At 82 years old, Albert Boadella (Barcelona, 1943) does not stop working. He has finished a second version, adapted to the new times, ofEl retablo de las maravillas, and the theatrical adaptation of the bookJoven, no me cabree, published in 2022. The founder of Els Joglars has turned all sacred symbols into the object of his irreverence. Including, of course, Ferran Adrià's cuisine.¿Why did he parody El Bulli?
— I did it within El retablo de las maravillas by Cervantes, which is a short interlude that makes different versions about complexes and deception. There were various things: politics, art, etc., and one was cuisine. And I put into practice my trip to El Bulli, not because it didn't seem to me something that had its uniqueness –it certainly did–, but as a diner, as a person who likes to eat, it seemed like a useless sophistication. Twenty-odd courses is like burning the palate. It's like people who are not used to doing a tasting and after three minutes they no longer know what they are tasting. All the ceremony that there was around, the explanations… I found it very fitting to place it within the theme of a certain complex about certain things that I don't say are deceptions, but there is a comedic side.
Arcadio Espada, who brought him, got a little angry with you.
— Because it was one of the most celebrated parts of the play. The audience especially laughed when he blew bubbles.
“¡Raw air!”
— Exactly.
El Bulli had become something untouchable, like La Moreneta at other times?
— It is the tendency towards sacralization that all societies have. It goes without saying that "morenitas" have been a classic element of satire, precisely because of their sacralization. This does not mean that people cannot continue to believe, but they must also have distance. When this is transferred to politics, art, and cuisine, it has a hygienic side: spectators distance themselves from things that everyone venerates.
Sánchez Dragó attributes the phrase "Good food is always sensual", in contrast to creative cuisine, which he considered “test-tube”.
— I am lucky that my wife has golden hands. It's not that she dedicates a tremendous amount of time to it, but she has an enormous ease in inventing with what we have at home. Her dishes always have that sensuality: that of something natural, but always with little things that give them an unusual aspect, and that always smell. That cooking always smells, and it's the one I like. The manipulation that is not especially sophisticated, which is a natural manipulation that has the grace of someone who today went down to the garden to get some herbs to add to the rabbit, has put more of some than of others and something sometimes unrepeatable has come out.
Sánchez Dragó agreed with his critique of experimental cuisine.
— Yes, we agreed. He still sanctified some things; for example, his cat. I only have my wife sanctified; she is untouchable. She and I joke, but outside the house there is no possible joke about my wife; I don't allow it.
In Barcelona, where would you go for dinner?
— It's been years since I've been to a restaurant in Barcelona. Many, many years. In fact, if I've gone to important restaurants, I've been invited, but normally I don't go. I work a lot in Madrid and normally we go to an apartment and make our own food. The truth is that I try to go to restaurants very little, perhaps because I really enjoy eating at home. I do get invited to good restaurants in Madrid; I remember the names of some of those restaurants that cost fortunes... Well, my wife and I always leave there criticizing. Thinking about the great things we could have made with what was paid.
His relationship with drinking stems from his formative years in France. How did he end up in Strasbourg?
— I studied high school in Paris. When at school they said I had to choose a career, I said I wanted to be a diplomat. But at home they said they couldn't pay for me to study diplomacy, because at that time you had to have two degrees.
What did his parents do?
— Both worked at La Publicitat, which was a Catalan newspaper from before the war. They had a very hard time at home after the war, with all the reprisals. But things were being rebuilt. And they were already fully retired. I am the son of a 63-year-old father and a 45-year-old mother. My parents were like my grandparents.
And they told him that they could not afford the diplomatic career.
— Then I said: theater. I don't know why. Perhaps because my older brother sang zarzuela. When I was very young, he took me to rehearsals and it must have stuck with me. Or perhaps because my uncle took me to bullfights since I was 5 years old.
Up to Strasbourg.
— In Strasbourg, wine gained great importance, especially for my companions, who were from Alsace. They advised me and I got to know all the Alsatian wines, which I have always continued to enjoy. I have a riesling that is very well priced, with very low alcohol content and that is very good for everyday drinking. And it's probably due to the nostalgia for that time. When I drink sweet wine, it's a Gewürztraminer. It has to do with my youth, with those afternoons when we had no other task than to get drunk. Because they are also wines that, jokingly, go down easily and then you get a tremendous hangover. The next day, the improvisations always came out…
...improvised. At the end of 1961 he returns to Barcelona and creates Els Joglars.
