Marijuana Reaches New Gastronomic Highs

Shandar

New Member
It's been a while since cooking with marijuana passed the stage of mere "edibles" - brownies, cookies, muffins, popcorn - sold at coffee shops in Amsterdam and, more recently, at legal dispensaries in the United States.

For proof, look at the number of cookbooks available in digital and traditional bookstores for preparing meals with cannabis leaves, seeds and their extracts.

Now the herb has arrived to the high echelons of gastronomy as a number of the world's most distinguished chefs from Copenhagen to New York explore its culinary potential, offering unexpected cannabis creations on the menus of their famous restaurants.

Graced with pistachio flavor and nutty aromas, according to the connoisseurs, marijuana blends equally well with sweet and salty dishes.

In the heart of the Danish countryside at one of Scandinavia's best restaurants — in the picturesque 800-year old Dragsholm Slot castle — 34-year-old chef Claus Henriksen, a rising star in the global gourmet firmament, is making global news. On his menu, among many other fine delights, appears Fromage de Chèvre Frais Aromatisé aus Feuilles de Cannabis (fresh goat cheese flavored with cannabis leaves), Saucisses de Porc a la Sauce Crème et Cannabis (pork sausages with cream and cannabis sauce) and a Sorbet au Cannabis sur Lit de Compote de Pommes," (cannabis sherbet on an applesauce bed) as recently described by Le Monde. "From the plate, the smell is intense and the color often close to green Halloween," explains the writer.

The description by the food critic at The Guardian is more detailed: "a hemp-smoked soft cheese, stuffed with fresh hemp leaves and served with a puree made from roasted and blended seeds," was among the dishes he tried at Dragsholm Slot. "The dish was beautiful: crisp, clean, zingy and with nutty hemp as the perfect companion to the fresh cheese."

To be clear, hemp is a variety of mountain-grown cannabis commonly used to make oil, wax, resin, rope, cloth, pulp, paper, and fuel.

The variety of hemp used by Chef Henriksen is known as Fedora 17, which has very low traces of THC, the psychoactive substance in cannabis, and cultivated in his region exclusively by a farmer who has the legal right to sell it for gastronomic use. He's also the supplier to other top restaurants including Noma in Copenhagen, which has been chosen four times as the best restaurant in the world and which ordered its first cooking supply of marijuana in October.

The experimentation with cannabis in the cuisine of Brooklyn's renowned Roberta's restaurant has also made the news. The restaurant organizes discreet tastings of dishes in which cannabis enriches the flavour of tropical fish and dessert crumbles.

In France, there has been some reluctance to the open use of marijuana in haute cuisine. Michelin-starred chef Alain Ducasse told Le Monde that he has "no experience on the subject."

On the other hand, there are others like Marc Veyrat, a starred chef from the Haute-Savoie region, whose specialty is molecular gastronomy and the use of wild plants, flowers and herbs, and who is extremely enthusiastic about the subject: "I prepare an émincé (minced) de cannabis. I crystallize and dice it. It's delicious," he said.

Meanwhile, back in Denmark, "even the sausages for this year's Christmas menu at the castle have been stuffed with dried hemp leaves and chopped hazelnuts," reports The Guardian.

For his part, Chef Henriksen said that he hasn't found a dish yet in which hemp doesn't work. "I actually believe hemp has the ability to accentuate a lot of food. You can sauté it like spinach, fry it, or cook it like creamed kale. I am really impressed that you can use the plant to such a wide extent."

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News Moderator: Shandar @ 420 MAGAZINE ®
Source: Information for the World's Business Leaders - Forbes.com
Author: Cecelia Rodriguez
Contact: Contact Information - Forbes
Website: Marijuana Reaches New Gastronomic Highs - Forbes
 
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