge -- it requires an incredible amount of passion, of soul and energy.

What role do our personal perception and taste affect our experience, and our appreciation for wine?

Through my education in sensory analysis, I learned to better understand and appreciate our perspective as wine tasters. Our perception of the wine that we taste is ultimately influenced by so many things other than the wine itself, most of which, we’re rarely aware of. The way that each individual experiences a certain wine, no matter its quality, can be completely unique and I find that to be very enriching.

In Hebrew there’s a saying, Al Tam Vereach, En Litvak Eachon: On taste and smell there’s nothing to argue about. I feel this is very true, there’s no place for argument, but there is a lot of place for sharing our experiences, of flavor for example, with one another.

What is Israel’s history, as a wine country?

Israel is a very young wine country, and a very ancient one at the same time. We’re filled with so many diverse Terroirs; from the Golden Heights, the Upper-Galilee, the Lower-Galilee and to the desert, that each create different styles of wine, while all retaining something distinguishable in common. When you taste an Israeli wine, there’s a very unique taste to it. Because we’re a warm and sunny region, and most of our grapes are grown at high-altitudes, our grapes retain characteristics of green, as well as a bit of the capstone, the asparagus, and a lot of mint as well, that really set them apart from those grown anywhere else in the world.

Since Saslove Winery was first conceived, until now, how has the face of Israeli wine changed both from a global and national perspective?

I’ve been living in the wine industry here before it really was, when it was really unrepresented in the global market. There was a time when, if anyone heard of anything regarding wine that had to do with Israel or with Kosher, because many times it goes together, they would think immediately of the Manischewitz, which is clearly not the best thing to be associated with when you’re trying to sell a high-end product. Ironically, North America’s Manischewitz is unknown by most Israelis and is a far cry from the reality of Israel’s many great wines.

Many years ago the head buyer of Whole Foods in the States came over to Israel to taste some wines, including my own. She told me that she’d love to order from me, because she thought that the wines really were amazing, but that she couldn't at the moment because of the lack of demand for them, because of Israel’s reputation. At that time -- and it’s changing, although slower than I’d like it to -- if you would buy Israeli wine it would be because you’d either be Jewish, or pro-Israel or need something Kosher. Unfortunately, at this time, it wasn't like you opened the news and heard about all the great wines we make here in Israel.

However, things are changing: great wineries here are sending the best of their products to highly recognized international competitions, and returning with amazing rewards. I am happy that through these competitions and through people like Robert Parker and Jancis Robinson, who have given Israeli wines very impressive scores, Israeli wine is beginning to become better showcased and appreciated on a global market.

Why do you feel that it’s important to place such an emphasis on our perception of flavour and our understanding of it, when experiencing wine?

We’re not like France and Italy where wine has always been such an integral part of the culture. Only in relatively recent history has wine drinking really become popularized in Israel. In this time it’s morphed into what’s become perceived to be an elite product, and a symbol of high social status, and I really feel that this perception actually does a lot of damage. In my experience, people drank a lot more wine, before it was considered something elite or something “snobby”, and I want to take us back to this place.

I am trying to encourage people of all sorts to just go for it; to drink, taste and experiment with flavour. I want to show people that through experience, you can learn understand why you prefer one wine over another, making the experience more exciting -- not intimidating. I really try to emphasize the value of the experience solely between the person and the wine. People don’t need to fear if they don’t know how to say Gewürztraminer -- it shouldn't feel like a test -- just enjoy it. I feel that part of the joy of drinking wine has been sacrificed with the growing emphasis on knowledge and sophistication that has come to proceed it. A wine doesn't have to be the most acclaimed, the most expensive or the most sophisticated, to bring you pleasure.

What about your current project, The Tasting Room?  

Two years ago, we sold the winery Saslove Wines, deciding as a family that we all wanted to continue to do new things. Since then my father’s been living on the beach in Goa, India, and I’ve been managing and creating The Tasting Room.

The Tasting Room is a very unique and fun place of wine, with 40 bottles on an automatic pouring system, so that each guest gets the chance to pour for themselves, anything from just a taste to a full glass, so they can discover as many new things as they wish. Most of the wines that we feature here are Israeli, because that’s where we are, and what I believe in supporting. It’s really a place of gathering, where people of all backgrounds in wine experience can come and simply explore and enjoy wines from all throughout Israel.

