Ada Parellada: "As all grandmothers do pilates, we no longer see them making croquettes"

What you will read here, more than an interview, is a gastronomic manifesto that the cook Ada Parellada (Granollers, 1967) let go of on Wednesday, in a disordered, fun, and captivating way, at the ARA summer party, in front of 200 newspaper subscribers. Born into the family of the mythical Fonda Europa in Granollers, owner of the Semproniana restaurant in Barcelona, author of a dozen books, and disseminator of traditional Catalan cuisine on Instagram, Ada Parellada will collaborate again with ARA after the summer by publishing two weekly recipes on video.What does returning to the PRESENT mean to you?

— It's very exciting, I tell you. It's a bit like coming home. I've always followed you, I've always kept an eye on ARA; we share ideology and it's a medium in which I feel very, very comfortable.

Here we have a representation of what the ARA community is, these 200 people, or 300, I don't know how many of us are here today. How would you define this community? Who do you think you are addressing when you make these videos?

— This question... Do you want me to analyze the audience we will have with the audience here in front? I will not come out unscathed. Let's see, it is an interested, curious, active community, and, of course, they eat very well, considering that they closely follow the vertical Mengem, directed by Rosa Rodon and with Trinitat Gilbert, which is a guarantee of quality and good food. But I also hope to capture the unmotivated audience, the audience perhaps less interested in stoves and pans and pots. Really, we are in a complex moment, a moment of great responsibility, in which everything can turn into an absolute disaster.

Why?

— Because I don't know how to do anything. I am absolutely dependent on the food chain. I don't know how to distinguish good mushrooms from bad ones. I'm telling you the truth. Oh, and if I see a rabbit, I pet it, you know? “Oh, poor thing, how cute!” I give it a name and fall asleep, with the rabbit. “Don't be cold! Are you okay?” That thing that grandmothers, grandmothers, mothers used to do in any house – not on a farm, mind you, here in the Eixample too – of buying a rabbit and, crack, cutting its neck is no longer done. Then they would put it upside down and, scrape, remove all the fur. And they would also say: “Listen, kids, today we're going to kill rabbits!” It was the event of the afternoon. “Notify the neighbors.” “Come, today we're killing rabbits.” Everyone there applauding, with that blood falling. I'm telling you this not out of cruelty, but because that was the reality. We eat rabbit, that's how it is, although less and less. We eat calves and they go through the same ordeal. We have to eat rabbits and does and wild boars because they are part of a transit chain. I also don't know how to make fire with two stones. But I do know how to do one thing, which is what we can end up losing: I know how to buy and I know how to cook. We can choose what we put in the basket and generate a positive impact on our economic, social, and environmental surroundings or the opposite, if we buy lamb from New Zealand and so on. There's a phrase that's been heard a lot, but it's true: what you put in the basket has a greater impact than the ballot you put in the ballot box. The day we stop buying and cooking, we will be the ones who are dead. They will put us upside down, and scrape! They will put on our plate whatever they want, at whatever price they want, and we won't know where anything comes from. That's it, I've finished my rant. Or, wait, I'll tell you about a day when I was asked to join an advisory board for a food company. “What do you think of bagged lettuce?” An absolute failure, I said. Not a single one will sell. And I said the same about gazpacho or broth in cartons. But now I've even seen hard-boiled, peeled eggs. Well, if they already sell you hard-boiled eggs, it's clear that we don't need to cook anything.

I looked at your Instagram and I saw you have 225,000 followers, which is a lot. Why do you think you have so many?

— Because I make many mistakes, and then it's real, it's the cooking that we can all do at home. Not knowing much, not mastering everything, so that you place yourself in the same space of uncertainty as your followers; not knowing exactly where you have to go or what will come out of me. It's a very common fear at the current time to stand in front of the stoves, because, since our grandmothers are all doing pilates, we no longer see them making croquettes. And they are right to do so. They already made them, the croquettes. Forgive me men, but it wasn't balanced. Now they do pilates and have a great deal of social commitment, so the oral transmission in families has been broken. Now it's me who is doing this job.

If nobody cooks, why are 225,000 people following you?

— Because there are 225,000 people eager to do things properly and they know that we have a lot at stake, in this. We think we eat nutrients, but we feed ourselves much more on emotions. I will tell you the parable of the longing livers. Do you know it? No, because I invented it myself. It's a group of people who, on the outside, apparently, are normal, but everything goes on the inside. I discovered them one day when someone came to have lunch at my restaurant and we had liver with onion. Obviously, they asked for it. Mom. Emotions, memory. This one was called Ramon, but I have twelve or thirteen like him. They already know when there is liver with onion, they come to the restaurant and I bring them the plate, a pack of tissues and a pack of chewing gum so they can get home without anyone knowing what they have eaten. This is the other thing that happens: people who like liver with onion are attracted to those who hate liver with onion. They form mixed couples. The first year is all camembert, rosé champagne, sushi, toast, pâtés (they don't know what it is liver), salmon. All this the first year. But a moment comes when they go to live together and Ramon says to Montserrat: "Mom used to make me liver with onion." And it all explodes. What do I want to tell you with all this? That there are recipes from my videos that connect with this cuisine of emotions, the cuisine of always, of liver with onion or stuffed squid.

