Anthony Bourdain and "the Sweet Spot" | StarTalk

So even something as simple as scrambling an egg is essentially a scientific manipulation of an ingredient by exposure to both heat and movement, and incorporating an area making it behave—an egg behaving in the desired way.

It reminds me—this is an obscure analogy, but it reminds me of when medicine became modern. It did so because, in part, it looked to see what sort of folk remedies existed around the world and cultures. “Oh, you chew on this bark, and that gets rid of your headache.” Well, what got rid of headaches? So you find out what's in the bark, right?

There's this molecule that becomes what we today call aspirin. You extract the active ingredient, right? Then you can exploit that to a great gain. So it seems to me if you knew exactly the moment and why a sautéed onion becomes sweet, mm-hmm, you could possibly hone in on that and exploit that fact with other foods.

That's what chefs are doing—some chefs are doing every day. I have friends who are rotting all varieties of things in some dark corner of their cellar, experimenting, talking to microbiologists from major universities, talking on late at night, working with them in kitchens, discussing, you know, the wonders of fermentation. “What can you ferment? What can you—what's going on in me?”

How could I apply that to something else? A machine? I love so much of food is not about freshness; it's what's called that sweet spot—the precise moment in its decay where it is best. Sushi being the best example. Anyone who goes and tells you that, you know, “I went to a sushi bar last night, it was the best! The fish was so fresh!” has no understanding at all of sushi.

It's not—sushi is not about freshness at all. First of all, even the best places deliberately cure their fish by freezing it. Sometimes out of necessity to kill the critters; others because it makes it better. But it's almost never about the freshest fish. Fresh fish, right out of the water, is still in rigor, and it's often rubbery and unpleasant and without much flavor.

Which is quite easy. In Iceland, they rot it sometimes because you get more fun. You're looking for the perfect point in the decay of the fish—same with meat. Almost everything we eat, like cheese, meat, fish—they're all aged, just like wine. So it's really about decay and rot.

Cheerful, is that just— I never knew. [Applause] [Music]