Looking back and then looking forward...

[Carolyn Tillie]

Chef Adria, looking back on what you were producing in your kitchen ten years ago, I would like to believe that what you have made El Bulli become today and the style of food you are preparing and serving was outside your realm of consideration in 1993.

I'm wondering if you have thought at all where you might be ten years from now? Has there any thought been given to how far you can push yourself and the envelope?

[Ferran Adrià]

Ok, Carolyn.

Before we finish, let’s talk about pushing the envelope. We’re working on what we call the genome of cooking. This is something that is going to be simply unbelievable. The absolute madness after the books. It’s the first language, the first catalog, the first evolution catalog. It’s something that comes from another planet. What could you do with a product? All the products and all you can do with them.

As we speak, two people are upstairs characterizing each product, product by product: taste, color, texture. Then we’ll use some software to handle all this information.

At the end, where do we get motivation from? This line of work we’re opening requires a lot of effort. After the books, which we are super-proud of and we intend to publish one on a yearly basis from now on, we need new challenges. Outside the annual challenge of elBulli, to avoid that even the creative process becomes routine. So, now we’re working on this crazy thing. And getting some results, will take at least two years. We started ten years ago, this is the famous association taken to stratospheric levels.