Chương 168: The Judges Divide

The judging room was solemn. Two dishes stood in front of each of the five judges. One was England's Pêche Melba 2. 0, an artifact from the future. The other was the American bowl of Soupe aux Truffes Noires V. G. E., giving off something complicated and warm. They tasted England's first. With small purpose-made spoons they cracked the glassy peach sheets, and the clean sound of the break carried in the quiet room.

A spoon lifted ice cream, a piece of white peach and a few grains of raspberry granita together into the mouth. Admiration came onto every face at once. The silk of the ice cream, the brittleness of the sugar sheet, the yielding peach, the shocking cold of the granita — several completely separate textures braided and detonated together in the mouth and produced an experience nobody had had before. And the flavor underneath it stayed classical and harmonious.

"This is deconstruction and reconstruction of a classic." Mario Benini, the Italian jury chairman and a legend in his own right, spoke first, and there was real appreciation in it.

"They've preserved the soul of taste that Escoffier created and given it a completely new skeleton with twenty-first-century technique. There's nothing in it to attack."

"Yes. On the technical level this dish is full marks." Madame Dubois, the French judge known for her severity, nodded.

"Arthur Campbell's precision has gone past what we mean by a cook. He's closer to a scientist. This dish is a victory for the science of cooking." The others agreed. England's work drew overwhelming praise on both technique and invention. Then it was the American soup's turn. When the judges tapped through the gold pastry lids, an aroma came out of the bowls in one burst — chicken stock, truffle, butter, smoke, and the sea — and filled the room. It was nothing like a classical Bocuse truffle soup.

It was more assertive, more complicated, and much warmer. They sat back for a second, then closed their eyes and breathed it in deeply, and something like intoxication came over them. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. They lifted a spoon of the amber consommé. If England's dessert had delivered a rational, cool shock, this bowl delivered a warm and unreasonable embrace. The broth was clear and impossibly concentrated.

Chicken was the ground it stood on, black truffle was the melody, and underneath both of those ran a deep umami off the kombu and a barely-there applewood smoke that opened quietly at the back of the tongue.

"This… isn't Bocuse's soup anymore." Akiko Tanaka, the Japanese judge known for her minimalism, set her spoon down and said it softly.

"No. It isn't." Madame Dubois picked it up, and her expression was complicated.

"They've added kombu, which changes the umami structure of the base. They've smoked the truffle, which is unimaginable in classical French cooking. They've even put black sesame in the pastry. This is a tampering with a classic." Her words tightened the room instantly.

"But." Emily Jones, the American judge and a celebrated critic, who hadn't spoken yet, spoke now.

"Is it not delicious? Did it not move you? Did it not surprise you?" She looked at Madame Dubois.

"I know you're a traditionalist. But what is at the center of homage to the classics? Copying a master's brushstrokes line by line like a schoolchild? Or writing a poem of equal beauty out of your own understanding, in reply to him?" Madame Dubois went quiet. Benini's eyes settled on the black flower Chris had improvised. He touched the truffle slice covering the stain with the handle of his spoon.

"And there is this," he said slowly.

"An obvious error. In a final, it should not happen."

"And they turned it into a story." Emily Jones came straight back." The Broken Seal. Is that explanation not more interesting and more affecting than a spotless tablecloth? Isn't cooking precisely the art of turning an accident into a delight?" For the first time, the judging room split visibly. The technical-traditionalist side, with Madame Dubois at its head, held that England's perfect replication and scientific invention answered the theme better.

They considered the American alterations excessive, and there had been an error that should not have occurred.

The emotional-spiritual side, led by Emily Jones and the chairman, held that although the Americans had betrayed the classic in form, they had inherited Bocuse's own willingness to break through — his conviction that flavor should move people — far better in spirit. A flaw with a soul in it, they argued, beats a perfection without one.

"Colleagues." Benini finally ended it.

"Our disagreement is precisely the proof of how strong both of these teams are. They represent two directions in modern cooking, and both directions may lead to the summit."

"So let each of us hold to his own judgment." He picked up his scoring unit.

"We'll express our views in numbers." After long thought, five judges pressed their buttons. The scores were not yet on the screen. But everybody knew that the first round would be decided in the collision of two entirely different philosophies of cooking.