Lights Out Dinner: Losing control only to find Ucan

It may be premature to make any grand conclusions only two dinners into the IdeaFestival Lights Out series, so let’s just call this an early observation: some people seem to get a charge out of ceding a level of control over their lives.

How else to explain the high-decibel hubbub, laughter and smiles at the Mayan Cafe on Louisville’s East Market Street Wednesday night (June 14)? 

Forced to don blindfolds, and provided no menus or choices among the dishes and drinks they consumed over the course of three hours, nearly all the 50 guests nonetheless seemed unperturbed, unburdened. Some were downright giddy.

It reminded me how relatively recent the whole restaurant concept actually is. The first honest-to-gosh restaurant, at which customers were given menus and choices, was established only about 200 years ago, in France. For thousands of years until then, most professional hospitality played according to the rules of the inn, where the food a guest received was whatever the innkeeper offered, take it or leave it.

It’s better to have choices, which is why restaurants are now so ubiquitous.  But every now and then, evidence suggests, it’s invigorating to throw down the menu and tell the chef; “Oh, what the hell!  You make all the decisions.”

And I can tell you now, Mayan Cafe chef and owner Bruce Ucan was making ‘em right up to the moment the doors (draped with black cloth against the evening sun) opened.

Earlier, Ucan told me his first experience cooking for others came at age 12, when he worked on a construction crew in his native Mexico. He was assigned the not-too-strenuous task of assembling lunches for the older crew members.  Initially that meant running between houses to collect freshly-bagged meals from wives, and maybe to a local market for drinks and snacks. 

But he said he recognized an opportunity to be creative--and maybe escape some heavy lifting later on.  He told the guys he could cook for them right there on the site.  Each day they’d pool their money and send Bruce to the market, and he’d return with a basic set of ingredients and “cook” them in anything he could, with whatever was at hand.  He told me about a favorite made from sardines, tomatoes and eggs.  He sliced the sardines and tomatoes with the sharp-edged top peeled from the sardine can, and cooked over a trash fire, stirring with a paint scraper.

Ucan said he couldn’t help, even then, thinking of new things to try, new combinations and techniques.  And the urge has apparently never left him. 

In the weeks leading up to the Lights Out Dinner he told me about his frustrating searches for a reliable purveyor of the Mexican beef blood sausage he wanted to use in one dish...and for brains.  He hoped to create a version of the sesos--braised cow brains and eggs--he recalled from street corner vendors in his youth.

Those things didn’t pan out (I consoled him by telling him I wasn’t surprised to find brains hard to come by in the U.S. under the current administration). 

But LOD guests nevertheless feasted on exotic dishes containing rabbit, venison, barracuda, alligator.   And only hours before the event Chef Ucan decided the Alligator salbute needed an introductory shot of something, so he concocted a salty elixir of cactus juice, garlic, blood orange, and epazote, instructing his guests to take a swig of it just before biting into the savory stacked pastry. 

It worked beautifully.  You’d never order this cactus shooter at your local Don Pedro’s; it was way too viscous and earthy to have that kind of appeal on its own.  But as a silky sister to toothy alligator tail meat on its buttery, crumbly salbute base, it drew a round of exclamations and then applause.

Oh yeah, and the crepe and jalapeno-pomegranate ice cream dessert had a rasher of barbecue-smoked by-god bacon in it, along with papaya.

That’s the kind of night it was; an edgy, creative master sending out wave after wave of  aromatic, zingy, complex and counter-intuitive dishes while guests sniffed, touched, tasted, discussed, and ultimately gave in fully to the experience of letting someone else make the decisions while they conducted a communal forensic inquiry: what is it, does it work, and would I ever willingly order it again?

I can’t say how a dish of braised brains might have gone over, but I’m learning not to underestimate the adventurousness of the people these IdeaFestival Lights Out Dinners are attracting. 

They might have been amazed. 

They might have been appalled. 

But they sure seem willing to explore the full range of reactions between those two poles, and that’s as much as we could have hoped for when we set out on this strange culinary quest. 

Next stop: the Patron Restaurant, on Wednesday, August 27.

IdeaFestival Lights Out Dinner Menu
June 11, 2008
Mayan Cafe, 813 E. Market Street, Louisville, KY
Chef: Bruce Ucan, Drinks and Spirits Wizard:  Anne Shadle

Course One:

Black bean bisque with rabbit and French feta cheese, accompanied by Xingu Brazilian Porter.

Course Two:

Arugula tossed with venison, radishes, cilantro, tomatoes, onion and garlic, with olive oil, accompanied by Crios Rose.

Course Three:

Black bean cake topped with Barracuda ceviche˙, accompanied by a Mayan Cafe Mojito

Course Four:

Introductory shot of garlic-infused cactus and blood-orange juice, Alligator Salbute topped with Queso Fresco and avocado, accompanied by Heger Pinot Noir.

Course Five:

Crepe stuffed with papaya and smoked bacon in a frozen jalapeno-pomegranate molasses, accompanied by a Pom-papaya shooter.

David

Comments

[Jo]

I had a great time at the dinner. I'm regretting missing the first one and am absolutely on board for the second one. As someone who attended alone, not only was the food interesting, but also trying to socialize and converse with people I couldn't see!

[Their Username Is]

This was our first lights out dinner and our first experience with the Idea Festival. We enjoyed the nuance of being blindfolded during the dinner and having to use all of our other senses to distinguish what was happening around us. She could hear the trays coming and smell the food as it was coming to our table. I enjoyed trying to guess the wine pairings. It is amazing and sad at the same time that we take the rest of our senses for granted. The food was exquisite and neither of us would have ever ordered any of them had we been allowed to see the menu. The drink pairings were fabulous. Chef Ucan's genius and creativity with this menu from texture to taste was a great experience. We had a great time and will absolutely do this again.