Early birds out walking the dog in the meadows around Bath might be alarmed to
stumble across a chap in trilbyand chef’sjacket, carrying a sharp knife and
a strange collection of tools. But there is no cause for anxiety: it’s only
the chef Chris Horridge, 37, collecting fresh ingredients for his restaurant
at the Bath Priory Hotel.
Horridge is no ordinary chef. Yes, his food is experimental, cutting edge,
witty, as you might expect from a Michelin-star cook, but he’s also trying
to set the bar a notch higher. He wants his “three-dimensional food” not
only to look and taste good, but to do you good, too.
Whereas other chefs might get excited about a new technique for ice-cream or a
rare-breed pig, Horridge enthuses about the cancer-fighting elements in the
wild carrots he has plucked from the meadows; the sycamore sap he has
drained from local trees (hence the weird collection of tools); or his
debates about food and health with doctors and scientists at nearby Bath
University.
In his kitchen at the Bath Priory Hotel and Restaurant, the focus is on
exploring the complex properties of each ingredient to see how it might play
off another to aid digestion and give a feeling of wellbeing. How to
suppress the saturated fat in foie gras while promoting its vitamin A
content? How best to combine papaya with game so that the papain enzyme in
the fruit helps to break down protein in the meat?
“When I started bombarding scientists and doctors with questions, I naively
thought I’d get straightforward answers,” says Horridge. “But there are so
many conflicting studies out there. I started looking into the
phytochemicals involved in the flavour of carrots and found three totally
different answers to why carrots taste as they do. We can perform
extraordinary keyhole surgery on people, but we can’t explain why a carrot
tastes of carrot.
“There’s masses of research still to do, but I believe this is the future of
food. I’m playing around with a winter dessert made from echinacea root, for
example, which has a lovely floral flavour. How good would it be to sit
there eating a great dessert that may be boosting your immune system at the
same time?
“The holy grail,” he says, “is to create an entire menu from which you can
choose any starter, any main course and any dessert, and leave the
restaurant feeling healthier than when you arrived.”
“If food looks beautiful, people enjoy it more”
On a broad surface in the kitchen, Horridge is lining up a series of square
slate “plates”, painting purées of wild chive and garlic in broad sweeps as
he begins to assemble one of his dramatic starters. His penchant for
artistry, he insists, is as functional as it is aesthetic. “I did some
research with a university professor, looking at how presentation can affect
the way we perceive food.” If it looks beautiful, people enjoy the meal
more, he says. “I firmly believe enjoyment can affect the way we absorb
nutrients.
“I like to get people involved. When we send bread to the table we give
customers a tiny pestle and mortar with some extra-virgin olive oil and a
seasonal herb, so that when they grind it they release the flavour and
aroma.”
There was no Damascene conversion that brought Horridge to this philosophy of
food but, looking back, he can see the stepping stones along the way. His
father was in the RAF and he spent his childhood in Germany on air force
bases. Later he followed his father into the RAF, then his mother died of
cancer. Her loss had a profound effect, not least in underlining the way
that the time we are given to make our mark can be all too brief.
He trained as a chef in the RAF and his unlikely inspiration for a
professional career as a cook was Lenny Henry in the comedy series Chef.
“I instantly understood the mix of humour and seriousness in cooking,”
Horridge says. He had also begun to appreciate the correlation between good
food and health. After undergoing an operation in the RAF (he won’t reveal
the details), he came across a book about healthy eating. “I put myself on a
special diet and when I went back to see the doctor, he told me it was
amazing how well I’d healed.”
His food is a mix of old and new
Horridge devised a ten-year plan to change his life. At 27, he left the RAF
and got a position at Raymond Blanc’s restaurant Petit Blanc in Oxford.
Blanc later installed him at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, where he spent
five years learning about the purity of flavours. After a stint as a private
chef, he landed the job at the Bath Priory Hotel four days after his 35th
birthday.
