Omnivore’s delight

Chef Robert Reynolds has traveled an interesting road to his current career.

After being mentored by some of the best, he was encouraged to open his own restaurant in San Francisco, and did so. However, he currently resides in Portland, and rather than owning his own restaurant here, he has moved on to greater pursuits.

He now trains people at the Robert Reynolds Chefs Studio who have a serious interest in cooking and food.

His areas of expertise are classic French and Italian cuisine. As an educator, his vision is to pass along the culture, history and specific technique of cooking food, rather than giving his students an education that one would receive in a culinary academy. The Vanguard was able to put the following questions to Reynolds about his craft and role in passing it on to others.

Francesca Pagni: How and why did you develop your career as a chef?Robert Reynolds: We’re fortunate to be able to attend college. It’s like our inheritance. But like any inheritance, once it’s ours, anything can happen. We make certain choices. I have a degree in French literature. I also have a master’s degree in early education. Those were my inheritance.

As it turns out, I also have always liked food. I hung out with others when I was a student, and we would devote time to preparing elaborate food. We’d go to the open market and shout out what we wanted. The vendors would compete and yell back.

It was like we were living in a Hemingway novel and I’m pretty sure our mothers wouldn’t have recognized us. We’d get our food, go home, cook and cook and cook. Then invite friends and the rest of the evening was spent at the table, and the next two days cleaning up.

At some point my options as an educator became limited. I gave myself permission to do what I wanted on the assumption that when you have nothing, it’s like having everything–you can do whatever you want. When I looked at my life, cooking was at the top of the list. So, I gave myself permission to pursue cooking.

FP: Do you have any values you adhere to as a chef? RR: If we were French, Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Swedish-anything–common sense knowledge about food and how it serves us in our daily lives would be part of our cultural inheritance.

In this society, food is about selling magazines and having TV shows. It’s now what each of us received as a part of our education. Our lack of common sense about food as a culture is a failing that manifests itself with everything from overweight people, to a disconnect on global warming.

FP: What type of food do you like to cook?RR: Local food, well prepared. Simple, honest food made from excellent ingredients. Tonight I made a perfect omelet. A little local unsalted butter, eggs from chickens that have names, simply beaten with salt. When the butter is warm, add the eggs, and shake the pan back and forth as soft curds form.

Encourage the eggs to roll from the pan when you’re done. Hopefully they are still a little wet, as they will cross the line to perfection on the plate. I ate it with a piece of toast from home made loaf. I was the happiest I’ve been in front of food.

FP: Why does French food in particular have such an exalted reputation in food communities? RR: The French codified their experience with food and made it part of their culture, and [they] back it up with a good deal of social support. When you’re a small child and your mother feeds you something wonderful–a potato, a kind of cheese, anything–she waits for you to notice. When you say “Mmmm” she moves into action. She tells you why you love what you just ate. Where it is from, what makes it good. France is a culture focused at the table as the center of life. Everything of consequence happens there, and so they shape, train, educate, reward and bind themselves together around food.

FP: Why is this hard for Americans to grasp?RR: Americans inherited an Anglo Saxon culture which places no interest in food, so it doesn’t have anything much to pass on. We have to look to other cultures for the answers, and when we do, and find an appreciation of what other cultures offer, then we’re saved.

If we’re not interested, we eat potato chips and drink Diet Coke. Americans build houses without dining rooms. There is no place for people to gather, to wonder, to enjoy, to grasp in the way there is in cultures which have food appreciation to pass on.

FP: How can college students manage to eat well as a budget?RR: Don’t eat anything you can’t pronounce. Sit when you eat. Don’t eat alone.Discuss sex, politics and religion at the table, but not business.

FP: What is your favorite part of being a chef?RR: I’m having fun at the moment.

I know that what I have received has true value, and I take pleasure in honoring it. What I inherited serves me, and I try to pass it on in as good a shape as I received it. I know that by being able to do something well, and to have that be part of my identity, I can go forth in the world and meet anyone, king or farmer, on equal terms.

FP: What is the best restaurant to eat at in Portland?RR: At the moment, Beast.