Decoding Ferran Adria

Anthony Bourdain ("Kitchen Confidential", "A Cook's Tour", "The Les Halles Cookbook") financed, filmed, and narrated a one hour special about noted chef Ferran Adria of El Bulli. He's had clips available at http://www.zeropointzero.com/ferran.html since June, 2004, but until Monday the show had not yet aired in North America. Mind you, it'd already aired in Kuwait and Russia, among many other countries, but for some reason the networks here have been reluctant.

On Monday, though, Food TV Canada finally got off their butts. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the American branch of the Food Network will be airing it any time soon.

Through the magic of the Internets and TV capture cards, I've now had a chance to see it.

Thankfully, Bourdain doesn't pretend to have always respected or liked Ferran Adria. He admits to his past dismissals of Adria's cooking (he famously called Adria "the foam guy"), but keeps an open mind.

Ferran Adria and Bourdain first meet for the project at a little butcher shop in Barcelona. Tony is confused at first, but after talking to the butcher-hog owner-ham curer, he realizes Adria's point: the transformation of food isn't something to be afraid of. Raw pork to spanish ham or grapes to sherry -- a little treatment goes a long way.

From there, Bourdain goes to Adria's workshop, where a group of chefs, a chemist, and an industrial designer work to do what Tony, and many others, thought impossible: do something new in the culinary world.

It's truly a beautiful space. Ferran tries to make sure we know that the products that come out of his kitchen and workshop are created by a large team, and, although he's the media darling, he feels all in the workshop are peers. He feels that "in normal circumstances, they should have their own restaurants" and that the big difference between El Bulli and other restaurants is that his team never says I, but always we.

And then, out of the blue, Ferran starts crushing smints. Those little flavored triangular mints that are in the impulse rack at grocery stores. These are peach flavored smints. A sliced peach is coated with these ground candies and then seared like, as Adria puts it, foie gras. And, indeed, it looks and has the texture of sauteed foie.

It's a neat trick, Bourdain says, but what's the point? Adria counters: what's the point of foie, lobster, truffle? "We've decided that a pear is the same as any of the best fish. Not better, or worse. The same."

Indeed, it seems almost like Fergus Henderson is in the kitchen -- through the transformative powers of cooking, Adria wants to turn products normally dismissed into the stars of the show, and to make clear that all foods are equally important and valuable.

Now Adria whips out a map -- the evolutionary map, he calls it, of food. For every item that comes into his kitchen, he wants to figure out not just which preparatory techniqiues work, but why. Adria emphasizes, though, that "this is not science class, this is cooking." All of his research is in the pursuit of new flavors, new techniques, new transformations. He could make you a spanish omelet, he says, but why bother? He already knows how. His goal is not to take old techniques to their ultimate, most perfect form, but rather to invent.

Done with the lessons, for now, the crew moves on to experimentation:

Course 1: a sauteed filet of fish that looks horribly undercooked, but is, in fact, perfect. The goal? Shocking the tastebuds by giving them the unexpected -- setting them up for snapper sashimi, and then delivering the exact opposite.

Course 2: Mango caviar. Adria's team has developed a technique for making any liquid congeal at a precise temperature. This one, though, is apparently still a beta technique -- the mango puree turns into a sort of jelly instead of the desired liquid-filled balls.

Course 3: A full serving of new delivery mechanisims from El Bulli's industrial designer, including an inflated latex glove "for the end of the meal". What they'll use it for, we never learn. The hope for many of these designs, though, is to amuse the customer -- to make them happy.

Bourdain leaves the workshop, and Barcelona, and heads north two hours to El Bulli, the restaurant. It's time for him to see how the experiments in the workshop make it to our mouths.

The cooks in the kitchen, Bourdain says, are "a disciplined army of food professionals, putting on the equivalent of a Broadway show, with 32 acts". It's a calm looking kitchen, though. Cooks are moving quickly but smoothly, it's relatively quiet, and there isn't the same sort of panicked multitasking you sometimes see at 7:30pm on a Saturday night. 55 cooks for one seating a night of 55 guests.

