Document text
A peek inside the Flavored Nation kitchen with 'Hell's Kitchen's' Jared Bobkin Jared Bobkin Courtesy of Fox Wednesday Sep 27, 2017 at 12:01 AM As many American foodies know, we are now just a month away from our grand historic event, Flavored Nation, to be held at The Dome in St. Louis Oct. 28 and 29, but even those in the know have no idea what an elaborate food event this will be. Fifty chefs, one from each state, each preparing in St. Louis a 1/50th piece of the American culinary jigsaw puzzle, striving to meld with the other pieces into a one-time-only national spectacle, before as many as 10,000 live spectators. By David Rosengarten, Flavored Nation As many American foodies know, we are now just a month away from our grand historic event, Flavored Nation, to be held at The Dome in St. Louis Oct. 28 and 29, but even those in the know have no idea what an elaborate food event this will be. Fifty chefs, one from each state, each preparing in St. Louis a 1/50th piece of the American culinary jigsaw puzzle, striving to meld with the other pieces into a one-time-only national spectacle, before as many as 10,000 live spectators. “Hell’s Kitchen” alum Jared Bobkin, Flavored Nation’s culinary director, has been working for months to make sure that he’ll have on hand everything from a dozen whole suckling pigs, to 200 pounds of fresh-cooked Maine lobster meat, to bushels of Oregon marionberries. It’s a damned good thing that Bobkin has years of experience doing what he does. As the executive chef of the Bay View Yacht Club in suburban Detroit he turns out almost 1,500 meals every week for a discerning crowd. He’s made 14 TV appearances on Gordon Ramsay’s reality show since January 2016 and he performed with distinction — so much so that he has been asked back to compete again on “Hell’s Kitchen: All-Stars,” premiering Sept. 29. “I’ve never seen anything like this Flavored Nation project,” Bobkin says. “What we’re being asked to do that weekend is possibly insane, and certainly awe-inspiring. I sure hope it inspires the chefs; I know it will inspire awe among the lucky attendees. And me? My adrenaline is pumping so hard 30 days away I don’t even know how I feel, other than I’m the one going insane!” .embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; } Luckily, Bobkin can feel sane about the kitchens he’s using in St. Louis. The event is set in a former football stadium which, in its day, prepared food for 40,000 fans. The key is that the Dome is attached by hallways to the city’s conference center, just an elevator ride and a hall walk away. There’s a massive kitchen in the conference center, which holds 12 double-stacked convection ovens, three huge restaurant ovens, three 40-gallon tilt skillets, two 60-pound fryers, a 10x10 flat top, and a cooler that holds 42 full pallets of food. “Even with this gargantuan facility,” Bobkin says, “we must juggle like master magicians.” For example, one of the first dishes to go into the massive cauldrons for soup will be the Louisiana Shrimp Gumbo, “because Dickie Brennan Jr. insists that the gumbo be cooked very slowly and very long.” But there’s other soup to go in those cauldrons, like the Smoked Pumpkin Soup coming from New Hampshire chef David Chan. “So,” Bobkin continues, “we’re timing it militarily so that the New Hampshire pumpkin is being smoked exactly as the gumbo is nearing its cooking completion. Then, out goes the gumbo, and in go the smoked pumpkins for a soupy, autumnal taste of New England.” I asked Bobkin to name a few other pieces of the puzzle, so we can see what his stewardship is like. “There are so many aspects of this monster,” he says. “Take Georgia, whose iconic dish, Peach Cobbler, is being prepared by chef Damiano de Nicolo. Keep in mind that the peach base can easily be prepared in advance, but for the cobbler to be at its best, the pastry and crumb topping must be prepared within two to three days of service.” Will the conference center kitchen be turned into a baking factory? “Well,” Bobkin says, ”even as we speak, de Nicolo is negotiating with his purveyor, the one who ships his famous cobbler to customers at home. Chef is trying to get refrigerated overnight shipping of the cobblers to St. Louis at no cost. If it works out when the cobblers arrive they’d go instantly into our massive walk-in, awaiting their Saturday or