This interview had been edited and condensed from its original format. 

Michael Mazourek, Plant Breeder & Assistant Professor, Cornell University

Michael Mazourek is a vegetable breeder who specializes in adapting produce that will allow it to evolve to climate changes, present pathogens, as well as to make it vegetables more delicious and nutritious. Featured in Dan Barber’s The Third Plate, MIchael works as an assistant professor at Cornell University, in upstate New York.  

Michael’s vegetable breeding program is focused on developing new cultivars of pea, squash, melon, cucumber, bean and pepper crop for organic farming systems.  This process of breeding new varieties through traditional methods of cross-pollination is informed by surveys of natural diversity and studies into the underlying genetic mechanisms.  His grower-driven traits focus on fungal and insect resistances in regionally adapted backgrounds to provide a reliable, productive harvest and reduce the need for pesticide applications.  His consumer-driven traits focus on color, quality, flavor and novelty to drive the consumption of naturally nutritious food.  

As we face a looming environmental crisis, how do you predict that our food systems will change?

We need to focus on producing more natural and ecologically friendly ways of growing food in harmony with nature, rather than against it. Hopefully, we’ll see a change in emphasis on where we eat in the food system, and increases in our plant consumption. This requires that plants inspire us to make better diet choices, which is where a certain extent of my work comes in.

The food we currently have access to has different ways of appealing to us. It triggers either some very basic primitive part of our brains and taste buds or it is a food product that has been specifically designed to peak our senses.  We can  create this same effect with whole produce -  it’s simply a matter of being able to create better produce that can compete, against less healthy and more environmentally detrimental options.

As a vegetable breeder, my work focuses  on balancing a combination of flavour, nutrition and convenience in a vegetable.  We then do a lot of research on active working farms to make sure that whatever we breed is going to be something that will also work for the farmer.

After your job of breeding the ideal produce is complete, do you have any say into whose hands these seeds will eventually fall into?

We share our materials with a seed company, that has the capacity to handle the full distribution process. Any of the seed catalogues for example that you might get in the mail, or the larger wholesale ones -- we’re providing the new seeds to a distributer, they provide them to a grower, and a portion of the proceeds are returned to us to continue to support public plant breeding.

What is public plant breeding?

Public plant breeding for us is comprised of our research program here at Cornell: It has a heritage leads back to 1942, so it’s the University effort to continually try to make the best produce that growers need, that the consumer is going to want, and most importantly, that can be independent in acting as an alternative to the typical market forces that would be driving the business in the for-profit sector of plant breeding.

Would you say that the fear of technological intervention in our agricultural industry is misguided?  

In the 1980’s there was the first promise of biotechnology. At the same time, the New York Times wrote an article about being able to have pork chops grow on trees by having the ability to change the DNA in an organism.  Anything to do with change and technology tends to spark unrealistic comparisons to science fiction and it’s often dramatized for effect. There’s certainly a need to do a better job of science education; making it more accessible and letting people be more comfortable with the approaches that are being used. It’s easy for people to confuse technology with innovation.  There are technologies that look at adjusting our current agricultural system and mask issues as we continue to carry on as we have been, and then there are more whole-system approaches that are not just looking at a the genes of a plant,  but adapting and evolving the plant and allowing it (the plant) to find its own solution. We have in fact made fantastic scientific leaps and bounds in our ability to change, directly manipulate, and alter the DNA in an organism, but this is still a fundamentally different approach than the much more evolutionary approach that is plant breeding.  It’s a whole plant adaptation of resiliency.

In what ways can technology serve as a means to not only improve but revolutionize our current food/agricultural systems?

The history of technology in agriculture has been to develop technological solutions to try to conquer nature and to eliminate impediments. The difference between my plant breeding approach and a biotech approach is how one defines the problem or challenge to be solved. The biotech approach is a reductionist approach that tries to define an issue that can can be addressed through a technologically enabled intervention. The issue with this approach is that nature is more complex than we think and will evolve around simple barriers we construct. We need an evolutionary approach that is coupled with using technology to try to understand the complexity of nature.  Plant breeding provides multi-tiered solutions from within nature to create plants that will thrive in nature. Technology should add value to the process and help guide the approach rather than look to create shortcuts.

This interview had been edited and condensed from its original format.