Read It and Lament- Ferran Adria, World’s Greatest Chef

Who’s that guy in the fuzzy, nondescript photograph? Just Ferran Adria, THE WORLD’S GREATEST CHEF who ran El Bulli, THE WORLD’S GREATEST RESTAURANT. This isn’t my hyperbole, either! Both the man and the place were crowned The Greatest by publications, people, and governing bodies who oversee such titles–multiple times. Last night, I sat in a sold out Castro Theatre to listen to The World’s Greatest Chef on his book tour. Something like 1400 people were there, shelling out $30 to hear this guy and he didn’t even pick up the book during the 90 minute event.

You never ate at El Bulli, in all likelihood, and you never will.* El Bulli, located on the coast of Catalonia, Spain, was open only 6 months of the year, costs upwards of $450 for the tasting menu, held a 3-star Michelin ranking for years, and had literally millions of requests for its 8,000 seats available per season. El Bulli closed on July 30 of this year so  that Adria can build the El Bulli Foundation on the restaurant’s very spot. And, presumably, move on to a  more financially lucrative career than running so costly a restaurant.

LAMENT. Like the scent of  Guerlain’s original Eau de Cologne Impériale made for Napoleon III or watching stifled, jealous glances thrown at Gertrude Stein by Alice B. Toklas, I’ve missed out on something that the internet cannot recreate. Who knew there still were such things??

How often do we listen to someone who is definitively the greatest in the world at something? I asked this question of my girlfriend who picked me up after the reading. She laughed off and ridiculed my intellectual queries into watching Yo-Yo Ma or, I don’t know, some other undisputed greatest. The best part of Adria’s talk was that he started off the lecture insisting, ‘I know nothing about cuisine or cooking.’ He gave endless examples: if there are over 500 varieties of citrus and this is but one type of fruit which is but one ingredient, how can a person say they are an expert at cooking and cuisine? I saw the Queer Food For Love’s undisputed food genius Yasmin Golan outside the Castro following the event and she said it was really cool to hear such an un-American response to our chef-frenzied times. This guy was not about ego at all. Two things, Adria said and his interpreter held up her fingers: 1. We know nothing about cuisine. 2. Everything is subjective.

Besides the aforementioned descriptors, El Bulli and Adria are known for deconstructionist cuisine though he balked somewhat at the ‘molecular gastronomy’ label.  (Molecular gastronomy chef, Grant Achatz, owns the Chicago’s famous Alinea restaurant and did a 3 week stint at El Bulli early in his career which sent him in this new direction.) Adria and El Bulli have many food and cookbooks written with or about them but his newest book, the one that I received signed last night at the Castro Theatre is The Family Meal: Home Cooking with Ferran Adria. Worth $30, bitches!

Adria told the crowd over and over his simple idea that created profound change: if cooks eat well, they cook well. Unlike simple leftover dishes at most restaurants (including fine dining, Michelin ranked), El Bulli served beautiful, delicious 3-course family meal for the 70+ staff each day. The cookbook includes those recipes: a month’s worth of 3-course meals, aimed at home cooks feeding people for less than $5/person per meal.

The book is exactly what I want in a cook-book. A clear, concise shopping list and instructions for making simple sauces and stocks to then freeze and use over the course of the month. (And permission to use bullion cubes if one must!) Each 3-course meal can be made in a few hours, tops. Many dishes can be made in no time at all and all are really fucking impressive. The instructions include a shopping list, cooking timeline, and are broken down into methods for 2, 6, 20 or 75 people!

I inhale food books and cookbooks the way you nerds do the same with The Hunger Games (next on my list.) Writing about food, though incredibly fashionable these days, is no simple task because of the inherent problems in describing the senses well. We cannot all be Diane Ackerman.  The exciting thing about Adria’s new cookbook is the recipes themselves are so fascinating because -like the 40-course tasting menu at El Bulli- I would never have come up with the combinations, techniques or core belief that I can make this food on my own.

Call me if you want to try out some recipes together!

 

*Me neither. If you somehow ate a meal there, please contact me, you lucky jerk!