Mr. Dollase, in your book you describe how religion has regulated and almost defined our eating habits, always with the aim of supposedly godly moderation. Isn’t it strange that the high Christian Christmas festival has become a festival of gluttony?
One is probably closely related to the other. If one were to advise the Church, one would have to say: Take the ceremonial higher. Because that would ultimately mean bigger feasts. I don’t go to church at Christmas, but I would if it were the way I remember it from my childhood, namely festive. And that goes with the good, if not sumptuous, food, there is no contradiction.
But where is the line between permitted indulgence and the deadly sin of gluttony?
In a conversation with Cardinal Meisner in Cologne, which I quote in the book, he said to me: You should have no other gods beside me. Transferred that would mean that one should socially feed back. If we take that as a moral authority, we very quickly come to the point that we cannot gorge ourselves with a clear conscience. I put the question of how many more people we could feed with what we throw away differently: How many more could we feed with what we overeat? Normally we don’t have a moral limit, but rather a physiological-psychological limit, we think we’re too fat… No, actually we can’t eat too much with a clear conscience.
A big part of what you say is what you call the “big bang,” the disjointing of physiological hunger and appetite that is at the root of most forms of malnutrition.
We have a misstep that nature doesn’t intend, a result of self-consciousness that causes us to eat in an appetite-driven manner. The wildlife is hunger driven, although I’m not entirely sure about our dog. Predators kill an antelope and then don’t eat anything for two weeks, that’s no longer possible with us. I assume the error goes back to prehistoric people, who once found that grilled meat tasted better than raw. The discovery of the delicious roasted notes as a variant of the raw would then be the big bang, so to speak.
Can you avoid gluttony by becoming a vegetarian or vegan?
It may be that the typical coma eater in the vegetarian area would have to eat so much to get as full as a normal German brewery customer that it’s no longer fun. I believe that the pleasure principle falls by the wayside, that part of the food also eliminates the desire to eat.
Also some kind of religious influence?
That seems more religious to me than religion, which allows for all sorts of interpretations and evasions.
Is my impression correct that fasting is particularly widespread in Protestant milieus, where people not only expect spiritual cleansing from it, but also want to set an example against hunger in the world?
That’s the way it is. You can argue that partisanly away and dismiss it as anti-pleasure, but if we look at the moral, global context, you have to accept that. However, I am suspicious when such self-torture becomes an ideology, and I wonder what would happen if other areas of society were controlled by such people. This is an act of lack of freedom towards oneself, which arouses the suspicion in me that such people could become aggressive and think, now we want to bring the others down too.
For decades I have found that the typical gourmet menus are not good, that they have flaws.
Jurgen Dollase, critic
Let’s go to a gourmet restaurant. It is still common today for people who are not familiar with this type of food to say afterwards that they had to push a currywurst to get their fill at all. You, on the other hand, seem to have the opposite problem.
I understand what these people mean, but that’s actually not my problem. For decades I have found that the typical gourmet menus are not good, that they have flaws, that they are overloaded and over-seasoned and that they do not take the guests’ sensitivities into account. The style of gourmet cuisine is 95 percent problematic. If you have eaten a typical five or six-course menu today with amuse gueule, starter dessert and petits fours, then your body is in a state it shouldn’t be in, it’s this massing of aromas and flavors with which he rarely has to do, not grown. The gourmet menu creates a hangover, very few cooks have managed not to produce this hangover. My wife is radical, she often talks about a culinary rape.
But these menus are a lot lighter today, a lot less fat than they used to be?
Yes, chefs may have gotten away from it, but the substitute they’ve found is umami, acidity, or fermentation. This is not a solution, even if the individual plate often tastes very good. But three in a row with fermented vegetables? Going all the way with it is like working with butter and cream in excess.
When restaurant critics are recognized and should be made happy, it often gets worse. In the book you describe how the late three-star chef Helmut Thltges wrote twelve on the menu and sent twenty-two when you once wanted five or six courses.
Thltges was a very good friend and he was just terribly happy when I came to see him again. But that was certainly one of the toughest tests of my culinary life. I had several dead points and from aisle ten on I had the impression that I couldn’t eat anything. It’s very difficult to write about it, because you can’t judge the food from the perspective of the overeaten critic, you have to do justice to every single plate.
But you also write in your book how you can protect yourself from it. A word of advice: don’t agree if the waiter asks if you want to take a little break.
This is something many don’t understand. Once the organism has switched to digestion, eating becomes hard. In the book, I report on an organic restaurant in the Camargue, where there were four or five courses at lunchtime that we could have eaten in a short time without any problems. But the chef always managed to take a 45-minute break. We sat there from one to four and could hardly finish the last courses. Only very rarely, and with particularly creative chefs, do I get into what I call the state of pure degustation, when appetite takes over completely and I can keep eating out of sheer interest.
The wine also plays an important role. Hasn’t gluttony in the restaurant been given an additional dimension by the virtually obligatory wine accompaniment by the glass?
Yes, the equivalent of a bottle of wine per person is always poured, which of course has an effect in many ways. And when I’m on the road professionally, it often happens that I’m given an extra wine. I then only sip to be able to judge them and the vote for the meal, and only take a larger sip of the wine with the last meat course – I miss that too.
Mandatory Question: What kind of gluttony does Dollases have at Christmas?
For us, Christmas also means: I will not cook that much. On Christmas Eve there is always frozen lobster, although I have optimized the preparation so that it is not noticeable. Champagne, foie gras, caviar, all classic, late in the evening potato salad with meatballs. Then, on the first holiday, the traditional sauerbraten, which I make in such a way that it is no longer so aggressive, and a very good bottle of wine goes well with it. Delicatessen, things that you can buy ready-made in the store.
Would the cardinal have liked that?
I assume he didn’t do it much differently back then, although he was a fan of middle-class cuisine. We mustn’t forget: A celebratory meal that is also perceived as such is the heightening of bourgeois cuisine, it wasn’t invented by gourmets.
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