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Shoots for the stars: Briton grows microgreens for top French chefs
SAINT-JEAN-EN-VAL, France, July 14, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Fuchsia-coloured
lights glow over a miniature garden where tiny plants pack a wealth of
flavour and nutrients headed for the tables of Michelin-starred French chefs.
British producer Chris Kilner nurtures his “microgreens” on a farm in
Saint-Jean-en-Val, a village only a couple of hours from France’s gastronomic
capital Lyon.
“Our clients determine what we grow,” says the soft-spoken Kilner, 47.
“They’re very demanding.”
Unlike sprouts that are grown in water and eaten whole, Kilner’s come up
in soil and are snipped just at the right time for maximum impact on the
palate.
They don’t hang around for long. Some are only a week old when they are
harvested, and none grow for more than two months.
Kilner plucks a tiny leaf to check on progress, like a vintner fussing
over ripening grapes.
“Everyone knows what rocket tastes like, but around day 11 its taste is
suddenly more precise,” Kilner says as he bites into the heart-shaped,
lilliputian green. “You recognise it clearly when you taste it. It’s perfect,
with no bitterness.”
The practised chef can conjure licorice from agastache microgreens; shiso
is redolent of anise or cumin, depending on the variety; the big blue star-
shaped flowers of the borage plant give off the fresh, crunchy quality of the
cucumber.
Microgreens, the young seedlings of edible vegetables and herbs, can exude
the most startling flavours — mustard, wasabi, pepper, citrus, capers and
even oysters — and in such high concentrations that they substitute easily
for their counterparts on the spice or condiment rack.
One thing is certain: the microgreen is not for decoration.
MORE/MR/ 1035 hrs
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“It’s an ingredient unto itself; you can’t do without it,” said Dorian Van
Bronkhorst, head chef at the Michelin-starred Atelier Yssoirien restaurant in
the town of Issoire, in the Auvergne region near Kilner’s farm. “It’s a
flavour enhancer that adds finesse and colour, as well as acidity or
sweetness.”
The self-taught entrepreneur is a former robotics engineer who helped
develop the humanoid robots Nao and Pepper for Aldebaran Robotics.
Once they went into mass production, Kilner was ready leave the high-tech
world to spend more time with his wife Virginie Vial, a 46-year-old
development economist, at the family farmhouse.
It was in 2016 that Kilner went microgreen, partly inspired by his wife’s
fondness for growing her own soybean sprouts and others.
Kilner’s company Radix — from the Latin for “roots” — supplies Van
Bronkhorst and dozens of other chefs in the region, including many boasting
Michelin stars, with a turnover of around 50,000 euros ($58,000) last year.
With such tiny crops — around 50 microgreen varieties sprout under
special lamps or in miniature greenhouses — Kilner operates in a space of
some 500 square metres (5,000 square feet).
But thanks to growing demand — “most big chefs use microgreens,” he says
— Kilner may move to a bigger space in the autumn.
– ‘I’m not a magician’ –
The key to his success? The only inputs are water and a keen attention to
detail.
“I’m not a magician,” Kilner says. “You have to keep tasting all the time,
and it’s your taste buds that guide you.”
Before Kilner set up shop here, French chefs have relied on the Dutch
company Koppert Cress, which has enjoyed a near-monopoly in France.
The difference with Kilner is that he delivers his microgreens in the soil
they sprouted in.
“You’re sure of getting the product in season, ultra-fresh, and you cut it
only as you are putting it on the plate,” said Cyrille Zen, who runs the
Michelin-starred La Bergerie de Sarpoil in Saint-Jean-en-Val.
While chefs began coveting microgreens about a decade ago, they are also
prized for their nutritional value.
According to a study published in 2012 by the Journal of Agricultural and
Food Chemistry, microgreens contain four to 40 times the vitamins and
antioxidants of their mature counterparts.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1035 hrs