Ferran Adrià: "Am I to blame for the lack of traditional Catalan restaurants?"

BarcelonaThere was only one certainty in Ferran Adrià's opening presentation at the Gastronomy Forum Barcelona: the chef is writing a book on Catalan gastronomy, in which he will explain what Catalan cuisine is and what haute cuisine is. "We have many excellent cookbooks, The Teak, those of Josep Lladonosa, those of Corpus of Catalan Cuisine"And no more are needed." No more are needed, said Ferran Adrià, because "when we want to explain to a foreigner what Catalan gastronomy is, we don't know what to say, and we don't have any books to give them either," said the chef, who held up a dossier of ful Bullipèdia, the project he has been working on since closing his restaurant in 2011, before a packed auditorium. "We are working on this book about Catalan gastronomy, and five or six more books, simultaneously," the chef clarified in an interview with theNow we eat After the presentation.

When discussing gastronomy, as with all forms of knowledge, chef Ferran Adrià always suggests we question everything. This step is part of his approach to knowledge. And if we question everything, we'll realize how little we actually know. Were croquettes invented in Catalonia? "No, in France, because that's where béchamel sauce was invented." And is Russian salad our dish? "No, it's also from France." Fried calamari is from Portugal. And gazpacho? "Gazpacho is Catalan; I've been eating it since I was a child," and he confirmed this as well. Corpus de Cocina Catalana, which incorporated it into its recipe bookSo, if we have so many doubts about everything, how can we even begin to understand what Catalan gastronomy is? "To study it, we should first understand the history of Catalonia. Five thousand years ago, we weren't a country, and many peoples passed through: the Iberians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Muslims." When we talk about Catalan cuisine, it's necessary to explain this past. And when we do, then we can confidently say that "no country, like Catalonia, not even Italy, has such cultural richness."

Chef Ferran Adrià was so emphatic that he posed another question: "Am I really to blame for the lack of traditional Catalan restaurants?" He asked this rhetorical question because the chef asserted...Now we eat He and other fine dining restaurants have often been accused of killing traditional Catalan cuisine. This idea, which spread for years, claimed that everyone wanted to make spherifications and no one wanted to make a sofrito. Ferran Adrià then countered with a good argument: "When I started at El Bulli in the 80s, how many restaurants serving traditional Catalan cuisine were there? I'm asking you about the 80s and 90s."

La Hispania, orthodox Catalan cuisine

Since no one answered him, he himself mentioned to them: Hispania, which still has its doors open in Arenys de MarAnd where he goes at Christmas because he confessed that he likes it very much because it's orthodox Catalan cuisine. And we would still find a few others, but they were few and far between. "Now is when there is a generation of young chefs who want to make Catalan cuisine, and we should be very happy," said Adrià, who added that "there have always been pessimistic critics, pessimistic because they are Catalan, who say that we are doing badly, but beware "We're not doing so badly, all the young chefs I'm talking about are following this path of Catalan cuisine." He also added restaurants and chefs he likes: in Jordi Vilà, from Alkimia, and theAlbert Raurich, from the Dos Palillos restaurantAnd he still highlighted the 7 Portes restaurant in Barcelona, ​​inventor of two dishes that are part of Catalan cuisine: zarzuela and pijama, the dessert.

To continue, the chef addressed the debate about tasting menus. He knows that some people question them, that they don't like them, and so he advises them not to go to restaurants that offer them. It's that simple. However, Adrià maintains that his mental framework is a tasting menu, which is the invention of Catalan haute cuisine. "When France was the benchmark of gastronomy, what they did was a menu with five half-course dishes, a cheese trolley, and a dessert trolley; and the mental framework of French chefs is this: the menu."

In the afternoon, chef Josep Lladonosa spoke about the historical books of Catalan cuisine, the only one in Europe that has medieval recipe books written and preserved to this day. The oldest, the Book of the Sent Sovietwhich is 700 years old. The preparations from medieval cookbooks, which Lladonosa studied and adapted to modern Catalan with the help of Professor Rudolf Grewe, were put into practice by Lladonosa, and brothers Javier and Sergio Torres demonstrated this with two live dishes prepared at the Auditori del Fòrum. Finally, chef Eduard Xatruch, from the Disfrutar restaurant in Barcelona, ​​explained the new features they are working on at the end of this term. This is the third volume of their recipes, "which are our brains," said Xatruch. And another new feature: the creative dishes they have incorporated into the menu with honey and its derivatives and nuts, which generated applause from the audience.