The Madrid Fusión gastronomic event, as always, was an overwhelming hurricane of news and events, such as the fact that the Basques remain in the culinary spotlight. Gorka Rico and Javier Rivero, chefs at Ama, have obtained the coveted 2023 ‘revelation chef’ award. They are two young entrepreneurs from Tolosa, a small town in Gipuzkoa, whose story is that they studied at the Basque Culinary Center, the impressive pool of gastronomic talent .
They started their adventure in a small tavern that they converted into a restaurant and will soon move to another larger establishment. The proposal of the baptized ‘grandchildren of the Young Basque Cuisine’, is simple, close, from the environment: fish and meat, fruit and vegetables from small producers, in fact, I have just booked for February. I’ll order roasted leeks, mini omelette with beef tartare, rabbit, sheep, apple meatballs, beetroot sponge cake, and dark chocolate soufflé. I’ll count.
Another place that I would like to try is Sud 777 (CDMX) by Edgar Núñez, who talked about his seasonal and product cuisine with colorful vegetable and fruit moles made from carrots, pumpkins, pine nuts or beets, with which he prepared a Mexican pink one, Traditionally it is served at weddings, which in addition to chilies, has nuts, vegetables and reductions of different ingredients. With it bathe a piece of nixtamalized beets, cooked in water with lime, and decorate with petals.
He explained that his green mole was a pipian with pumpkin seeds, but there are peanuts, almonds, amaranth, and sesame seeds. He serves it with leaves that taste like oysters, sea. He also makes “the future of our world” with algae and insects. The thickness is obtained with corn dough. “If done correctly, the moles don’t need coagulants or stabilizers.” In addition to nixtamalization, he also uses fermentations, such as tomato skin, which he uses as a thickener.
His maxim is a dish with few ingredients that enhance the flavor. Before a packed auditorium, Núñez, visibly nervous, reflected on how the contemporary becomes tradition over the years. “My cuisine is non-vegetarian vegetable”, he pointed out. He said that he preferred to talk about Mexico rather than the restaurant. He showed a video in which the cook Lula Martín del Campo, Juan Antonio Siller, INAH architect and Unesco member, and Pedro Martín, Canarian chef from Bulla, CDMX, among others, spoke about the wealth of Mexico, a planetary gastronomic benchmark. .
“We would not be what we are without migration or cultural exchange,” they stressed. When the conquerors arrived, with a cultural baggage of eight centuries of Arab presence, nopal, avocado, armadillo, deer and insects were eaten, and all of this was enriched with spices, lard. The frying is also part of the viceregal history. The Canaries were the navel of the world. There were Portuguese and Dutch navigators who also contributed their flavors. Globalization lasted 250 years and the 21st century put an end to nationalism.
“We are two worlds that meet. We were not a colony, we were part of the kingdom”, claimed Núñez, for whom “nationalisms are dangerous because you feel proud of things you did not do and you hate people who did nothing”.
After his conference, which I followed on streaming, I reviewed the comments from the Spanish media that were full of praise and I wanted to know first-hand about his experience. “It was incredible, many interviewed me and my colleagues congratulated me. I didn’t think I was going to like my presentation so much, I talked more about Mexico and what the world has meant to its cuisine and what Mexico represents to world cuisine,” he told me via WhatsApp. I’m still clapping.
#Basques #Mexico #shine #light