Schrödinger's trout

hats off to the man who first smoked a fish, I thought, while savouring the smoked ocean trout at Tetsuya's, though I wasn't wearing a hat, and the first fish might've been smoked by a woman. the essence of the dish was, of course, the amazing quality of the fish itself, but there was a tune to be heard underneath; not some kind of adornment or token aside, but the symphony of additions which made the dish sing.

to imagine the process of this creation, we need to make a bridge from here, where the chef stands with his main ingredient, to there, the place where the masterpiece is gloriously complete. the same could be applied to a song, a poem, an architectural form. a genesis appears in the mind of the artist: the structure around which the piece will be built.

unlike Shrödinger's famous thought experiment, this scenario does not use a cat, but an artist and a trout. let's call the artist Tets. we cannot see inside Tets's neural pathways while he imagines the tian of smoked ocean trout, so we cannot know what he is thinking. this may be irrelevant anyway; he may be designing with his tongue. let us assume that Tets is in bed late at night, awake, and feeling vaguely unsatisfied with a meal he's eaten some hours before. slightly overcooked pasta, salad leaves a touch wilted instead of perfectly crisp, the texture of the duck skin somehow unexceptional, perhaps the wine did not come to sing in the glass as he expected. he takes a sip of water and lies back, allowing his mind to wander. pressing his tongue against his palate, he begins to think about Petuna ocean trout, a fish with which he's had great creative success. he thinks about smoking the flesh at a low temperature so that the protein sets but is still mostly translucent and glowing, not the opaque orange of cooked trout. the oils stay inside the flesh rather than melting away, creating a velvety feel in the mouth, and conveying the sapid smokiness across the tongue and the soft palate. the flesh is diced into tiny cubes, so the tedious intrusion of the teeth is almost unnecessary.

the fish is very satisfying in the imagination, but what about the other stanzas?, thinks Tets. he has an unfinished poem, just a chorus without verse. what makes the smoked trout sing? standing half way across the conceptual bridge, he remembers the words of his first year painting lecturer: "Don't ever use colour straight from the tube", he warned, with a smirk which suggested it might be very bold and clever to do just that. but the delicately smoked trout ensemble is not a Peter Booth painting, Tets thinks, so restraint is sage advice.

he imagines the flavours which must whisper rather than shout at the taster: shallot, tarragon, aniseed. a tiny brush of these substances creates a barely perceptible yet persistent melody in the masterpiece; too much and the dish is crushed. time must meld these notes with the fish before Tets finishes the piece. we have almost reached the other side when he shapes the tiny, perfectly flavoured cubes into a flat disc. it is topped with a perfectly even layer of black pearls of Avruga caviar: herring roe produced in Spain, with a milder, somewhat citrus flavour, compared with that of sturgeon roe. in the middle of this new sea of black he places a specular sphere of whiteness, an orb of shiny, set scallop mousse. inside the orb is his crown, his sauce: the yolk of a quail egg. he envisages the faintly fishy whiteness giving way to a rich, yellow spill, a minute spread across the canvas. he stands at the other side, white plate in hand; the creation he imagined is complete.

supposing one wanted to apply this thought experiment to the creation of a dish in one's own kitchen, without insight or instruction from the artist. not quite like working in Rodin's studio, where one can work with an exact mould or map, nor quite as bad as playing Deep Purple on air guitar, the adaptation might look like this:

go to the supermarket after work and stare with contempt and disbelief at the queue as you walk in the door, but then gravitate zombie-like towards the fridge section anyway. select a 100g pack of smoked salmon. this strangely lurid flesh vacuum-sealed against slimy, gold cardboard isn't Petuna ocean trout, but it still tastes pretty good. choose a fennel, with some leafy fronds still intact, and a spanish onion, and some cream. this experiment assumes you have garlic, butter, lemon and pasta at home.

since Tets's trout was designed so that the flavours would meld with the fish, start this part before looking for adequately sized pots, pans or pasta, but not before the crucial step where you are instructed to pour wine or open a beer. dice the flesh finely and place it in a bowl. mince half a medium clove of garlic to a fine paste, omitting salt as the flavours must remain subtle. halve the onion and cut two thin slices from the widest part, dicing them finely. pick about five fronds from the fennel top and chop finely, and peel about one square centimetre of zest from a lemon: mince up very finely. add all of this to the salmon, mix, and then add about 5 drops of lemon juice and 5 drops of olive oil. restraint in the artist's imagination is part of the key to this thought experiment. this should be left to develop at room temperature, and you are now free to attend to other kitchen matters, or the wine.

since all of the precisely considered elements necessary for perfection are already assembled, sobriety is no longer requisite, always a relief after such taxing mental work. when you are almost ready to serve the dish, chop the remaining onion, and about half the fennel, not too fine: slivers are good, chunks are inappropriate. fry these in butter over a low to medium heat, aiming for translucency rather than caramelisation. add some finely chopped garlic towards the end if you like, and a bit of salt. have some extra fennel fronds chopped and waiting.

boil the pasta. long, thin cappellini are best, or spaghettini, or even linguini if you're a fan. when it's almost ready stir a few spoonfuls of cream into the onion and fennel, then lift the pasta out with a little cooking water clinging to the strands to add to the sauce, and stir it through the onion and cream over a gentle heat.

plate your pasta, then scatter the waiting fennel fronds wantonly about to create tension between feckless gestures and thoughtful precision. lastly, place three quenelles (that's French for 'blobs') of the diced salmon atop the centre of each pasta dish. if you're speedy enough the pasta should stay hot and the salmon should just warm through, enhancing the fine notes of flavour and creating a delectable sensation in the mouth.

and so the thought experiment shows that the creative processes of an artist can be mimicked, but not accurately; they are changed by the very nature of adaptation. and that smoked Petuna ocean trout and vacuum-packed supermarket smoked salmon both taste better than Shrödinger's hypothetical dead cat.