MAD5 and tomorrow’s kitchen

Carlo Cracco turned it into a television ad, with his father preferring his wife’s, Carlo’s mother’s cooking to his son’s. As we wait to see what will happen in Redzepi’s home, René in Copenhagen laughed at an even more ferocious episode. One of his three daughters was so bright he could only grin and bear it. Last Sunday, 28th August, first day of a completely revolutionised MAD, Arwen Levy, aged eight, immediately took the chance offered by the organisers, his dad above all, of presenting themes by sticking a paper on the notice board so that everyone could read the following: «Help! My Mom is a better cook than my Dad. Does any one else have this problem, I’m here to help». Let me repeat it: aged eight.

Fifth edition of MAD, which reads in English though we’re dealing with Danish food. Fifth time, but not the fifth in a row. The debut was in 2011, but there was nothing last year. Redzepi, and the other person who’s most involved in the project, David Chang - same year of birth, 1977, though René was born in December and the American in August - took a break to rethink the format completely. They didn’t change location, a field to the west of the city centre, the same bank that until next year will host Noma, which will soon move to the middle of the countryside. They didn’t even change the circus tent, in fact two because the one for the canteen stood beside the one for the lessons.

MAD has become a sort of food-related TED. The theme for 2016: Tomorrow’s kitchen. Two days of discussions, on 28th and 29th, without ever cooking, tasting, testing, rejecting or even just savouring some rare product from the Scandinavian Artic. Only ideas. Plenty of ideas. Even too many compared to the number of participants. The event was strictly ironclad, just 500 people, that’s it: 110 volunteers who worked for two months for a two-day event that held 350 people what with the speakers, around 50, it was hard to count them, and the paying visitors, some 300 more people each one of whom paid three thousand Danish crowns, around 400 euros, in April. And to feed them all, 40 cooks at work.

Proceeds of 120,000 euros (secure in that without the bank transfer, early in the spring, there was no registration) may seem a good amount but not in this case. MAD has no sponsors nor exhibitors and suppliers, not even farmers and fishermen. It is self-financed with the 300 visitors and that’s it. And the no-logo approach also applies to the water (tap), beer (labelled MAD), coffee (20 grams of powder for an espresso, a blast) and fruit juice (with nice colourful bands). The price also includes the ferry that takes you from the centre to the field in the suburbs and back, breakfast and lunch in the second tent and the final dinner under a bridge on the other side of the main canal.

Everything was very free and very self-focused, with a dozen speakers announced in the programme from Jacques Papin, an 80-year-old French cuisine legend, to Carlin Petrini, to Spanish José Andres, much more than a chef, to American investor Eric Archambeau. All the others were only revealed at the beginning of the session, including the second and last Italian speaker, Marta Scalabrini, 32, chef (only for five years now) and owner (for two) of a place in Reggio Emilia, Marta in cucina. Her theme? “Should the kitchen be militarised or collaborative?”. She’s and advocate for collaboration in the kitchen, but knows she’s a black swan.

The choice of indicating only the theme in the programme not the speaker was made so that participants wouldn’t be influenced by the fame of this person or the other when they had to choose what to attend. However all this ceased when the stars were speaking in the main tent. In that case, the tent was packed but there was no one left outside.

How about tomorrow’s kitchen? It will be more and more respectful of nature and people’s health; compassion will take the place of envy, this is what Petrini said; farmers and producers will be the chefs’ best friends; restaurants will depend less and less on reviews from guides and from the Internet and will speak to the public directly, without intermediaries; cooks will connect more and more, sharing news and knowledge; women will populate the kitchen in mass, overshadowing male colleagues. Please note: we’ll eat all sorts of things and the dear old Europe will be an important continent, but no longer a point of reference.

Then on Thursday 30th August everyone went his way and left the world of dreams for the real one.