Ferran Adrià, the celebrated Catalan chef, said in Palma today “there are nothing like nor as easy to find as products as special as the ensaimada or sobrassada.” “All that’s missing is to assign to them greater value because, at times, it seems to be shameful to speak well of them, when they are wonderful.”
Adrià says that the ensaimada needs to be promoted more just as it is, because “there is nothing like it in the world, notwithstanding Ferran Adrià making strange things with it. “I’ve mixed sobrassada with ensaimada, and it isn’t simple to mix pork with something sweet.”
He adds that “the Balearics should be proud of its tourism, when it appears to not be important. There is much innovation in (Balearic) tourism, very fine hotels, and this is the way to go. From here, developments have to revolve around tourism: what there is, where it is and with which resources to do so.”
On the marketing of gastronomy, Adrià observes that “if there isn’t marketing, it doesn’t exist; it doesn’t have to be looked upon as something to be disparaged. Current marketing is very different to before; social networks have changed the rules of the game”. Considering the need for financing for one of the possible means of Balearic economic diversification, he says that “with investment of 15 million euros the best gastronomy university in the world could be developed”.
Adrià is in Palma for the opening of an exhibition “Espacio Innovación” that he has developed with Telefonica at the Es Baluard Museum which focusses on innovation and creativity and lasts until 22 November and for a lecture this evening (Thursday) an ambassador for Telefonia in association with Club Ultima Hora, which publishes the Bulletin.
Innovation should be fostered, he says, but “we cannot want things to be like Silicon Valley overnight; there has to be patience. With this project, cooking is being used to reach out to society because it is highly agreeable and understandable. If I explain the creative process in the context of cooking, everyone understands it because everyone eats.”
Adrià explains that there is no fixed key to the success of his project for innovation. “It takes time. The recipe of a Norman Foster or a Lionel Messi does not apply to everyone. Innovation needs to be highly pragmatic and very objective, and the new technologies which can help need to be known. The great revolution that there is in the world right now is online education, even in a village in Mongolia without running water but with a telephone line. The internet is a revolution as great if not more so than the printing press. In order to be an innovator you need to be brave and to risk failure, but to be brave is to be evolutionary.”
On being a professional chef, Adrià warns that “before going to a school for cooking, everyone should work for a month in a restaurant. It is very hard, like being in the second B division in football and knowing that you can’t go higher. There is a certain glamour which doesn’t correspond with reality.”
Regarding the closure of his famous elBulli restaurant in 2011, he says that he took the decision because management bored him. “I have never said that I wouldn’t return to cooking. I love it. But there came a point when it had got crazy. We were under much stress, working 16 hours a day, and in 25 years having missed only seven days.”
Adrià also talks about world hunger. “It’s nothing to do with cooking, it’s a political matter. What more responsibility do I have than the next person,” he asks rhetorically before adding “in my case all my wealth is in my foundation (elBullifoundation).