An 800-pound roasted steer was butchered in the museum's atrium. It was a first for SFMOMA, as well as for the excited crowd assembled for Saturday night's Futurist banquet: blood dripping on the floor as an 800-pound roasted steer was butchered on a huge wooden table in the middle of the atrium.
Knives, cleavers, and hacksaws were flying, all called into play by the all-woman brigade as onlookers stood within inches -- risking spilling their own blood, as they had minutes before when an enormous iron spit was pulled from the beast, after it had been bicycled in from the street. Clumps of the rare beef were plopped on a conveyor belt that ran through the room.
A female cadre of butchers hacked up the beast.It was the central spectacle of a rather spectacular event, part of a showcase devoted to Futurism entitled Metal + Machine + Manifesto = Futurism's First 100 Years. The carved beef eventually reached its audience in decorous slices, served on Tartine bread with mole sauce, bean foam, and arugula salad.
OPENrestaurant, an art collective of restaurant professionals, greeted attendees with an array of unusual cocktails -- including, besides the inevitable absinthe-based one, an alcoholic gazpacho (this blogger's favorite), and one made with avocado and topped with candied orange rind that ate like a mousse. Edibles -- some more edible than others -- featured bruschetta topped with porcini foraged (illegally) in the Presidio, beet gelée and goat cheese molded into a (beeting) heart, hollowed-out tomatoes stuffed with halibut, taco cones stuffed with more beef, and (the most delicious dish of the evening), a stew made from city vegetables topped with pesto.
All this was consumed with a backdrop of projected found images (interspersed with video footage of the butchers and cooks at work), industrial noise, Italian speeches, and music. Attendees included filmmaker Les "Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers" Blank, Davia Nelson of PBS' The Kitchen Sisters, Jonathan Marlow of San Francisco Cinematheque, and Hannah Eaves of Link TV.
Again risking possible injury to banquetters, dessert descended from the sky: honeyed panforte, borne by parachutes printed on rice paper with edible ink, with a copy of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's 1909 Futurist Manifesto, precursor to the Futurist Cookbook of 1932 that helped inspire the evening -- sort of. Lance Winters of St. George Spirits provided a grappa flavored with roasted beef heart (said to be from the very animal butchered in the atrium) for those not faint of heart.
For more images, check out SFoodie's slide show.
