TDG: 27 Small Courses of Ferran Adria

[robert brown]

The interview and the format was at a level higher than any food magazine. Other than my noting that Picasso never would, and probably never did, explain anything about his work (and why should he have to) and that I question Ferran, one one hand, saying he is a child of the Nouvelle Cuisine while, on the other, calling great produce a romantic, egocentric concept, he's a great culinary thinker.

[Monica Bhide]

Just read this. Excellent work both of you. I really liked the format. it is as interesting as his recipes are. What fantastic pictures. Nicely done

[Cathar]

This has to be one of the worst, most over-reaching pieces of food writer claptrap I've read in my life, and that's saying something. All these knotheads praising Ferri's modernity, too, sounds almost like upper-class Germans reassuring themselves after a fund-raising party for the NSDAP that they can "control" Hitler once he gets political power. Scary, sad and a mightily powerful argument for never reading food writing of this nature again.

[balex]

Godwin's law applies even here

[Jonathan Day]

Here is the transcript of the interview that Moby described. Spanish and French speech has been omitted or translated.

* * *

To begin, we want to give you a copy of the article that appeared in eGullet after Robert Brown and Jonathan Day had the pleasure of visiting el Bulli in April of 2003.

I'd seen that. It's fantastic (brandishing the article).

A well known chef in the avant garde, Grant Achatz of Trio Restaurant in America, said that nobody ever ate at his restaurant because they were hungry

Who is that?

Grant Achatz was a stagaire at El Bulli.

To be honest, everyone has worked at el Bulli at some stage – it could well be that he was.

He is the chef at an avant-garde restaurant in America. He said that people don't dine at his restaurant merely to satisfy their hungers. After many years now, if cooking and its function have become separated, cooking and feeding have become separated, does this mean that something entirely new is happening?

Gastronomy is a development from "eating because you have to feed" into "eating for pleasure". It is developing all the time; it will continue to develop. It would be very pretentious of us to think that we are the last generation to develop something new. There has always been modern cooking, there has always been an avant garde; the article by Gault Millau that first launched the nouvelle cuisine, back in the 1970s, described things as 'revolutionary' that today would be considered very ordinary.

There has perhaps been a change at the customer end, over the last 5 years. People are going out very much to eat. Other things used to be important, but now they are going for the food, to actually experience something new; dining out used to be more a social event.

Your clients travel thousands of miles to dine at el Bulli; many travel from all over the world. Are you still amazed at their ability to travel this far. Does their dedication inspire your own? What is your relation with the customer who seeks out your work?

I have enormous respect for our customers, given that they are prepared to travel so far. The el Bulli team puts itself under pressure, it isn't the customer who puts us under pressure. We make lots of mistakes – but we don't like to. The issue is who realises our mistakes and who doesn't. It's a very manual, a very artisanal process. We take our work very, very seriously.

And yet the ambiance at el Bulli is much less 'serious' than one would find in a French restaurant of comparable stature.

Our cooking itself is very serious, our approach is very serious, but obviously the atmosphere in the restaurant is very relaxed, as I like to have it at home.

For a restaurant, this is very unusual; the grand restaurants in France are serious in the back and the front.

Roses is a different city than Paris; if I had a restaurant in another city, it might be another matter. I find it interesting that in so many of these top-end restaurants there isn't a single room that is really modern; they are grandiose and traditional. Michel Bras is an exception.

In your book Secretos de el Bulli you write that you never use fish fumet, fumet de poisson. Are there other products or techniques that you avoid systematically?

Fumet de poisson – I like it. But not in my cooking. Why? It's very reduced. It is very strong. So much that it masks everything else. That's my personal taste. I cook the way I like to eat. Even when I make traditional dishes, I cook them the way he likes to eat them. Tastes are very debatable. If you go to the restaurant, you go to eat my cooking. There are classic recipes that are really unbearable, others that are really great.

You have written that creativity is not to copy (creatividad es no copiar), a phrase you heard from Jacques Maximin. What other chefs do you look to for ideas, for inspiration? Who is doing work now that interests you?

When you say 'creativity is not to copy' you have to ask what is copying? Copying is not being honest. If you are influenced by another cook, another chef, and you explain that you are, that's not copying. In my books you will see influences from other chefs. That isn't a problem. The problem comes when people are not honest about it. The question is really, how many people in any field, whether cooking or anything else, any field, are really creative. It's very difficult to be honest.

Who in the gastronomic field is interesting to you right now?

Gagnaire, and that generation. Tetsuya. Heston Blumenthal. In general I'm very inspired right now from Asian cooking. It is in Asia that the newest things are happening.

So you have visited Heston Blumenthal, you have dined at the Fat Duck?

I haven't been to the restaurant, but Heston and I have been working together in the Taller for the last 4 days, and my brother has been to Heston's restaurant.

You said that it is difficult to find truly creative spirits in any field. Do you see a connection to the great Spanish creative spirits of the early 20th century, or is the connection outside?

