José Carlos Capel is the most respected food writer and head of Spain Madrid Fusion, the most important gastronomic event in the world. Author of some forty titles, Capel was at Mistura, took the temperature of our extraordinary Gaston Fair and invited to testify as a restaurateur in the prime time of the 2011 Madrid event.
His culinary training is not, how does the cooking?
I graduated in economics, but the kitchen naturally attracted me since childhood and I was good, I had fun. In 1975 I formed a dining club in Madrid much like the "shock" that was in the Basque country where only men cooked. Women could enter, but men who were cooking. I was rehearsing dishes and meals for my friends. Then worked in a publishing office of my father, but I was bored a lot, or I started writing food articles in magazines and I ended up writing books and making critical food column in The Country. I've been writing 23 years without missing a week and no one tells me anything, which is a tremendous victory.
What flavors you back to childhood?
On my birthday my mother asked me what to eat, and I always said potato omelette, meatballs and ham croquettes, sometimes potato salad and stuffed squid for an exceptional day. Years have passed and I are going crazy baby squid, tortilla and meatballs.
critic Do you think one looks to rediscover these flavors?
No. I have lived with these flavors, but mentally I've joined the revolution that took place in Spain from the year 92 with Ferran Adria. My thinking is that of a boy of 30 years, because the modern kitchen grabbed me from the beginning, but at the same time, I relish the traditional cuisine. Sometimes I feel like the critic Anton Ego in Ratatouille that at some point you to tears with the dish that you bring to the table. The good kitchen is always excited me.
There is much debate between tradition and modern cuisine. What is your position?
currency if There can be no tradition. Modernity must be understood as an evolution of tradition. The most respected chefs and more tradition known are the furthest advanced. The avant-garde cuisine of Spain is known by heart the traditional dishes and from that tradition evolve naturally, because you can not paint without knowing how to draw. That dominates the traditional bases can not be creative.
What is a food critic?
taste is a counselor, someone who influences the currents of opinion of a group of society if they get to have hearing and be respected, otherwise the critic becomes what the French call "chroniqueur" is ie, a reporter, a journalist who reports without trial if you think critically and make a blunder. There is nothing worse for a critic who does not connect with the audience that you read because that is the biggest snub professional, the work must be serious enough to warrant respect. In
blog and social networks proliferate worldwide spontaneous critics. How see this phenomenon?
've hit the mark with the word "critics of spontaneous generation." Springing up like mushrooms in the field, overnight, they lack knowledge, thoroughness, rather than relate one thing to another stay in "I like / I do not like." And who cares if you like it or not. Critical to many restaurants have to know, read many books, travel the world and have money to pay bills in restaurants. In the culinary world there are few good blogs, serious, no more than 5 or 6 in the world, the more we raise the level of criticism has less influx blog.
How has criticism since you started today?
depends on the country of which I speak. In Peru there is no criticism in Spain have reached a point where we are running almost critical because the chefs have a tremendous force and no one dares to criticize a chef level, it is to have the guts to do it. A critic must be feared, respected and hated.
How the English revolution is brewing in the 90's, as well as the mushrooms in the field?
It is a process of evolution, of situations that create a breeding ground. I lived this history that began in France in the early seventies with the nouvelle cuisine. In 1975 Gault-Millau critics describe as nouvelle cuisine movement that was breaking the mold of French cuisine. The 76 were held in Madrid a round table-driven food magazine Gourmet Club attended by Juan Mari Arzak, Pedro Subijama, Paul Bocuse and Raymond Oliver. They say that something is changing in the world of cooking and things are not going to stay the same. Then, in 1977 Arzak, Subijama and eight found the new Basque cuisine. The rallying cry was "the green sauce has no flour" which was a declaration of intent to ease the traditional English cuisine had a lot of fat, flour, starch and carbohydrates. Begins an evolution that has gripped society and expands in the eighties, a golden decade of change and transformation, not knowing where we were, without knowing the next step. Fashion after fashion, shift after shift, in introducing new trends: the herbs, sour cuisine, the cuisine of aromas. Everything was unfolding in connection with France, until in the nineties Ferran Adria bursts that completely revolutionizes the way you cook. He had drunk from the fountains of France suddenly says to "create the copy does not" close the books and is dedicated to thinking about another type of cuisine based on three pillars: a cosmetic, dietary change and look ironic about their own food, play food, play with food, sense of humor. Unknown dishes began to conceive based on the incorporation of texturing for light meals. Starts a revolution that becomes a worldwide phenomenon. But like everything else, false creators have emerged, so that we have entered a period of reflection about where we go.
And have glimpsed the way?
Things are changing very quickly. In the 2011 Madrid Fusion tried to collect the trends of the world. It does not matter the beauty of the dish, it is important to be true. The truth means that the products are authentic. Kitchen spoken naturalist Kilometer Zero ECOCINE, anyway.
I have the impression that there is a sort of Western cuisine Orientalization
That is also another influence, the merger and the orientalizazión are phenomena that originate from two thousand years have affected everyone, but curiously oriental chefs will also towards westernization, despite being a very traditional cuisine and to some extent very closed.
Do you think that one can speak of a Latin Americanization of world cuisine with our own techniques and products? Neither
Peru or Mexico are modern techniques, so there is great cuisine with raw materials. Peru have to incorporate techniques such as cryopreservation (cooking to 96 degrees below zero) and devices like the Roner, the rotary evaporator, the rotobar, the Pacojet. Come to a full kitchen, a global kitchen where it joins the African with Swedish, Asian with Latin America. A total fusion cuisine.
What surprised Madrid Fusion 2011?
currently Spain is the reflection of the latest trends that are happening in the world. In the next Madrid Fusion will present six new techniques never used before anywhere in the world. For example, cooking at high pressures, flavored with the steam in a closed environment, microencapsulation or enanoencapsulación that produces extremely thin sauces. Is the union of science with the kitchen, which is far from being forwarded advanced. Arzak is developing an electronic kitchen beautiful concept, is an outpost of impressive recipes reengineering.
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