Sunday close-ups at the show. “Conversely,” Bobkin goes on,”the chef from Hawaii, Kai Cowell, doesn’t want anything sent.” Cowell is preparing a version of Hawaii’s most typical meal, Plate Lunch, which in this case includes parts of a whole-roasted pig and pineapple fried rice. “Cowell wants to wrap her 110-pound pigs in banana leaves before cooking, so all of her pork will be cooked in St. Louis. Luckily, 100-pound pigs are easy to find in the Midwest. But her creation in St. Louis will be even better in St. Louis than it is in Hawaii because in Honolulu, she cooks pork butt for 10 people. Here, and here’s the hard part, she’ll have to blow up her recipe so that it feeds 1,500 people.” There’s another problem to be dealt with in Mississippi. Chef Tiffany Andrews of Rowdy’s Family Restaurant will be heading up the production of Mississippi Mud Pie, a ridiculously dark and rich version of Chocolate Cream Pie. “Andrews has two special reasons for preferring to bake her pie in Mississippi,” Bobkin says. “First of all, the restaurant always ships it frozen. ‘It’s better that way,’ they say. But even more important, they don’t want anyone to be anywhere near the creation of this thing. It is a secret recipe that has been in the family for generations. They are more than paranoid about it! “Then there’s North Carolina, whose prep will have a huge impact on our kitchen. They’re making the classic Eastern Carolina Pulled Pork Sandwiches built on the spot from three whole hogs that they’ll be cooking in St. Louis. They’ll be hauling their hogs and their pit-in-a-trailer for 12 hours across several states to get it to St. Louis. Then they’ll be stoking the fires in the pit on Thursday, two days before our doors open. Why? The fire has to burn 12 hours before meat is added to the pit, then, in several batches, the pork has to cook, low and slow, for 12 more hours until it’s done. And then again. And then again! This is a high degree of interface between chef and us.” Some situations allow Bobkin to breathe. “It would have been hell,” he says, “to gather enough Pueblo chiles for the Pueblo Chiles: Three Ways that Colorado chef Ben Bedard is making. He’s going to prepare a chile relleno stuffed in a Pueblo chile; a ‘Slopper,’ made like a smothered hamburger slider with green chile sauce; and a Pueblo Chile Panna Cotta. Happily, Bedard is working with the Pueblo Chile Farmers’ Association which is donating and shipping all the chiles.” Bobkin points out with a sigh of relief that “Bedard is also cooking everything himself, beginning to end, in the kitchen. All I have to do is play traffic cop at the cooler door.” Acquisition is not always as easy. Consider, collectively, Maine, Connecticut and Maryland. Over 600 pounds of just-cooked shellfish will be required for the two days of the festival. Luckily, all three dishes — the Maine Lobster Roll (cold with mayo, from McLoons Lobster Shack in Maine), the Connecticut Lobster Roll (warm with melted butter, from Mike Harden’s LobsterCraft in Connecticut) and the Maryland Crab Cake (from the revered Costas Inn in Baltimore) are made with just-cooked, shelled meat, but not one of these fine establishments has ever had to come up with so much crustacean so quickly as they will that weekend. Bobkin to the rescue. He got on the horn with purveyors everywhere and after a slew of calls, was able to procure the luxury meat we need from about 40 different sellers. Now you know the story, or at least a little part of it. As mind-bogglingly delicious as all of this will be, happy attendees will also have minds that are reeling at the execution of it all, if they choose to “look just behind the curtain” at the 50 beehives of activity splattered across the floor of The Dome in late October. Let us pray for Brother Bobkin! David Rosengarten is content director for FLAVORED NATION. He has won a James Beard Award for his cookbook “It’s ALL American Food,” and another Beard Award for his newsletter, “The Rosengarten Report.” Rosengarten appeared in the first show on the Food Network, and went on to appear in approximately 2,500 Food Network shows, including his cooking show “TASTE.” A Flavored Nation event, featuring iconic dishes and the chefs and restaurants that make them from each of our 50 states, will be held Oct. 28 and 29 in St. Louis, Missouri. Find out more at flavorednation.com.