Lisa Abend's Article on Fish Foam and Spherified Mango Juice: Will Spanish avant-garde cuisine stand the test of time? (Slate 2008)

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"In a recent e-mail, Gerry Dawes, an American expert on Spanish food and wine, wrote, "I am getting a little weary of the Catalan-driven techno-cuisine. Many of these 'experiments' would be better off if they didn't show up anywhere but at chefs' conferences." His words sum up the critical attitude: It was fun at first, but enough with the chemistry kit! I'd like some real food now, please."  Lisa Abend, Fish Foam and Spherified Mango Juice: Will Spanish avant-garde cuisine stand the test of time?  (Slate 2008)

Fish Foam and Spherified Mango Juice: Will Spanish avant-garde cuisine stand the test of time? by Lisa Abend (Slate 2008)

 Gerry Dawes with Juan Mari Arzak and Ferran Adrià in New York.

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 About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on WPWL 103.7 FM Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York.

  Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 
 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at  gerrydawes@gmail.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@spanishartisanwine.com

To Hell with Michelin! I Have the GeralDalí 'Persistence of Memory' Watch Awards and I am Bestowing Five Watches, My Top Rating, on Restaurante Quique Dacosta (formerly El Poblet), Chef Quique DaCosta and Quique Dacosta's Staff

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Gerry Dawes's Geraldo-Dalí Persistence of Memory* (Salvador Dalí)  Melting Watch Awards.

(The opinions in this post are entirely those of Gerry Dawes.  Quique Dacosta was not consulted.)

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Quique Dacosta. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2008.
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Video of Quique Dacosta's Restaurant in Denia (Alicante).

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Quique Dacosta is probably the brightest culinary star of his generation and this year, he and his stunning restaurant and stunning state-of-cocina de vangaurdia food were yet again royally screwed by the Michelin Guide (2010), who failed to give Quique (and others) a deserved third star. 

Let's get it straight, at one point restaurants in France had received around 1,700 Michelin rosettes while Spain, in the same year, had less than 200.  The ratio is roughly the same this year.  Let's be gracious and call it eight to one in favor of France over Spain.

Taking into consideration that Spanish restaurants and Spanish cuisine--vanguardia, modernized traditional and traditional--have been recognized by far more credible judges than the Michelin Guide as among the best restaurants in the world and that France is in mortal competition with Spain for gastro-tourism Euros, why is anyone giving any credence to Michelin's shameful French-centric judgement any more?

In addition to the long-vaunted modern cuisine restaurants like Ferran Adrià's El Bulli, Arzak, Can Fabes, Martín Berasategui, San Pau, Can Roca and many others, Spain has a slew of traditional cuisine restaurants that merit one and two rosettes (usually called "stars") from Michelin, some of them three.  If Elkano and Kaia in Getaria in the Basque Country alone (Not to mention a slew of other Basque restaurants) don't merit two stars for stellar food, stellar service, ambience, wine cellar, etc., who does?  I go on on listing restaurants all over Spain worthy of Michelin's lofty ratings, but it is futile, since even the vociferous protests of Madrid's culinary press corps who have voiced their displeasure to the faces of Michelin representatives who invited them to press luncheons in Madrid to present each year's new Red Guide, apparently have had little effect. 

If I were the Spaniards--and I often feel like I am--I would get Michelin's attention quick. 

"Señores (Monsieurs y Madames), is it not true that the Michelin Guides originated as a way to help your company sell more tires?" 

"In that case, would you prefer to sell rubber or paper?  Because we intend to organize a boycott against your pneumaticos if you don't manage to award Spain at least, at the very least, 1,000 more rosettes by the next time your guidebook to Spain and Portugal is published." 

Yes, we know there are Michelin tire factories in Spain.  Do you know how many people restaurants in Spain employ, how many farmers supply food to Spanish restaurants, how many wineries and winery employees provide them with wine?

_______________________________________________________


About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel


Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television series 

on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain; Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

Modernized Traditional Food: Spain’s Innovative Vangaurdia Cuisine vs. Traditional Down-Home Cooking

 

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Culinary Institute of America

Worlds of Flavor Spain Website

Spain’s Innovative Vangaurdia Cuisine 

vs. Traditional Down-Home Cooking  

(Click for full article.) 

