"Soul-searching" chef Ferran Adria looks to Asia
HONG KONG |
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Ground-breaking chef Ferran Adria is on a quest to find the soul of Asian cooking, which could perhaps provide key hints for future gastronomic inventions from the man who brought the world culinary foam.
Considered the world’s best chef by several critics, Adria and his El Bulli restaurant became synonymous with a transformation of traditional dishes into fun and funky culinary adventures.
But, pleading a need for transformation, he last month shut the restaurant down — at least in its current incarnation. It will re-open in 2014 as the El Bulli Foundation.
“I don’t know much about Asia, and Asia could be an archive of ideas,” Adria told Reuters in Hong Kong, on the sidelines of a trip promoting Spanish food, after a visit to Beijing and Shanghai.
“The gastronomical culture of China is very, very important. Simply to just get to know all the products that exist in China but not exist in the West would take months.”
Roughly 15 trips to Japan have helped him understand the country and its cuisine a little, but this has merely whetted his appetite for learning about the rest of the continent.
“I’ve looked at the soul of the cooking and the reason of things (in Japan) and then I started looking at cooking techniques. But I haven’t got to that point for the rest of Asia yet,” he added.
At this stage he said his visit had almost sparked more questions than answers.
“What kinds of Chinese cuisine are there? Does imperial cuisine come from traditional cuisine or not? These are all the things we need to know,” he said.
“You cannot get an influence from the cuisine of a country if you don’t understand it. And to understand it, you’ve got to study it.”
TAMING THE MONSTER
At the final El Bulli dinner last month Adria said the restaurant had become “a monster” that needed taming and transformation.
Its new incarnation, the El Bulli Foundation, will be a center for new culinary inventions from the Catalan who gave the world paella made of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies and gazpacho popsicles.
Asked about his comment, Adria chuckled but said that success requires transformation, especially once things becomes as complex as the restaurant had. But he is confident the foundation will again stamp his mark on the gastronomic world.
It will be open to the public, although reservations and opening hours will not be those of any usual eatery.
“(It) is to be a think tank
Article source: PRNewswire
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