Star chef advocates old-fashioned ways of cooking from scratch

KAPALUA, MAUI >> Hugh Acheson wants everyone to start cooking again, a message he relayed with quirky humor and irreverence during a cooking demonstration Sunday at the Ritz-Carlton Maui, the final day of the 35th annual Kapalua Wine &Food Festival.

In another life the Ottawa-raised chef — hailed by the James Beard Foundation as Best Chef Southeast 2012 for his merging of the flavors of the South and Europe as chef-partner at Georgia restaurants 5&10, The National, Empire State South and The Florence — might have been a comedian for all the laughter erupting from the ballroom audience of about 200.

But the chef doesn’t think so. “I’m a funny person in a lot of ways, but I’m not funny or witty, just odd.”

Odd works for the chef with leading-man good looks, whose other claims to fame include being a contestant on Season 3 of “Top Chef Masters,” then returning as a judge for three seasons of “Top Chef.”

Odd also makes sense if it simply means empowering home cooks to break away from the idea of convenience and going back to cooking from scratch, for what Acheson considers the best kind of culinary experience.

Although some would consider cooking to be time-consuming, Acheson said, “I never regretted a minute I spent cooking with my family.”

The chef spoke while preparing dishes such as a grilled corn salad with chilies, basil and lime, and seafood stew with fennel and farro, that all audience members enjoyed during a two-hour, four-course sit-down meal.

He compared cooking to building with a Lego set. Adding skills gives one more blocks to play with, which leads to more elaborate projects.

“We should begin to make chicken stock again. We should learn how to butcher a chicken because if you do it yourself, you are less likely to get salmonella. All fresh food is good food. You can all do it.

“No one should ever have to buy vinaigrette. It’s just a ratio, 3 parts oil to 1 part acid. It’s easy to make once you know it’s a ratio.”

He spoke of the value of citrus in dishes as a way of waking the palate, then warned, “If you grab one of those plastic (artificial juice-filled) limes in the supermarket, you are dead to me.”

The audience had other questions.

Asked about the advantages of a sharp knife, Acheson, who has sliced his thumb and fingers a couple of times, quipped, “The wounds are cleaner when you cut yourself.”

When an audience member asked the cliche question of what he would want for his last meal, Acheson carefully considered, then said, “I would want to know how I’m about to die, who am I dying with. A lot of things go into this.”

He then outlined a meal that started with a “beautiful bottle of Burgundy” and perfectly roasted chicken with sauteed greens and gravy, and advised everyone to pick up Judy Rodgers’ “Zuni Cafe Cookbook” “for the best chicken recipe of all time.”

A running thread of his talk was a sense of disconnect between his childhood in Canada and his experience in America, where such seasonal produce as corn, cherries and peaches is expected to be available all year. But during an interview after the demonstration, he said, “We have the same issues throughout North America. We’ve lost touch with our foodways. We fell hook, line and sinker for the age of convenience.

“Food shows up at the right time. I remember getting excited about peaches and cream every summer. Corn shows up each year at this time. Any other time, it’s (bad). My type of cooking is so easy if you have fresh ingredients.”

So imagine his dismay when his daughter Beatrice came home from school at age 11 three years ago and told him that she had learned to make croissants with Pillsbury dough in her family and consumer science class. A talk with her school’s principal about rewriting the home economics curriculum led to the principal’s suggestion that Acheson take on the task.

From this talk, Seed Life Skills, a curriculum free to educators, was born. The program gets kids cooking and empowers them to be stewards of sustainable food and financial resources, connecting science to real-life problems.

“I want to give every kid, regardless of what high school they come from or what color they are, some kind of life skill. We are failing a generation by not teaching them skill sets in how to survive. If we want to fix diabetes rates in this country, we need to teach people how to make a salad.”

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For more on Seed Life Skills: seedlifeskills.org