Serhat Doğramacı — Chef

Cooking begins long before the ingredient reaches the plate.

Seeing a fig on its tree in Aydın and cutting it in the kitchen are not the same act. The first is looking; the second is deciding. In the time between, the material changes and so do you. A good plate comes from there: the right ingredient, the right moment, the right decision.

Five principles

1. Listen to the material

   Before deciding what it should become, look at what it is. A fig tells you when to cut it; you only learn to listen.

   

2. Question what you know

   A familiar method becomes a limit the day it stops being questioned. The most dangerous recipe is the one that always works.

   

3. Follow the mistake

   A failed attempt can point somewhere a perfect repetition never will. Taste it before you throw it away.

   

4. Count time as an ingredient

   Duration is not a footnote under the recipe; it is the material itself. A keşkek is made of the hours it spends in the cauldron.

   

5. Don't treat the plate as the end

   The plate is not where the process ends but where the conversation starts. What arrives at the table is not an answer but a question.