Food and drinks:
Cuisine of Intensity: Comfort Food
Zuzana Blochová and David Fesl present a case study of the bistro in a cultural institution where food and drink become a legitimate medium of communication and education.
The Cuisine of Intensities brings together information about nutrition, intestinal microflora, genetics, longevity, and beneficial interconnections between humans, animals, plants, and animate and inanimate entities. Placing importance on the experience of eating, the Cuisine of Intensities focuses on the economic and political influences creating prejudices around nutrition. In our chaotic present, it seeks the ideal diet for the contemporary human. Using only raw materials and products from organic and sustainable agriculture, plants and ingredients from surrounding nature, and mineral spring water from local water sources, the Cuisine of Intensities respects traditional methods and focuses on careful food preparation and water quality. It delimits itself against conventional food culture, which, as it aims to maximise financial profit, skips processes that eliminate natural toxicity in food and improve the digestibility of plants. The Cuisine of Intensities transforms the nutritional value of raw materials by soaking, fermenting, drying, infusing, smoking, slow cooking, or baking in the ground. It integrates natural ingredients such as roots, sprouts, buds, mushrooms, mosses and lichens, and yeast and probiotic microorganisms. The Cuisine of Intensities searches for possibilities of presentation and for relations and meanings hidden behind the colours and tastes of the ingredients, linking them through inner logics. The message of the Cuisine of Intensities is to offer an idea of the near future where minimal toxicity and nutrient-rich food are understood as the natural right of each living being.
The Cuisine follows the Intensities cycle, enriching it with its own issues: Comfort food, Water, Rediscovered Traditions.
Comfort food evokes nostalgic and sentimental feelings both on an individual level and as they relate to a specific culture. Comfort food is food with high caloric and nutritional value, is often associated with childhood memories, and creates feelings of safety, reward, saturation, peace, and immediate satisfaction. In this section, the Cuisine of Intensities treats food as a psychoactive substance influencing emotions, and as the need to communicate and the inability of escaping from our cultural cohesion and context. This time, the Cuisine will focus on searching for a fusion of traditional meals from the Czech–Polish–Slovak border region and present-day eclectic food culture, and will try to imagine the comfort food of our shared present.
Documents
Playlist for Cuisine of Intensities by Tomáš Kopáček
In collaboration with Adéla Brož, Barbora Lepší and Dita Lamačová
Thanks to Edith Jeřábková, Jan Škoda, Magdaléna Thomitzková, COKAFE, BEZ OBALU Ostrava, Trhy co se hledají, Biokošíky, Farmářská prodejna Horáková
Ingredients, farmers and suppliers:
Vegetables: Biozelenina Velehrad, Ekofarma Horní Ředice, Zahrada Černíkovice, Svobodný statek na soutoku
Fermented vegetables and pickled cucumbers: Cuisine of Intensities, Biozelenina Velehrad, Zahrada Černíkovice
Plum jam and dried fruits: Biofarma Juré
Sourdough rye bread, sourdough buckwheat bread and rye leaven: Magdaléna Thomitzková – COKAFE
Rye, barley, spelt, and buckwheat: Ekofarma Požaha, PROBIO
Beans: Estyria (AT)
Hemp seeds, poppy seeds and walnuts: Zelená Země, Rosibee-Farma Rosický, Ekofarma Horní Ředice
Dairy: Farma Menšík, Ekofarma Šťastná koza
Eggs: Farma Pod kaštany
Sausage, lard and pork cracklings: Farma Rudimov, Biofarma Sasov
Wild mushrooms: LES. Společenství pro pěstování, teorii a umění; team of PLATO Ostrava
Flowers and dried rosehip berries: KVĚTOMLUVA (Sušírna sv. Františka)
Rosehip jam: Dida Boža (HR)
Spices and herbs: SONNENTOR, Ekofarma Horní Ředice
Honey: Med z Doupovských hor – Ing. Dušan Michálek
Microgreens: Urban Grown
Spring and mineral water sources: studánka U Sochorka, Stará Bělá; studánka Vřesina u Bílovce; Liduščiny studánky, Čavisov; studánka Pod Chmelníkem, Klimkovice
Apple cider: Moštárna Hostětín
Wine: VELTLIN – Syfany Winery, Petr Marada Winery
Beer: Bohemia Regent – Český granát
Plum brandy: Zámecké sady Chrámce
Olive oil, black tea, cocoa, dried cane juice, apple cider vinegar, sea salt: BEZ OBALU Ostrava
Dried rowan berries, seaweed, brewer's yeast, tomato sauce, mustard, potato starch, baking soda: PROBIO, bio nebio
The Cuisine of Intensities pays meticulous attention to water and its overlooked characteristics. Water exchanges information with everything it meets, and it absorbs nutrients, minerals, toxins, and plastics. The quality of water influences the taste and nutritional value of food. The Cuisine offers mineral water to drink and also uses it for cooking, soaking, and sprouting. In its second part, the Cuisine of Intensities focuses on the principles of simplicity, liquidity, readability, clear colours, and respect.
Menu
(available from 1/5/2020)
The Cuisine of Intensities is based on the traditions of Slavic cuisine and finds inspiration in recipes from various cultures and in books on nutrition and fermentation. Traditional food preparation processes that were developed and used for hundreds, even thousands, of years have been rejected by modern society primarily because they were time-consuming and profit-losing. Soaking, sprouting, and fermentation improve digestion, accelerate nutritional value, and increase the experience of taste. In this section, the Cuisine of Intensities also deals with contemporary knowledge of the intestinal microflora community which reflects the mental and physical state of an individual and serves as a parallel to human society.
Menu
(available from 1/10/2020)
After Forest Kitchen, the Cuisine of Intensities is the second project by Zuzana Blochová and David Fesl. Cuisine was created as part of the programme of the symposium WE ARE WOODS: About Plant Intelligence and Interspecies Communication and was implemented in collaboration with artist Adéla Brož.
Zuzana Blochová is a co-founding member of the curators’ organisation Are | are-events.org (Are) and the initiative Institute of Anxiety. At present, Are works on a number of projects interpreting the diverse, interconnected oeuvre of Ester Krumbachová. The Institute of Anxiety programme also features a community project (WOODS. Community for Cultivation, Theory, and Art), whose aim is to create a sustainable biodiverse forest friendly to the widest range of life organisms.
David Fesl is an artist who moves freely between various fields. His works are characterised by radical poetics, self-criticism of the medium, the inclusion of rejected materials, and the psychology of the viewer. Fesl co-founded the Klub psaní pro vizuální umělce (Writing Club for Visual Artists) and the Kočovná společnost© (Nomadic Company) ensemble. At present, he is finishing his degree at the Academy of Arts in Prague. His works have been shown at exhibitions in the Castlefield Gallery in Manchester, the National Gallery in Prague and the Fait Gallery in Brno.
Special thanks to the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and Moravian-Silesian Region.
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