CIA Student Chef finishing a Paco Roncero's sensational "Nido de Huevo Carbonara" 

(Nest of Egg Carbonara) dish with liquid nitrogen at the Worlds of Flavor marketplace.  

Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009.

Excerpt (article by Gerry Dawes)

"As to those who thought modern Spanish cuisine would destroy traditional cooking, perhaps they should consider this. 

When Americans landed on the moon, it was an ultra modern outer space adventure at the time and culmination of years of brilliant forward-vision thinking, experimentation, innovation, evolution of techniques and modern technical skills. 

That “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" did not mean that we all suddenly began to experience space flight, plan vacation homes on the moon, nor eat a steady diet of Astronaut tube food, though all the innovation associated with space missions did impact our lives. 

The same goes for the Spanish cocina de vangaurdia movement and Ferran Adrià’s rocket ride into culinary space. They may have taken us to a moon-walking style of gastronomy, but they didn’t destroy traditional Spanish cooking, rather Adrià and his fellow gastronauts provided the inspiration that enriched and enabled Spain’s cocina tradicional to evolve to its current stage, which is the best it has ever been in its history. 

Patatas al ali oli con huevas de arenque (Potatoes ali-oli with herring roe) at 

Paco Roncero's Estado Puro "Gastrobar" in Madrid.  Photo by Gerry Dawes©2009.

In my forty years of traveling in Spain, I have never tasted better tradition-based food than I am eating in Spain these days."

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009.

 Mr. Dawes is currently working on a reality television

series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

Chicago Tribune's Ten Worst Dining Trends of the Decade

The Chicago Tribune just published an article on the Ten Worst Dining Trends of the Decade.  Three of them, "molecular cuisine," foams and decontruction dishes, take aim at the Spanish cocina de vanguardia modernista tendencies of the past decade or so.  The relates to my current article in Food Arts, Spain's Chemical Reaction.

But, one of the real jewels in these worst trends is about wine and it is in the body of the article, not on the list of the Big Ten:

"Worst trend?" said Tim Zagat, co-founder of the Zagat restaurant survey. "Buying wine to show off. It's not new but it got out of hand with Wall Street types this decade. If you spend $100 on a bottle now, you're exhibiting some degree of stupidity."

Well, yeh!

Gerry Dawes

Ferran Adrià Debunks the Myth of Molecular Cuisine

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(From an interview by Gerry Dawes with Ferran Adrià in June 2008)

The term “molecular cuisine” is often used in conjunction with Spanish cocina de vanguardia, but Ferran Adrià, often proclaimed "world's greatest chef" objects to using this description to describe his style of cooking at El Bulli.

 
“I would like to use this occasion to debunk the myth of molecular cuisine. I am aware that in many countries they say that at El Bulli we practice molecular cuisine. But the truth is there are few qualifiers that define with such preciseness the cooking that we practice, because molecular cuisine is not a style of cooking. First off, the term comes from molecular gastronomy, which at the same time only describes the dialogue between cooks and scientists who are trying to understand the chemical and physical processes that are produced in the kitchen. But, as I have said many times, understanding what happens when a steak is cooking or how to make a mayonnaise, does not bring anything into the evolution of the history of cooking in the stylistic sense. 

All knowledge is good for those who are cooking, but that is not the reason in itself that a new style is created. To draw a parallel, it is not necessary for a great architect to know how to make metal alloys to create a work that is important in architectural history. But, in any case, this knowledge, which I will readily admit is always positive, has nothing to do with what an architect brings to the style. What appears absurd to us is that the architecture of a creator who knows about metal alloy is called “molecular architecture.”

The way the theme (molecular cuisine) is being presented, it appears that the kitchen is a place basically to carry out scientific experiments. And this is not the case. I would like to make clear that science for a chef has great value, although, I repeat, always so that he can understand the processes, to know more, to enrich our knowledge. In the same way it helps to understand the processes of other disciplines.” 

Because of this misconception about the use of science in the kitchen, Ferran says, “the name ‘cocina molecular' is being used as the name to define the cocina de vanguardia that we do at El Bulli and, in general, many restaurants everywhere. And with that they want to define a cuisine ‘based in science’ when in reality all that vanguard cuisine is trying to do is to try to open up new fields, understand more about everything, but only from a scientific standpoint. Our contacts have been established not only with scientists, but artists, industrial designers, nutrition experts, the food industry, etc. All this is done to procure the best knowledge, but all this is only tools at the service of the philosophy of style and of the way that each chef sees his cooking.”


