Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/760410
w i n t e r 2 0 1 7 | 4 1 Merrill Shindler: Snickers? Why Snickers? Why not Three Musketeers or even Kit Kat? Bob Zugmaier: Snickers were definitely my fa- vorite growing up. I had a ritual: Every day after school, I'd grab a Snickers and a soda on my way home. So for me, it was a return to my childhood. MS: For me, Snickers were always the spinach of candy bars. I'd eat them, but I didn't love them. Now, a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup— that's worthy of a cult following. BZ: I thought about Reese's, very popular. But Snickers give you more items to work with compared with Reese's. If people have aller- gies, I can also turn the bar into a 100 Grand or a Three Musketeers. They all share a lot of similar elements. MS: So, did you have to eat a few thousand to get to the inner meaning of Snickers? BZ: Let's just say, I put the work in. I devel- oped a strong grasp of what they're all about. And I'm still not tired of Snickers. MS: Deconstructing a classic strikes me as a bit perverse. There are chefs who have tried— and failed—to replicate Twinkies. It's like taking a great rock song, and re-doing it just to re-do it . . . BZ: Not if in the process you can elevate it and make it a little better. Not if it helps people see the dish in a new way. MS: Have you gotten any letters from lawyers threatening you with action for using the name? BZ: Actually, we did have a diner who came in who worked for the Mars Company. He told our General Manager to expect a cease and desist order. But he was chuckling when he said it. We never did get a letter. MS: Despite the defining caramel and peanuts. Snickers is basically a chocolate bar . . . BZ: Yup. And we think of it as a chocolate des- sert, with several chocolate components, and eight or nine components all told, all of which are assembled at the last minute. MS: There's chocolate ganache, chocolate mousse and chocolate sorbet—all with great textures . . . BZ: We use a whipped cream canister, which can spit out chocolate in different forms if you know how to tweak it. One point of difference is the percentage of chocolate in each element; the mousse is 58 percent, the ganache is 72 percent. The flavors change radically depend- ing on the percentage. MS: And where's the caramel? BZ: In place of caramel I use dulce de leche, which changes the taste and the texture. It comes as a surprise to those who expect the caramel to stick to their teeth. MS: And the peanuts? BZ: They're standard peanuts. But we like them to be really salty, and long-roasted. Again, it shifts the profile. MS: You make a carrot cake with crispy ginger meringue and carrot passion fruit sorbet. You make a smoked sweetbread tostada. You make a foie gras torchon with borscht purée and beet sorbet. But it was the vegetarian poutine that had me doing a double take. That may be a healthy reinterpretation of the world's unhealthiest dish. BZ: Poutine scares people—those cheese curds and thick gravy is imposing. I wanted to change the whole thing. MS: The people of Montreal would like to have a word with you . . . BZ: No, we've had some Canadians in here who really like our take. We use burrata in place a cheese curds—we use a blowtorch to scorch it pretty good so it has a texture like a pizza crust or a marshmallow. And in the same way the Snickers is a chocolate dish, the poutine is a potato dish. MS: In the classic, the potatoes are greasy and nasty . . . BZ: In this version, they're salt-roasted fingerling potatoes, very tasty. And the gravy is made out of heavily roasted veggies, about three gallon of veggies reduced down to two cups. We thicken it with butter. And it tastes like Vegemite. MS: Which would make it a French-Canadian dish with an Australian-Italian flavor, served in a Midwestern restaurant. Which may be a record for cuisines in a single dish. PHOTO: SARAH SPORN (POLISHED PIG MEDIA) Pastry Chef Bob Zugmaier of Sidney Street Cafe. "Every day after school, I'd grab a Snickers and a soda on my way home. So for me, it was a return to my childhood." ■cr