Ferran Adriài – Cooking in Progress
Description [Catalan] Ferran Adriài – Cocina en Progreso [2 CD – 2 AVI] Three-star chef Ferran Adrià is widely regarded as the best, most innovative and craziest in the world. In his kitchen, what was once familiar disintegrates. Every year his restaurant El Bulli closes for half a year, time for Adrià and his team to retire to their cooking laboratory in Barcelona to create the new menu for the next season. Anything goes except copying yourself. The pictures are taken and the cutlery is wrapped in cellophane paper, as a delivery van is loaded with machines and boxes. In the small cove of Montjoi below, the waves hit the beach. We are at El Bulli, witnessing the closing of probably the most famous restaurant in the world. No, it’s not forever, just until next season. Every winter the restaurant closes, and Ferran Adrià, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch are closed in their experimental kitchen in Barcelona for half a year, to create their new menu for the following season. “Creativity means not copying. Ferran Adrià and his team have made Jacques Maximin’s aphorism the motto of his daily activities. The film El Bulli – Cooking in Progress is the close observation of that search, from the initial experimentation to the premiere of the finished dish. In the course of that process, however, many an ingredient is examined in an entirely new way. What novel product can be derived from sweet potatoes? Taste and texture are systematically analyzed: boiling, roasting, frying, steaming – vacuuming, spherification, freeze-drying – and then tasting. Ideas emerge, are discussed, and finally all results, good or bad, are thoroughly documented, on a laptop next to the kitchen spoon. After all, research means looking closely, with an understanding of the fundamental principles. And research means work, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. Ideas do not usually fall from the sky, they evolve in the diffuse realm between the intentional and the accidental, the experience and the unknown. Then, when summer comes, everything changes. In no time, a cold restaurant must be thrown at full speed, by a brigade of 35 new chefs from around the world, who here, on the Catalan Costa Brava, are entering unknown culinary territory. Of course, not all of them are up to the door; and the previously so uniform Oriol is forced, from time to time, to raise his voice to the group to bring home the strict and hierarchical structure. For his part, Ferran Adrià puts the finishing touches on the new dishes, which are already served on the opening night, in addition to the previous year’s menu. This is when the defining decisions are made: What will each dish look like, how will it be served, and most of all, in what order? What filling goes into the ravioli, the paste of which disintegrates as you dip it in water? And where do the little ice cubes go, with the tiny tangerines or the mushroom soaked in hazelnut oil? Even on opening night, there is a curious premiere, when a cocktail made up of only water, hazelnut oil and Salt. In experimental cooking, it had already been tried out by Eduard Xatruch, and the simple principle and the silky mouthfeel of the oil were just what had convinced Ferran. However, later, during a course for new cooks, he jokingly asked himself: “And what were they serving at El Bulli? Only to instantly reply:” Water! Great ideas are usually simple and autonomous, more beyond the known and familiar. El Bulli is both complex and simple, says Ferran. And perhaps there is only one adequate answer to the question: “So what is the movie El Bulli – Cooking in Progress about?” – “Water, oil and salt!”
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