Homaru Cantu's Future Food' Sneak Peek, Comcast On Demand

If you have Comcast cable, check out Homaru 'Call me Omar' Cantu's new venture on the On Demand feature; it's under the Lifestyle/Home stuff, in the 'Planet Green' menu. Pretty funny stuff. The entire first ep is included, as well as some short subjects, one of which is the instructions for making the Cuban Sandwich cigar. Pretty cool.

I was disappointed with Omar and Ben's performance on the Today Show this morning. Ann Curry seemed to suck all the energy out of them (not an easy thing to do), and belittle what they're doing as just weird ways to make food. Omar has grand ideas about how food can change the world - none of that came though.

You'll be OK with the show - H.Omar.u comes across as a twinkly-eyed potty-mouthed (!) little imp. Loved it!

nr706 wrote:I was disappointed with Omar and Ben's performance on the Today Show this morning. Ann Curry seemed to suck all the energy out of them (not an easy thing to do), and belittle what they're doing as just weird ways to make food. Omar has grand ideas about how food can change the world - none of that came though.

I'm on Ann's side.

Kennyz wrote:I'm on Ann's side.

I can only aspire to your curmudgeonliness.

nr706 wrote:

Kennyz wrote:I'm on Ann's side.

I can only aspire to your curmudgeonliness.

and I can only aspire to your ability to understand why making a piece of edible chicken look like an inedible bar of soap is a good idea.

i had a chance to see the first three episodes and am already hooked!

Kennyz wrote:

nr706 wrote:

Kennyz wrote:I'm on Ann's side.

I can only aspire to your curmudgeonliness.

and I can only aspire to your ability to understand why making a piece of edible chicken look like an inedible bar of soap is a good idea.

I see your point and accept your challenge - wait for the episode where we demonstrate how we can stamp out world hunger!

I see your point and accept your challenge - wait for the episode where we demonstrate how we can stamp out world hunger!

[/quote]


And that can be seen below. No risk, no reward. Been keeping a lid on this stuff to get the market prepped for the beginning of the end of world hunger. No foolin' around now!

Hi Homaru,
What came first the egg or the pizza:) Great pictorial in the Trib
Best,
Gooseberry

Ending world hunger? A laudable goal. Mazel tov. One problem (well, one of many, but I digress): I think you underestimate how important food traditions are for starving people in war-torn or third-world countries. It's one thing to convince a bunch of industrialized-nation foodie intellectuals to try your trendy reconstituted and reinvented stuff and quite another to ask a poor man in, say, Ethiopia or Afghanistan to give up his mother's cooking and trade that in for your inventions. For many people, the foods their families have grown/raised and cooked for generations helps to define who they are; without 'their' food, they no longer know who they are. And changing their food is not their idea of progress, not even if you can manage to make your inventions taste like their mamas' cooking.

You think you're going to overcome that in your lab? Good luck with that: you're having trouble convincing me, and I'm a foodie carnivore who's up for trying new things but who, when it comes down to it, would rather die first than give up my barbecue. Or my sour cream, my chocolate, my smoked salmon, or my family's hot beet borscht with boletus-mushroom-filled dumplings for Christmas. I don't relish living in a Star-Trek kind of world where everything is made from yeast products, soy and cellulose with some real flavoring thrown in -- I like my food recognizeable and as close to the original as possible without being boring (I also don't believe in food as construction/architecture: If I have to spend more time figuring out how to deconstruct it in order to eat it than I do actually eating it, I'm not happy, and I won't pay good money for that. But that's a different subject). So yeah, I'll watch your show and listen to your proposal, but from what little I've seen/read so far, I don't see your proposal sweeping the planet any time soon.

On the other hand, I do see a real purpose to an international seed bank to preserve as many varieties of current and heirloom fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains and other foodstuffs as possible to save them for future generations; ditto a DNA bank for domesticated food animals, similar to ones that exist for wild and zoo animals in danger of extinction. Those seem very practical and smart to me, for many reasons. Your lab stuff? Not so much; but I'll suspend disbelief for the time being, at least until I've heard the entire proposal.

- webdiva

webdiva wrote:Ending world hunger? A laudable goal. Mazel tov. One problem (well, one of many, but I digress): I think you underestimate how important food traditions are for starving people in war-torn or third-world countries. It's one thing to convince a bunch of industrialized-nation foodie intellectuals to try your trendy reconstituted and reinvented stuff and quite another to ask a poor man in, say, Ethiopia or Afghanistan to give up his mother's cooking and trade that in for your inventions. For many people, the foods their families have grown/raised and cooked for generations helps to define who they are; without 'their' food, they no longer know who they are. And changing their food is not their idea of progress, not even if you can manage to make your inventions taste like their mamas' cooking.