Let's say honest, not creative. There are plenty of creative people, but few honest ones. Picasso and Dali weren't honest. Picasso is my favourite artist, but he didn't explain his African inspiration; he was evasive about it – he kept saying, "yes, no, yes, no" when asked about the influence of Africa on his painting.

I'm not saying I'm 100% honest. It's very difficult to be completely honest; it's like being a virgin.

I see creativity in a much more ordinary light than most people. A lot of creative people think that they are superior human beings. As a point of departure, I don't see things that way at all; in that sense i'm not on the same footing as other creative people. What I'm trying to do is to do something to make myself happy, which I do. I'm not in any way superior to the waiters who serve coffee in the restaurant. I do have a lot to do with the world of creative people, I like being with them, but as lovers not as a marriage relationship.

Is it the creative process, or the creative result that is most interesting?

The creative process itself is very cold. Taste has nothing to do with it; it doesn't intervene at all. Where tastes and sensitivity start to come into play is when we actually put the dishes together. These are two areas of work that are very different. One can be very good, the other not at all.

When you conceive, when you create a new dish, how important is it to begin from some kind of conceptual base. For example, in your book you describe a dish of bone marrow and caviar. Did you instinctively feel that the pairing would succeed? Or did it begin from a higher concept, a chemical concept?

(Showing a chart from his book). The development processes are all in there; it's a very complicated process. There's a two day talk on that subject. The combination of bone marrow and caviar, in principle, is impossible. You can't get your head around it. Two kinds of fat; sea and mountains; meat and fish together. There's a new technique there, treating the bone marrow as if it were a foie gras

Sautéing it?

Yes, a sauté. We first did this in 1992.

In the evolution of these techniques we understand that apart from retrospectives, you will stop preparing a dish like the espuma (foam). How do you decide when it is time to stop? To put a dish on the shelf?

It's not that we stopped doing it. (drawing a time line and demonstrating when he started to make foams – 1994). By 1997 we had made an awful lot of foams. Too many. What happened? We realised that is one of the most important techniques we had developed. Now there are thousands of people using this technique, making foams. Critics have written extensively about it; there are even bars that making espumas. If you put good things into the siphon, you get good things out; put bad things in, you get bad things out. If you create something like that, it's perfectly normal that you get a saturation point at some stage.

The problem doesn't exist in fashion. With the miniskirt, all women go out because the miniskirt has been invented. But they only buy one. You see the entire collection through just one skirt. I realised from 1998 onward that I couldn't do any more foams. I needed a balance between extending this wonderful technique and making something that could actually be eaten. When you invent something like the melon caviar, an amazing technique, instead of just doing one version, you'll do three. It's all about balance.

We tried the caviar of ceps when we dined at your restaurant.

The caviar of ceps now is 5 times better than it was last year. We've been working on developing it. The question is, do we make caviar this year or next year? Everyone will be talking about it, but it won't be on the menu. That's what el Bulli is about, you don't know what you'll be eating this year or next. We've been linking one year to the last, just a bit. We always do that.

Your article (brandishing the article) was written on the 21st of April. It would be completely irrelevant if it were written on the 29th of September. You can write: this is what happened at el Bulli this year, but that's false. It was your meal. By the time you've moved on a few months, 90% of the dishes will be completely different.

Given this, how do you feel about the media, and especially the media coverage of El Bulli and your work, in English? What have they done well, what not so well?

They have done tremendously well. The early avant-garde people have been really spoilt by the press. But we have to analyse this at a social level. It would be senseless for a critic to write a really destructive article about El Bulli. So many have written enthusiastic articles about us, that any journalist who wants to maintain a reputation as a well-regarded, renowned journalist, to earn your stripes would look strange and out of step. You don't have to like El Bulli, and you are perfectly in your rights not to like it, but given that there are thousands over the past 5 years have written such positive things, it doesn't seem logical that they could be wrong. And many of these critics are very demanding. This is one reason we have been so positively covered in the press.

I like the occasional bad review. I could tell you what criticisms should be made of my chefs, though I try to fix any mistakes before dishes leave the kitchen.

One criticism that could be levelled at us is that we haven't really reached out to people. The top chefs in the world can help the quality of cuisine prepared in the home, but for the most part we haven't been concerned about home cooking.

[Jonathan Day]

Jonathan and Moby, that's one of the most interesting articles I've read on eGullet. So much food for thought. I'll just focus on one sentence that particularly struck me:

I love cooking, but I don't want to die in the kitchen.

What do you think Adria means by that? I know of painters who'd like to die in their studios and musicians who'd like to die onstage. Everyone has to die somewhere. So why not in the kitchen?

I suspect he was referring to the grind of turning out 30-course meals, night after night, in an environment when no course is particularly familiar to anyone in the kitchen, since every course has been invented anew.

[tan319]

Great presentation, great article/interview!

How was this claptrap?

I love the way the Adria's polarize people.

I love this man's honesty, like a child's honesty.

I love the fact that they are cooking for them, it's their food, you are invited to join in on their vision, and they hope you like it, but if you don't, that's ok too.

Well done, guys, well done!

[Pan]

Jonathan and Moby, that's one of the most interesting articles I've read on eGullet. So much food for thought. I'll just focus on one sentence that particularly struck me:

I love cooking, but I don't want to die in the kitchen.

