7 controversial gastronomic reflections: "It makes no sense to have prawns in a restaurant in Andorra or Puigcerdà"

Canillo, AndorraAt the Andorra Taste congress, dedicated to high-mountain cuisine, a large group of chefs gather to define what this cuisine made at altitude is. They ask themselves what territory is, what tradition means, and, ultimately, a space for debate is generated to help the gastronomy of the small country of the Pyrenees and the chefs from other territories present grow. In a round table held at the idyllic Borda del Pi entitled "From territory to identity" and moderated by Benjamin Lana, director of the congress, the chefs present have launched several statements that may be controversial. We review them in the form of a list:

For Josep Maria Masó, a chef from Puigcerdà and owner of two restaurants in Barcelona, Tangana and Fonda Balmes, the location does indeed matter. "I like working with fish, but I am from Puigcerdà. It is true that you have to provide an offer that makes the business work, but it makes no sense to have prawns in a restaurant in Andorra or Puigcerdà. Except if you have a gastronomic restaurant, where you don't need to have an expensive product, but you must have the best product".

But if we talk about "the best product" it is not always easy. "Before, seven million oysters were produced in the Delta, and this year one has been made," said Rafel Muria, chef of the restaurant Quatre Molins, in Cornudella de Montsant. The chefs warn that we are running out of goats, lambs, cows... But the product is the key to a good restaurant. Masó said it like this: "If you cannot have the best possible prawn, do not have it." And he finished with advice: "A restaurant that I like a lot and that represents its land is Lera [in Castroverde de Campos]. There you eat local dishes and products. Reaching what Luis Lera does is very difficult. You are in the middle of nowhere and there is meat and little else."

Regarding what the client expects, Masó, the most veteran of the chefs present, is also clear about it. "You have to believe in what you do. I have two restaurants in Barcelona, but I am from here. When people from Barcelona come up to the Pyrenees, they look for lamb chops with an amazing allioli. Where do you find that allioli? Nowhere. And there is nothing healthier than allioli. It seems that eating allioli is a poor person's thing. Nutritionally, allioli is perfect. My grandfather died at 100 years old and he had garlic soup for dinner every night. When he was old, if one day he didn't eat it, there was trouble."

What is the cuisine of a place? What we have been told it was? What appears in recipe books? Can it change? These days in Andorra, squirrel rice has been talked about, but it is no longer eaten. Rafel Muria gives the example of frog legs. "In the south of Catalonia, it is said that frog legs are traditional. I have always seen them, even though I have never seen a frog". They talk about learning from other cultures but to bring it to one's own terrain. "You always learn something, but then you have to know how to filter it", says Masó. And he warns that many techniques are similar and that, sometimes, we are dazzled by things from abroad that we already have. "Everyone talks about umami and garum is an umami!". It must be kept in mind that other territories sell themselves better. The key for the chef is to be faithful to the taste memory that is developed when you are young with home cooking. If they cook at home, of course.

Benjamín Lana states: "Before, you went to the restaurant to eat fancy things, and now you go to restaurants to eat what you no longer eat at home." Would this explain the success of macaroni? "The foundation of everything is at home, and the big problem we have is that people don't cook. And they go to restaurants and eat very poorly," adds Masó. Lana shares an anecdote that is not at all light. Mercadona sold 25,000 fried eggs on the first day they were put on sale cooked and packaged. "If we don't know how to cook, we will be in the hands of corporations. We are not aware that we are abandoning one of the most important learnings of the human being," warns Lana. We have been warned.

One thing that is worrying, and a lot, in a sector with as much supply as the restaurant industry is how to separate the wheat from the chaff. How can we distinguish when a kitchen has identity and when it only has a story? How to discover the fakes? According to Masó, if a dish has feeling, it shows. "There are dishes that say nothing". For Rafel Muria, "things fall under their own weight; when there is identity, it is felt". For Joël Sala, chef at Borda del Pi, it is something that is detected quickly. Muria admits that when he started at the restaurant, at 23 years old, he did not have an identity. "The food was good, but there was no line. I found the path during COVID because we stopped. During the second lockdown I didn't close, we worked every day. We thought. We cleaned. We ate together. That's when what we were doing started to make sense", he says. For Lana, whoever does not have authenticity "will fall".

"It bothers me when at a restaurant they say "hello, guys"", says Masó, who remembers that a restaurant is kitchen and dining room. And that the dining room is the part that is being lost. And it has been forgotten that restaurants must be hospitable. "When you go to a table you must feel like the master and lord. We restaurateurs must convey that we want to make them happy. The problem that exists is that the dining room is increasingly difficult because there are no people. Muria adds that there are people who "only scroll", who "come to work for two days and that's it" and that if you have four resumes, three do not even answer if you call them.