There are food events, and then there’s MAD, the freewheeling food symposium first held in Copenhagen 2011.
From speakers extolling the virtues of MSG to Italian butchers reciting Dante while disemboweling a pig on-stage, this culinary forum regularly and deliberately takes the food conversation to unchartered territory.
This April, MAD will continue to break new ground when the Sydney Opera House hosts MAD SYD, the symposium’s first event in Australia.
The announcement is the latest headline in what is rapidly becoming the summer of René Redzepi, the Danish chef behind Noma who recently transplanted his restaurant from Copenhagen to Sydney for a 10-week pop-up. While all the ($495!) tickets to Noma went in minutes, MAD SYD is a more accessible way to get in on the Noma action (as is Pierre Deschamps’ recently released Noma My Perfect Storm documentary). MAD is also, according to some of the country’s highest profile chefs, an event that has the power to change lives.
“MAD was the first food symposium that wasn’t commercial but sincere in wanting to create a positive change,” says Attica chef-patron and presenter at the inaugural 2011 MAD symposium, Ben Shewry.
René Redzepi at MAD2, in 2012. Source: Max Veenhuyzen
“I revealed a lot of myself but came back from it feeling revitalised. I felt like I needed to change things and do better. The effect MAD had on me was really profound.”
So what’s on the cards for MAD’s Australian debut? Although the full program is still to be announced, the first lot of speakers represent a broad cross-section of the food landscape.
But while the likes of Momofuku’s David Chang and Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana will bring international firepower to the event, it’s presenters such as Zimbabwean food activist Chido Govera that best encapsulate MAD’s raison d’être. Although we’ll have to wait till the day to see what Govera will be discussing, if her talk is anything like her moving “What Gives Me the Appetite to Be the Person that I Am” presentation at MAD2, you’d do well to bring a hanky.
The home team has also named some of its squad including social researcher Rebecca Huntley and, in a delicious stroke of fate, Billy Kwong’s Kylie Kwong: it was Redzepi’s presentation at the Sydney Opera House in 2010 that steered Kwong’s cooking in its current Australian-Chinese direction (regulars are her restaurant might have dined on dishes like stir-fried XO sauce crab crunched up with coastal herbs like sea parsley and samphire, or imaginative dumplings like saltbush cakes). Six years on and Kwong is thrilled to be adding her voice to the discussion.
Zimbabwean food activist Chido Govera at MAD2. Source: MAD
“It was one of the biggest light bulb moments in my life,” says Kwong of hearing Redzepi speak.
“I feel so honoured to be a part of MAD SYD and can’t wait to learn and share so much with everyone. I’ll be sharing my story and experiences including the way René himself played an enormous part in my new directions in cooking and ingredients.”
While the symposium clearly has plenty of admirers on the ground, the $99 (plus booking fee) question is: what can MAD SYD delegates expect? Event organisors are still tight-lipped on exactly what’s happening but if antics from previous years are any indication (among my favourite memories from MAD2 in 2012: the Mission Street Chinese guys coming on stage to Stan Bush’s “The Touch” and then distributing Tsingtao long necks through the crowd, beatboxing musical intermissions, the spontaneous and frequent applause and watching a nervous Redzepi introduce his mentor, El Bulli’s Ferran Adria), the agenda will feature fun and real talk in equal measures. I can’t wait to be at the Opera House in April.
MAD SYD runs from 1pm-5.30pm on Sunday April 3. Tickets from $99 and available from February 16. Visit here for more details.