— When I return to Barcelona at the end of 1961, I have the vanity –because this is only given by the vanity you have when you are young– to think that I could start a company. I didn't like the theater that existed and I said: “Well, I'll do it myself”. And we started a company with Carlota Soldevila and Anton Font.
He/She/They did not live in Barcelona for long.
— I couldn't live in a city. Even though I lived in Barcelona and Paris as a child, and returned to Barcelona, I immediately went to a farmhouse in Rupit. I am unable to live in a city for too long. The eight years I directed the Teatros del Canal [in Madrid], I had to return home every week. It was physical: I needed my relationship with nature.
That includes its garden.
— I call it the tutti frutti, because there's everything in it. It's a garden that is cared for in the same natural way as Dolors [his wife] cooks.
It must be in full swing right now.
— There's one fantastic thing: the entire wall surrounding the garden is covered with prickly pears, which I grow with great care; all clean, beautiful. I like them a lot, I make jam, and each year we eat 600 or 700 each.
Another vice he has are the Burgundians, who he even said were his only drug. How did he get to that?
— I met the manager of Bouchard Aine through my brother. I used to go every year to the Hospices de Beaune auction. And I developed a great liking for Burgundians. The thing is, it's a very expensive taste [laughs]! Besides, you have to be careful.
Why?
— There are many burgundies that are very well priced, but which are not burgundies in the deep sense of the term. A white Chassagne-Montrachet that is not many years old… You have to spend from 300 to 500 euros. As I have a lot of connection with France –I have a house there–, I occasionally make these exceptions.
And for non-exceptional days?
— The other burgundies, the ones you can find in a French Carrefour, are fine for remembering what a burgundy could be like. The reds have this taste, this hint of cassis… But of course, it has nothing to do with the real thing. The wines I drink most often are from Terrer de Tarragona, excellent. I know the people who make it, I know how they make it, and they make it very well: they are formidable red wines. And then, a little more expensive, Viña Tondonia, because of the way they are made: really old-fashioned.
In what sense are they different?
— You don't get the impact of alcohol. It's as if they don't contain alcohol, even though they have their proof. But they are made naturally. At Viña Tondonia, not a single piece of aluminum enters. And that seems like an extraordinary artisanal thing to me. Not for drinking every day, but, well, on Sundays, from time to time... Well, with burgundies, this happens to me: I'm not a millionaire. If I were a millionaire, I would surely be a burgundy alcoholic.
At the end of The King Who Was, which he directed, there is an image of King Juan Carlos with a bottle of Fanta. King Felipe, with what drink would he be represented?
— With mineral water.
And why Fanta for King Juan Carlos?
— For his family disasters. King Juan Carlos was a character. His training was tremendous: a child who at 10 years old is taken to Madrid by Franco, a man who spends 27 years in the dictator's shadow... He is an old-fashioned king, as if we had suddenly found Charles III. Despite everything, I have esteem for him. One way or another he brought freedoms to Spain. This is what will go down in history. Him and women? I have no objection. In the end, the job of kings is procreation; if they don't procreate, the monarchy goes to hell. Therefore, that they are obsessed with the topic wouldn't be the worst either.
But the obsession with money…
— It is no longer so correct. He is a man who naturally has very radical lights and shadows. I have known him quite well, I have spoken with him quite a bit. Once when he was bored, the head of the royal household would call me and say: “His majesty would like to speak with you”.
It is known that kings and jesters…
— We were having a good time chatting. And he was saying things that were very interesting. The time I was directing the Teatros del Canal, I was also director of the Auditorium of El Escorial, some beautiful theaters, with magnificent architecture. They wanted to create a festival like Salzburg's. But El Escorial is not Salzburg. El Escorial is El Escorial: there is Philip II, there are the royal tombs. And I was complaining. The king told me: 'The important thing is that it's done. Think that it's already built, and in the future it will be useful. Don't worry. The important thing is to do things.' That is a king's perspective. Above the political-economic perspective, let's say, of a theater director.
A bird's-eye view?
— The gaze of someone who is aware of being above good and evil.