At the Priory, he began to look at ways of bringing a third dimension – after
looks and taste – to the menu. Always at the back of his mind was his
mother’s death and a belief that eating well could make a difference. The
resulting food is a mix of contemporary ideas and cutting-edge science,
melded with the kind of ancient knowledge, gleaned from old books such as
Maude Grieve’s 1930s’ Modern Herbal, that country people
would instinctively have known in the past, but which has been largely lost
by a generation raised on ready meals.
To kick off every meal at the Priory everyone is given a red pepper and
mandarin sorbet, with fennel pollen on top. “It’s full of digestive
properties to get your stomach ready for what is to come,” he says. “The red
pepper has more vitamin C than an orange, and carotenes, which may help to
fight cancer, while the mandarin has vitamin C, plus betacarotene and
lycopene, which are antioxidants.”
Pollen is something that particularly interests him. “We use bee pollen in a
lamb dish with goat’s cheese and honey,” he says. “Partly because my
girlfriend is French, and it’s a classic French combination, but also
because I am interested in finding out whether eating pollen can be
beneficial. There has been some research recently to show that bee pollen,
taken before the summer, can help to prevent hay fever and allergies by
exposing your body to it in advance.”
Another focus is milk. “There is a mass of conflicting information about
whether milk is good for you. The Milk Marketing Board tells you that it’s
fantastic, kids need it, etc. Then other research papers tell you the
opposite.” So, to be on the safe side he makes his own “milk” from various
plants and seeds. “The flavour is there but I’ve just discovered that one of
the components that is high in calcium, sesame seed, also contains oxalates,
which prohibit the absorption of the calcium. So, it’s back to the drawing
board on that front.”
The beauty of Horridge’s food is that diners at the Priory have little idea of
the intense experimentation that is going on on behalf of their health. All
they see is exquisitely presented, exciting food that is big on clean, bold
flavours and unusual combinations of ingredients. “I’m still only at the
beginning of the journey,” he says. “And I don’t want to scare people away.
But if I can make a small difference, especially in terms of cancer
prevention, that would mean an awful lot to me.
“Maybe at some point I’ll be able to send out a little note out at the end of
the meal that says: ‘The bad news is, here is the bill; the good news is
that everything you have just eaten was good for your heart."
Chris Horridge is hosting a four-course gourmet lunch on October 11 at The
Bath Priory (£45 per person) to demonstrate his “three-dimensional” approach
to food. For details call 01225 331922 or visit www.thebathpriory.co.uk
Gourmet . . . and good for you
Chef Chris Horridge explains the healthy elements in some of his signature
dishes
Paillette of vegetables with boudin of chicken and wild garlic chive; daub
of shallot purée
“Paillette is an old French word, which originally meant makeshift bed. This
recipe is nature’s bed of local wild herbs, vegetables and chicken. A
powerhouse of vitamins, minerals, nutrients and phytonutrients. All the
vegetables are prepared in a way that may help with the absorption of their
nutrients; for example, the carrots are cooked with their own juice and oil,
to help the absorption of vitamin A.”
Salmon with Bramley apple; ginseng bubbles
“The salmon is cooked slowly, which allows it to retain as many of its
nutrients as possible and makes the fish very tender. The apple contains
quercetin, which may help fight cancer; and the ginseng may increase
vitality, stamina and general wellbeing. I became interested in ginseng when
my partner and I were trying for a family; now we’re expecting a baby in
January!”
Rabbit shoulder and confit, smooth carrot with orange; coriander spume
“Rabbit and carrot together started off as a bit of joke (think Beatrix
Potter), then I looked into the combination and realised how well the two
work nutritionally. The fat in the confit helps the absorption of
betacarotene in the carrot, which helps the absorption of the iron in the
rabbit meat.”
Nondairy strawberry tartine, vanilla straw and berry juice; sweet clover
“With no cream or butter in the strawberry mousse the flavour is incredibly
vibrant. The phytochemicals in strawberries may help to fight against
stomach cancer while the juice may have antibacterial qualities. We are
still researching the properties of clover, but it may be a detoxifier.”
