Despite falling into the temptation of calling the Basques by the tag "Spanish", the Miami Herald has published an interesting article about Basque cuisine, here you have it:
Lunch with Lydia
Celebrities
On the tapas trail with a superstar chef of Spain
Posted on Sun, Nov. 25, 2007
By Lydia Martin
lmartin@MiamiHerald.com
SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain --
Elena Arzak has been called the most important female chef in the world. The Madonna of chefs, even. But she seems oblivious to all of her press as she leads you through the elegant streets of this seaside resort on your way to one of her favorite little pintxos, or tapas, bars.
''What a shame you have to leave today. If we had more time, I would have taken you around to taste all of my favorite pintxos,'' says the slight and soft-spoken Elena, daughter of Juan Mari Arzak, who is known as the father of modern Basque cuisine.
Juan Mari and Elena share the kitchen at Arzak, the homey, three-Michelin star restaurant that has been in the family since 1897 and is the gastronomic beacon of the Basque region. Especially when she's in her chef whites, Elena seems like that shy but brilliant science geek back in high school. Not like a culinary rock star. But don't be fooled.
A tapas crawl with Elena Arzak through a corner of Spain considered foodie mecca (San Sebastián has one of the highest concentrations of Michelin stars in the world) would be like riding in the limo with J-Lo. Like guzzling bubbly back at the hotel with Beyoncé. It's 10:30 on a Monday morning, and Elena, in street clothes, is questioning your request for café con leche.
''Bueno, we can start with coffee. But after that we have to drink txakoli, no? At least one glass,'' and straightaway, a woman at the tiny Bar Haizea (air in Basque), begins the dramatic ritual, pouring the region's signature white wine from more than two feet above glass tumblers. The height of the stream increases the gentle effervescence of the txakoli, which, you notice, half the crowd is drinking for breakfast. The other half is drinking beer.
Folks here smile and nod at Elena, who smiles and nods back. But her focus is the succession of small plates she has ordered. There are several platters of everyday pintxos displayed on the bar, but she doesn't pick any of those. Instead she asks the kitchen for a few special orders.
While you're marveling at the sweetness of grilled langostinos, the freshness of cod fish wrapped in paper-thin pastry and tied with leek, she pulls a history lesson from her briefcase.
''It's very important, if you are going to talk about my father, that you speak about several other chefs in this region,'' she says, placing in front of you a press packet that includes a list of Basque chefs: Pedro Subijana, Ricardo Idiaquez, Pedro Gomez and others.
''The New Basque cuisine started between 1975 and 1976 with my father and a couple of others who were inspired by the nouvelle cuisine of France. But it was a movement, and you have to mention others in the movement,'' she says, highlighting one of the most remarkable aspects of the contemporary Spanish culinary scene: Instead of engaging in clichéd competition, Spain's top chefs present a united front, which has a lot to do with why today the country boasts the most highly-regarded food scene in the world, blowing even France out of the water with its avant-garde strides.
Its undisputed superstars are Elena's dad and Ferran Adriá of Barcelona. They also happen to be best friends (they just chartered a yacht for a Caribbean vacation with their wives). Juan Mari Arzak was a mentor of Adriá, but Adriá took the idea of modern Spanish cuisine to the stratosphere with his foams, deconstructions and mad-scientist creations. The Salvador Dalí, the Picasso, the Beethoven of the food world, Adriá has been called. And his ''molecular gastronomy'' has become a movement, with roots that lead back to Juan Mari's earlier movement. When Elena decided she wanted to follow in her dad's footsteps, she went to culinary school in Switzerland and then on to internships in some of the world's top kitchens, including Adriá's.
Now, thanks largely to Elena, Arzak's menu features a lot of Adriá's innovations. But the borrowing is all in the family.
''We are not so worried about who came up with something first,'' Adriá says by phone from his laboratory in Barcelona. ``Juan Mari and I are like brothers. And we always felt it was very important for us to set the example. We are from two generations. Juan Mari is in his 60s, and I am in my 40s. He is Basque, and I am Catalan. But above all, what we are working for is the same thing, the exploration and investigation of something new.''