Since 1993 you have had the Semproniana restaurant and now you have this Instagram account with 225,000 followers. What would you close first?

— Let's see, Instagram doesn't know where it's going. Also, there's a brutal threat with artificial intelligence, and that is that these videos are generated in a way that is not as artisanal as we are making them. And since I think you will all eat, perhaps I would close Instagram and not close the restaurant. But out of desire, I would close the restaurant. Out of prudence, Instagram. I've been at Semproniana for many years and now I don't have a successor. It's likely to end before ten years. Ten years go by in a flash, huh? I'll also tell you that I trust ARA more than my Instagram.

Ada, as the youngest daughter in a family of eight siblings, you must have had to find a way to make yourself heard. I wanted to ask you about the large family of Catalan cuisine. Among so many chefs, what niche have you found to stand out?

— We are immensely fortunate because we have a top-tier team. I learn a lot from all of them, from the pride of the profession. Wow, they are masters.

But what would you say is Ada Parellada's brand?

— Another complicated question... I go very much on my own, I'm telling you too. Now I am happy, calm. El Semproniana is a neighborhood restaurant. That league maybe not anymore...

At some point has having a Michelin star been an objective for you?

— Never, never, never, never. They terrify me. Terror and a bit of horror. In other words, no, no, no.

Why?

— Because you have to fit in. You can't go it alone. And it's not like I'm going it alone either; in the end, I have clients who are in charge, and that's it. The star, at home, is the client. They are the ones who tell me "go here, do this," and I listen to them a lot. I prefer to be limited by my client rather than by an entity that I don't even know what... It always seemed to me that I didn't know enough to be in this elite and, on the other hand, I've never been interested. I've never wanted to know anything about this whole story. And I'm happy I didn't try to pursue this career full of difficulties and disappointments. I've had enough. If some gentleman tells me I don't have the star: "Go to hell." I don't have it nor have I ever wanted it. I mean, really, do you think we have to live like this? "Oh, I'll give it to you." "Oh, I'll take it away from you." No. I'm not interested in the slightest. On the other hand, clients do interest me. Clients, readers, and followers. And, moreover, many, many, and as many as I can.

Could it be that chefs in Catalonia nowadays are not the media stars they were 15 or 20 years ago?

— Maybe, maybe. We had also gotten a bit carried away, to be honest.

What do you mean we had freaked out?

— Look, my liver with onion won't make it into the chronicle, but it will be noted that the chefs have gone crazy. Nothing will come of all the pep talk, but here, since there's blood and liver... I have to learn not to answer what you ask me.

I think you know. From this point of view I have nothing to reproach you for.

If I want to survive, I have to learn not to answer, but I'm naive and I'll answer you. Look, there are days I want to send it all to hell. I want to leave everything. I'm fed up, tired, I find everything a mess. You know? Well, on those days I go to the Clínic, because Semproniana, where we have a very good menu for 22.95 euros, is very close to the Hospital Clínic. I sit for five or ten minutes in the lobby and run back home. Running and very happy. At the Clínic most people leave very happy, but they enter very anxious, huh? Fear in their eyes, worry. They all enter home happy. Rarely do they leave angry. Empar Moliner used to say that our jobs are like playing with dolls. That is, it's not a job where you risk it and where if you make a mistake you cut off the good leg. At the Clínic they have tension. What tension do we have? What? A tough entrecote? Look, I remember, when I started, one day a customer complained about a tough entrecote. I went to bed and the entrecote was 200 grams. At midnight it was already a pillow. And I finished the night when it was already the bedspread. That entrecote had been growing, growing, growing, until it became a problem of colossal dimensions. Now, when someone complains about an entrecote, I bring them another one. And if not, I bring them fried eggs. And if not, I tell them "go on, you'll have lunch again tomorrow". It's not a drama. And if some chefs have believed that they have this responsibility and this kind of aura that equates them to a person who risks the lives of others every day, then perhaps we did get a little carried away. If we believed we had this kind of job that changed the world... Now, to love our job, to defend it with pride, to work with respect for the product and for the people who come to eat, who are not just people who eat, but people who know how to eat, to treat them as they are, to give them the best for the best price; all this has been so dignified by this team we've had in Catalonia that I can only kneel and thank them for the work they've done.