Posted on Thu, Jan. 26, 2006
CocinaCOCINAVanguard Spanish chefs use science to infuse emotion....................Maricel E. Presilla
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The top talents of Spain's vanguard experimental cuisine had a mano a mano with some of the most progressive chefs from the United States, Italy, Holland, Japan and Peru last week at Madrid Fusion, an international culinary conference now in its fourth year.
For three days at the Palacio Municipal de Congresos, a sleek conference center on the outskirts of Madrid, the chefs dazzled an eager audience (mainly food professionals and media) with scintillating demonstrations of their latest kitchen exploits -- liofilization, microfiltration and laser technology, among other mind-bending techniques.
The inclusion of stellar American chefs among the honorees (Norman Van Aken) and presenters (Thomas Keller, Charlie Trotter, Wyllie Dufresne, Homaro Cantu) reflects Spain's newly found realization that the United States is also home to a vibrant modern cuisine worth exploring.
Yet in the mano a mano with the top practitioners of Spain's new cuisine, the Basque Juan Mari Arzak and the Catalan Ferran Adri, it was evident that the Spaniards have the upper hand, not necessarily in their full-hearted embrace of science and technology in cooking but in a kind of philosophical maturity with regard to what they want to achieve by this alliance.
''Debemos de dejarnos de puñetas -- lo importante es la emoción'' (``We should stop talking nonsense -- what is important is to create emotion''), Adri said with visible conviction, after showing a video of a rapturous Italian couple having dinner at his El Bulli.
``There will be science, there will be investigation, there will be a quest, but to help cooks infuse emotion into dining. In the end what is important is to have a good time.''
These statements clarified my understanding of a cuisine I had always considered too cerebral, too remote from the pleasure principle, too in love with gadgets at the expense of great flavor. As in past vanguard movements in art and literature, chefs like Adri and Arzak see science as a force for progress, not an end in itself.
For Adri, industrial techniques like sous vide (cooking foods in vacuum-sealed pouches at low temperature to preserve and intensify natural flavors and enhance texture), liofilization (a kind of freeze-drying), or the use of super-cold liquid nitrogen for stunning tableside presentations allow the chef to create visual tricks, sounds and contrasting textures, forms and colors that engage the senses, eliciting emotion.
The new Spanish cuisine is not about putting extraneous elements on a plate just for the sake of the shock effect.
As Arzak put it, ''No se pone nada en el plato por tontería'' (``You should not put anything on the plate out of a silly impulse''). Everything must have a higher purpose. And if you eat his amazing food, as grounded in the soil of his native Basque region as in the rarefied world of science, you will become a believer.
My three-day immersion in food's brave new world convinced me that the new Spanish cuisine exemplified by Adri, Arzak, Martín Berasategui, Joan and Jordi Roca and many others is no fad but a serious movement that is bound to affect the way we cook and eat in ways that might not be readily apparent.
Already in Spain, young chefs are paying close attention to preserving the moist texture of fish by cooking it at lower temperatures for longer periods. Suckling pig cooked slowly in oil or lard to make a confit, its skin later crisped by oven roasting, is now a familiar item in upscale restaurants. New gadgets like the Thermomix, popularized by Adri, that whips and blends while simultaneously cooling or heating, is fast becoming the new Cuisinart. Foams and savory ice creams are part of the Spanish gastronomic vocabulary.
What to call this mold-breaking cuisine? Adri posed this question after enumerating its basic canon, a set of 23 defining principles that range from the definition of cooking as a ''language that can express harmony, creativity, happiness, beauty, poetry, complexity, magic, humor, provocation,'' to the breakdown of the classic order of dishes to the blurring of the rigid barriers between sweets and savories to the need to create a team to execute this complex cuisine.
Three principles in particular caught my attention:
The new cuisine assumes the use of high-quality ingredients, but every product has the same culinary value regardless of its price. In this scheme, a fresh, organic egg is as noble and valuable as the finest caviar.
Adri also sees as a sine qua non of the new cuisine the preservation of the original flavor of ingredients regardless of the transformation in their shape, temperature and texture.
Finally, he posits that the new Spanish cuisine has an emotional link with its surroundings that should not be understood as a direct link with tradition -- ``Lo autóctono como estilo es un sentimiento de vinculación con el entorno.''
``Siento como un tío de Barcelona'' (``I first feel like a guy from Barcelona'').
In all, Adri tries to make sense of a movement that is emotionally Spanish and regional, mindful of its place in history. As for the name he seeks, I would call it Cocina Experimental de Vanguardia Española. The terms ''experimental'' and ''avant-garde'' both point to its groundbreaking, mold-shattering spirit and the pivotal place that science and continuous experimentation play in its development.
As an experimental cuisine, practiced by people who, like Arzak and Adri are inherently curious and fun-loving, it will be changing, flexible, humorous and open as it continues its exciting dialogue with the worlds of science, industry and the arts.
Attending the event was an eye-opening experience that will make me take stock and rethink the way I look at food. I don't see myself rushing to buy a Thermomix, but I realize that Spain's new science-driven cuisine is a movement of far-reaching consequences.
Culinary historian Maricel E. Presilla is the chef/co-owner of Cucharamama and Zafra in Hoboken, N.J. Her latest book is The New Taste of Chocolate.
