Famous Philadelphia chefs served up a silver platter of opinions yesterday as part of a symposium held by Penn's Center for Bioethics.
"Food for Thought: Cuisine in the Genetic Era" focused on the question of ethics in modern food cultivation and focused on the controversy over genetically engineered or enhanced foods.
Some of the city's best chefs -- including Georges Perrier and Guillermo Pernot -- joined scientists and several advocates of using biotechnology in agriculture at the symposium.
The event featured the medley of chefs to highlight the restaurant industry's new-found concern over biologically altered foods, which can include hormone-enhanced meats or genetically engineered plants and bacteria.
"We're trying to create a broad framework and code of ethics for biotechnology," said Center for Bioethics' Graduate Studies Director David Magnus, the event's co-coordinator. "We've talked to a wide variety of people -- stakeholders, environmental advocates, consumer activists, theologians -- but one of the last groups that we haven't talked to are the people who serve food themselves, chefs."
The chefs, like Perrier, the owner of Philadelphia's famous Le Bec-Fin, willingly spoke about their opinions, positive and negative, on the issue to a crowd of about a hundred.
Perrier, one of Philadelphia's most renowned cuisinaires, strongly opposed the increasing development of biotechnological fares.
A native of France, Perrier cited the staunch French and European opposition to biotechnology during his portion of the afternoon.
"Playing with nature is a very dangerous thing," Perrier said. "The only thing we should do is leave it alone!"
While some advocates of biotechnologically-enhanced food mention that biotechnology could solve world hunger problems, there are many that remain skeptical.
Janos Wilder, of Janos Restaurant in Philadelphia, felt strongly that biotechnology is not, in fact, the answer to world hunger.
"The problem of hunger in the world is a big one, but it will not be solved by biotechnology," Janos said. "We can engineer quite a lot of food, but [hunger] will only be solved by a change in food distribution."
Earlier panels featured other well-known chefs and Steven Grover, vice president of health and safety regulatory affairs for the National Restaurant Association.
Grover highlighted the advantages of biotechnology, including increased production, new pharmaceuticals and the newest "agricuticals," which are medicinally enhanced food items.
Ronna Welsh, a sous-chef at New York City restaurant Danal, journeyed to the conference to learn more about the culinary bioethical debate.
"I've spent the last few years of my cooking career researching and writing about agriculture and farm preservation," Welsh said. "Frankly, I really don't know enough about it."
Welsh said that her main concern as a chef regarded the preservation of the ecosystem.
"I'm more concerned about the larger, ecological issues and the long-term effects of biotechnology," Welsh said. "Since I don't think biotechnology is necessary, I'm not so sure why [biotechnologically-enhanced foods] are being so supported."