About the author

Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine.


Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Culinary Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@hotmail.com

Valencia: Damned Near Everything You Need to Know About the Incredible Food, Wine & Cultural Scene in Valencia & Alicante

Rice to Riches, Food Arts, May 2007 (The Surprising Cuisines of Valencia & Alicante)

The Surprising Cuisines of La Comunitat Valenciana (Valencia, Alicante & Castellón)


Alicante: Monastrell & La Taberna del Gourmet

The Wines of La Comunitat Valenciana--Valencia, Alicante, Utiel-Requena: Hitting Their Stride as Their Home Region Hosts the America’s Cup

Madrid Fusión 2007: A Watershed Moment in Spanish Modern Cuisine History

By Gerry Dawes

Madrid, Spain

January’s eagerly awaited, annual, star-studded culinary conference, Madrid Fusión 2007, may turn out to be a watershed moment in the history of modern Spanish cuisine. The theme of this year’s star-studded conference was La Materia Prima Base de la Creatividad (Product: The Base of Creativity) and it perhaps inadvertently brought into high relief the sea change that I have been seeing and hearing all over the country during more than 20 trips in the past three years, a tidal swing that has grown exponentially over the past year especially. The fifth annual edition of Madrid Fusión, a conference whose focus has been overwhelmingly about innovation and technique, turned out to be something of a tug-a-war dynamic between the two modern Spanish culinary movements, both of which utilize some elements of the other, but whose result is often clearly different.

Cocina de vanguardia, a style whose most famous proponent is super-star chef Ferran Adrià and whose global face has been characterized by such innovations as flavored foams, mango and olive oil caviar, titantium-laced wafers, eggs with a gold leaf veil, perfume-flavored ice creams, etc. is currently being challenged by a more restrained modern Spanish cuisine style that features Spanish product-driven, regional tradition-derived dishes that are not as perplexing to the restaurant goers and are not just user-friendly, they often more delicious and comprehensible as well. In places such as Valencia and Alicante, where some remarkable cooking is going on, this emerging direction, which has been coming of age over the past several years, is beginning to draw serious national and international attention. Call it cocina moderna neo-tradicional for lack of a formal term.

Ferran Adrià, the ultra-famous Catalan culinary star, did his annual “Ferran show” that featured a nine-point manifesto entitled Culinary Relections on the Product (Before Cooking) and including such points as the source, in-depth knowledge, proximity, ecological impact, price, etc. of the ingredients used in cooking. American chef Dan Barber (Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York), who eschews scientific pyrotechnics in his kitchen, presented an elaborate, thoughtful talk describing the great lengths he goes to in developing better agricultural techniques on Blue Hill’s own farm in order to insure the highest quality organically grown, sustainable products for his kitchen. Star Spanish chefs Juan Mari Arzak, Dani Garcia (Calima, Marbella), Quique Dacosta (El Poblet, Denia-Alicante) and London chef Heston Blumenthal all kept the vanguardista flag flying, while Charlie Trotter (Charlie Trotter’s, Chicago), Tetsuya Wakuda (Tetsuya’s, Sydney) and Grant Achatz (Alinea, Chicago) put their unique twists on the theme. But, the headline grabber was three-star chef Santi Santamaria (Raco de Can Fabes in Sant Celoni, outside Barcelona), who appeared for the first time at Madrid Fusión (he disdains culinary conferences) and dropped a culinary mega-bomb, basically denouncing vanguardista cuisine and drawing a five-minute standing ovation.

Somewhere between Santamaria’s somewhat extreme diatribe and the 3-D glasses and candy aromas that were part of Heston Blumenthal’s presentation lies a common ground where Spanish (and global) modern cuisine is heading. Technology, science and equipment will still figure in the evolution of food in Spain, they will just not define and characterize Spanish modern cuisine as they have during the past decade especially, when many dishes often seemed to be the product of high-tech culinary laboratory experiments, rather than focused on getting the best possible food on the plate, something Spanish chefs are particularly gifted at doing.