And Elena, 38, has become a crucial member of the team.
''She is very well-prepared, a very good chef,'' Adriá says. 'And the proof is in the fact that there is a very smooth transition happening at Arzak. Nobody today would say, "It's not Juan Mari in the kitchen tonight, only his daughter.' Everybody agrees that whether it's Juan Mari or Elena in the kitchen at Arzak, it's exactly the same thing.''
''Ferran is very generous,'' Elena says. "He shares many of his ideas with us and with others. I'm not saying that anybody is copying anybody. It's more that we utilize similar techniques, that we're all inspired by certain concepts.''
Take Elena's creation, From the Egg to the Chicken, a dish featuring a poached egg in a shallow pool of chicken jus, with a sprinkling of chicken crackling. Veiling it is what appears to be tissue paper but is, in fact, dehydrated egg yolk magically turned into an edible sheet.
''What is important is that the eggs and the chicken are very fresh,'' Elena says. "We might experiment with the futuristic, but in the end what we want is to honor the traditional. For four generations, our restaurant has used fish caught that day, eggs laid that day. This is still very important to us.''
Dad and daughter dream up new dishes and test them on each other. At first, Juan Mari feigned delight at everything his daughter made for him.
''He didn't want me to run scared. He wanted to encourage me,'' Elena says. Eventually, when I was confident enough, he started finishing dishes for me. He would say, 'It needs more acidity.' Or whatever. Now we finish dishes for each other.''
Says Juan Mari: "Elena and I are a team. Without her, I could not do it. I need her now to do this kind of investigative cuisine. And I'm going to keep working at her side until she kicks me out.''
Many food-world observers have characterized as remarkable Juan Mari's ability to let a woman, even his daughter, take control of his kitchen, given the male-centeredness of high cuisine. But his response is always the same. "San Sebastián has always been a matriarchal culture. My mother ran this restaurant before I did. It is the most natural thing for Elena to take over.''
''My father is very broad-minded,'' Elena says. "He is, above all, a modern man.''
As Elena chats, a server at Bar Haizea brings one of San Sebastián's most traditional pinxtos -- a guindilla (a small green pickled pepper from the region) skewered with an anchovy and olive.
''That might be a hard one for you this early in the morning. If you can't eat it, just give it to me,'' Elena offers. But you're not in San Sebastián to be squeamish. You're here for the commitment ceremony of one of Miami's most incorrigible foodies, Terry Zarikian, product development director for China Grill Management. He and partner Mikey Katz have gathered some of Miami's biggest culinary players -- among them chef Michelle Bernstein, grilling star Steven Raichlen and pastry chef Hedy Goldsmith. And a couple of days into the trip, especially after the food at the wedding (Juan Mari and Elena, present in their chef whites, dreamed up all the appetizers) the Miami foodies are equal parts orgasmic and whiney.
You just can't get the same quality ingredients in Miami, they say. Back home, there just isn't food like there is in this corner of the world. Elena hears the lament over and over. But she's not buying that Miami does not have a world-class restaurant scene.
"Maybe in Miami there is an esteem problem. I was there only once. But I ate at Bouley. I ate at the Blue Door. There is some amazing food in Miami. Some very fresh, great local fish, for example. I can't wait to go back and eat at Michelle Bernstein's, because I ran out of time when I was there. Everybody tells me it's exceptional. I also went to Havana Harry's, and I had some excellent Cuban food.''
She loved Havana Harry's tostones stuffed with shrimp. In fact, she bought a couple of tostoneras (plantain presses) in Little Havana with which to recreate the dish back home.
"I have been experimenting. But it's just not working. I fry the plantains, but they don't get crispy enough.''
Um, does she fry them once -- or twice? "Once. Should I fry them twice?''
Given your limited kitchen skills, the idea that you actually have a tip for Elena Arzak is outrageous. But, yes, she should fry them twice. Elena lights up.
''I guess I'll go back into the test kitchen and try that,'' she says. "Yes. That makes sense. Of course, you should fry them twice!''
~ ~ ~
No comments:
Post a Comment