What do you think Adria means by that?

I suspect he was referring to the grind of turning out 30-course meals, night after night, in an environment when no course is particularly familiar to anyone in the kitchen, since every course has been invented anew.

Thanks.

And what does that mean in practice? That he goes only so far and no further in terms of how often he changes the menu, for example?

[mongo_jones]

a very intriguing read--and, in my opinion a fitting presentation of the man. form and content are the same thing--some are just more comfortable with that idea than others.

i'd be very interested in hearing more from adria on his relationship with asian cuisine--my antennae quiver in all kinds of contradictory ways from the few things i've read from/about him on the subject.

his comment about traditional food now becoming the preserve of the professional kitchen also resonated with me, even though it is a very western-european statement at the moment (and mothers and grandmothers in italy etc. may still disagree). of course, in india this is a long way away from becoming reality but the move has begun. in this sense, adria emerges as a traditionalist--trying to preserve the old while still making it new. which is the way people who don't have impulses towards museumization or fetishization work. someone send me a lot of money, a translator and a plane ticket for spain.

edit to add: i also really like his comment about picasso; too much of the picasso myth rests on suppressing what picasso himself suppressed: his debt to african folk art (which imperialism was sending back to the metropolitan centers). adria's acknowledgement of this in his favorite artist signals to me a recognition of the freighted contexts of global interaction--and sets up his interest in asian cuisines in a particular way.

Edited April 9, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[jabolster]

Nicely done! I for one am always interested in new ways of looking at food and not only has Adria done this with his food but so too has Day & Pomerance with their writing. For anyone who feels that this is BS, get down off your high-horses and try to open your minds a little. Just because you don't like the format doesn't mean that it's not worth trying. I wouldn't want to read every article this way, but I appreciate that they felt comfortable enough with us to share their point of view. Like Adria's food...you don't necessarily have to like it, but you have to respect that this is what he likes and enjoy that he is willing to share that with you.

[Pan]

edit to add: i also really like his comment about picasso; too much of the picasso myth rests on suppressing what picasso himself suppressed: his debt to african folk art

That debt is common knowledge in Art History. I've certainly known about it for a really long time. "Westerners" used to call art from places like Africa and New Guinea "primitive art," and the influence of "primitive art" has long been cited as one of the major aspects of Modernism in art. If Picasso tried to suppress that debt, his efforts weren't successful for long.

[mongo_jones]

edit to add: i also really like his comment about picasso; too much of the picasso myth rests on suppressing what picasso himself suppressed: his debt to african folk art

That debt is common knowledge in Art History. I've certainly known about it for a really long time. "Westerners" used to call art from places like Africa and New Guinea "primitive art," and the influence of "primitive art" has long been cited as one of the major aspects of Modernism in art. If Picasso tried to suppress that debt, his efforts weren't successful for long.

well, maybe not successful for long among art-historians, still successful for the general public.

more to the point for the adria discussion, and the whole question of path-breaking european chefs looking to the cuisines of asia etc. for new inspirations/connections/exotica is the question of who/what gets to be inspiration or raw-material and who/what gets to be high art. i raised the picasso reference because it suggests to me that adria is consciously thinking about these issues, which i think is promising.

[Pan]

The general public needs to take an art history course or read a book sometimes. It's not hard to find these things out.

But actually, I liked Adria's remark, too.

[MobyP]

Me three. My original question, which didn't quite register with him the way I had intended, was in his evaluation of some of the more prominent Spanish creative forces of the early 20th C - specifically Lorca, Bunuel, Dali, Picasso. I was trying to make a case that these were all fundamentally transformative artists, as opposed to interpretive (if that makes sense). Rather than incremental steps, each took a greater step in changing, either structurally or thematically (or both, in some cases), the nature of the art form in which they participated. This is the general complement or critique placed against Adria. Anyway, perhaps his answer was more apposite. Transformative it may have seemed at the time, but in retrospect we see the African connection with Picasso, and say the greatest shift was in the perceptions of the European and American art community, not necessarily in the work itself.

[Pan]

It's both. Cubism was truly radical in the context of Western art.

[bleachboy]

Godwin's law applies even here

Nazi!

Seriously, Jonathan and Moby, amazing job. Thanks!

[gsquared]

A superb and innovative rendering of your interview. Congratulations!. This does need to be followed, though, by the details of the demonstration.

[Zeb A]

Thank you for the great article. This quote:

"I never ask people if they liked a particular dish. What if they say no? Then you feel bad. One person can hate it, while everyone else loves it. What does it mean? My taste may not be yours. I cook the way I like to eat. Taste is subjective."

reminds me of some of the old-school e-gullet taste debates from long ago.

[guygateau]

Thank you JD and Moby for this great and inspiring work.

I am surprised to find an apparently very "simple guy"and I rest unsatisfied because he hasn't come out of his outershell.

But I am all "psyched up" for my soon to come trip to spain. I agree with Jackal 10 for the need of some recipes

And the reference on cooking and feeding merits to be developped some time.

GG