Every since Ryan and Carlos, his roomate and recent culinary school graduate, introduced me to Ferran Adrià and his lab/restaurant El Bulli (beautiful photos can be perused here), I've been fascinated with the idea of this experiment with food, which I consider an example of nerd food. What Adrià does is disassemble and recompile the elements of food - tastes, textures, smells, colors - to create something completely different and new. He reprograms food.

Here in the Bay Area, we live under a tyranny of Alice Waters - a benevolent dictatorship, to be sure, full of good intentions, but her basic philosophy, which has since spread to all parts of the U.S., strictly stipulates that food is naturally good and ought not to be tampered with more than necessary. Good, high quality food can shine best with minimal handling. Her techniques evince a deep respect for the natural structures of meat, vegetables, pastas, spices, and so on. Her food is delicious, and her work with farmer's markets and school's eating programs are very deservedly much admired.

But Adrià takes a different approach. He wants to challenge the eater, to mystify, to tease, to astonish; his way is controversial, perhaps, because it may be seen as elitist, anti-Julia Child, who gracefully imbued the home cook with the power to prepare masterful French dishes in her own kitchen. No home cook could prepare the bulk of Adrià's dishes, which were often developed after six months in a laboratory.

Others may also charge that Adrià is flashy and gaudy and over-the-top. That is also true. Shock and awe are two emotions that his food seems designed to evoke. An excellent review put it this way:

In a world where too many people struggle to get the calories they need just to survive, it is a luxury to eat just for the pleasure of a series of tantalising games, where the satisfaction of hunger doesn’t seem to have any part in the motivation for preparing and offering the meal.

But why shouldn't food also be a pleasure? (I should point out by the way that the review I quote from above agrees; the writers report sublimely positive experiences at El Bulli.) Why shouldn't it also beguile and seduce us, stimulate our intellect as well as our palate? The world is already full of such useless, cheap junk that passes for edible, but which bears only the slightest relation to nourishment.

But I digress. Food can be a very passionate topic. What I mean to say is that a couple weeks ago, a group of us went to eat at Vernon Morales's restaurant, Winterland, where Carlos is completing an externship. Morales was trained in San Francisco's classic California Culinary Academy, but he apprenticed at El Bulli with Adrià, and his restaurant uses chic nouvelle cuisine ingredients like octopus and sea urchin in completely new ways. He's a fan of preparing things sous-vide, which means cooking slowly in a vacuum using a recirculating water bath, a modern technique invented in the 1970's. He also likes to whip up savory mousses (the mushroom foam that topped one appetizer was delightful - airy and earthy at the same time). And he likes to feature ingredients in unusual roles - a bacon millefeuille, divine olive oil ice cream. But it's not just a gimmick; it really is a way of trying to push food.

You won't see a lot of big dishes at Winterland; that's because I think the aesthetic of the restaurant is all about that one, perfect bite - it's the legacy of Spanish tapas cuisine, perhaps. We had lots of small dishes that could be finished in two or three mouthfuls, which meant that the entire dinner was just filled with outrageous taste experiences.

I'm not sure exactly what nerd food is yet, but I think chefs like Morales and Adrià display nerdish tendencies in their approach to food. Their obsession with flavor is your delicious reward. As well as a chance to geek out.