You think you're going to overcome that in your lab? Good luck with that: you're having trouble convincing me, and I'm a foodie carnivore who's up for trying new things but who, when it comes down to it, would rather die first than give up my barbecue. Or my sour cream, my chocolate, my smoked salmon, or my family's hot beet borscht with boletus-mushroom-filled dumplings for Christmas. I don't relish living in a Star-Trek kind of world where everything is made from yeast products, soy and cellulose with some real flavoring thrown in -- I like my food recognizeable and as close to the original as possible without being boring (I also don't believe in food as construction/architecture: If I have to spend more time figuring out how to deconstruct it in order to eat it than I do actually eating it, I'm not happy, and I won't pay good money for that. But that's a different subject). So yeah, I'll watch your show and listen to your proposal, but from what little I've seen/read so far, I don't see your proposal sweeping the planet any time soon.

- webdiva

I'm rarely bothered by a post here on LTH, but are you saying that Chef Cantu should be doing more to solve world hunger? Do you feel like shoes should not be given to third world countries because they're not Gucci or Prada? That seems ridiculous to me. A person that's starving will not turn down free food. He's trying to cure world hunger. He's trying to help families, women and children that are not fortunate enough to eat. Why don't we focus on making sure they're physically capable to go on before we consider their likes and dislikes when it comes to 'mother's cooking'.

People don't have to agree with what he does. There are plenty of people out there that wouldn't think twice about Moto. Heck, there is likely the same amount that won't visit Alinea. Moto is an experience. Chef Cantu isn't selling you just a meal, he's offering an experience.

In the end I feel like we should be embracing what he's trying to accomplish rather than nitpick what he may be doing wrong. I'm assuming he's used his own time/money thus far to fund a great idea. I support this cause in it's entirety.

Chef - If there's anyway I can help please let me know. If it's something as small as spreading the word I'm here to help. Thank you for what you're doing. I hope to try Moto/Otom sometime soon. The only reasons I haven't been so far are those that most people have at this time, lack of money/time. I've tried the 'best' restaurants of the city and hope to include the experience of your restaurant in that group sometime soon.

dollbabytina wrote:i had a chance to see the first three episodes and am already hooked!

Watched all three episodes as well, fun, interesting, motivating. Hammond was his usual enjoyable on-screen presence, upstaged only by his wife Carolyn and the ever interesting Doug Sohn.

Nice job H Cantu and all involved.

Jayz wrote:I'm rarely bothered by a post here on LTH, but are you saying that Chef Cantu should be doing more to solve world hunger? Do you feel like shoes should not be given to third world countries because they're not Gucci or Prada?

Nope, that's not what I'm saying at all, as a careful reading of what I wrote would show: any effort that anyone makes to help end hunger should be welcomed, but that doesn't mean that every effort is either practical or successful. I'm questioning whether his approach will work, in the long run. Short-run feeding of the poor is a good thing, no matter how you do it, but that doesn't change how people feed themselves and their families most of the time. What you want, ideally, is for people to be able to feed themselves and their families, not temporarily through donations from abroad but permanently, through local agriculture; moreover, permanent solutions are more likely to succeed when they take into account local traditions -- and food traditions are among the most dearly held. The poster on this forum whose posts carry that quote from Lin Yutang probably knows what I mean: to paraphrase, what *is* chauvinism (or nationalism, or culture, for that matter), really, but a preference for what we ate as children?

That's a tough obstacle to come up against, and not to recognize that would just be silly; but as I wrote, although I remain a skeptic, for now I'm suspending disbelief until I've heard the entire proposal.

webdiva wrote:

Jayz wrote:I'm rarely bothered by a post here on LTH, but are you saying that Chef Cantu should be doing more to solve world hunger? Do you feel like shoes should not be given to third world countries because they're not Gucci or Prada?

Nope, that's not what I'm saying at all, as a careful reading of what I wrote would show: any effort that anyone makes to help end hunger should be welcomed, but that doesn't mean that every effort is either practical or successful. I'm questioning whether his approach will work, in the long run. Short-run feeding of the poor is a good thing, no matter how you do it, but that doesn't change how people feed themselves and their families most of the time. What you want, ideally, is for people to be able to feed themselves and their families, not temporarily through donations from abroad but permanently, through local agriculture; moreover, permanent solutions are more likely to succeed when they take into account local traditions -- and food traditions are among the most dearly held. The poster on this forum whose posts carry that quote from Lin Yutang probably knows what I mean: to paraphrase, what *is* chauvinism (or nationalism, or culture, for that matter), really, but a preference for what we ate as children?

That's a tough obstacle to come up against, and not to recognize that would just be silly; but as I wrote, although I remain a skeptic, for now I'm suspending disbelief until I've heard the entire proposal.

Thank you for the follow up. I too look forward to the proposal and agree that giving people the tools and knowledge to grow is the ultimate goal. However as we find ways to do that we have great people such as Chef Cantu to feed the hungry. Overcoming world hunger, at least in my mind, will never be solved. Doing our best is all we can do. Each person giving their best effort is all we can ask for. What he's offering is just one answer to a line of questions, not an answer to all. Again I look forward to seeing where this whole project goes.

Check us out Live every Tuesday at 9/8 central on Ustream.tv - 1 hour before the airing of Future Food we will be doing live streaming demos demolition and deliciousness:)
Find us here:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/future-food