Just some of the courses:

1. A frappe of green pine water, served with artichoke chips.
2. Lemon tempura with licorice
3. Raspberry lilypads
4. Rhubarb with black pepper
5. Fried sea cucumber skin, in chip form; fried iberico ham fat, in chip form; sour yogurt.
6. Jamon de toro. Fatty tuna belly, cured and flavored like iberico ham.
7. Cherry with ham. Looks like a cherry wrapped in white fondant, but is instead wrapped with iberico ham fat.
8. Golden egg. A single, raw egg yolk, shellaced in caramel.
9. Parmigiano ice cream sandwich.
10. Apple caviar. See "mango caviar", above. White ikura, but made completely of apple.
11. Cotton candy carcass of tiny fish. A small fried fish wrapped in cotton candy, basically.
12. Pea ravioli, served without pasta. Liquid essence of baby peas, wrapped in itself. It looks kind of like a barely-set green egg yolk.
13. Carrot air. Carrot and tangerine foam. It's so light, tony accidentally breathes in while eating and some goes into his lungs.
14. Ice powder of foie gras with foie gras consomme. Frozen, finely ground foie gras powder, covered with hot foie consomme. The powder stays frozen until hitting the diner's mouth.
15. A very difficult to describe oyster dish, with macadamia nut, hazelnut yogurt, and lemon.
16. Raw tuna bone marrow with caviar.
17. Cuttlefish and coconut ravioli. Cuttlefish wrapped around coconut liquid.
18. Scampi with rosemary. Sniff rosemary, eat shrimp. Very moto/trioesque.
19. Sea cucumber, garnished with rhubarb and cod roe.
20. Two meters of parmesan cheese spaghetti. A single, two meter long strand of cheese flavored consomme, suspended with agar agar, and coiled in a bowl like spaghetti. Meant to be eaten whole, slurped up all at once.
21. Canneloni of bone marrow, truffle, and rabbit brains.
22. Marble soup - coffee and rosewater marbles, floating in lychee.
23. Chocolate soil
24. Something described as what wonderbread should be.
25. Snowballs -- shavings of lemon ice with the consistency of snow. Filling of strawberries, lemon, and roses.

In Bourdain's narration at the end of the meal, he uses a word I didn't think he was comfortable using for food: art. More important, to him, it made sense. It wasn't bizarre, it was just unknown. It was, he said, "magic".

The show ends at Adria's favorite restaurant, a 20-seat, boisterous, happy, simple place serving pristine fish, usually cooked with just sea salt and olive oil.

Here, Bourdain finally reailzes what's at the soul of Ferran Adria's cuisine: the memory of taste. He wants to do as much new as possible, but still remind people of their very first bite of every one of their favorite foods.


It's a truly wonderful show. For people familiar with BitTorrent, you can download a torrent for it from Digital Distractions. For everyone else, hope and pray that it comes to the US soon.

-ed

Thanks!

There are lots of reasons to dislike the Food Network. The one that really sticks in my craw, though, is their handling of shows. Why have they never released DVDs of A Cook's Tour? Why can't you buy an entire season of Good Eats (and why are three half hour episodes $20)? Frustrating.

Thanks for the rundown. I'm torn theoretically on what's being done at Moto, Alinea, and El Bulli, but it's clearly interesting and all the word is that it tastes good.

Thanks for the great detailed report, Ed. BitTorrent is blocked at the office and I'm on dialup at home, so I'll just keep my fingers crossed. (Obviously Adria needs to compete with Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America before they'd contemplate adding Bourdain's special to the schedule.)

extramsg wrote:There are lots of reasons to dislike the Food Network. The one that really sticks in my craw, though, is their handling of shows. Why have they never released DVDs of A Cook's Tour? Why can't you buy an entire season of Good Eats (and why are three half hour episodes $20)? Frustrating.

Why buy when you can burn? Dual-layer DVD burners are well under $100 and blank DVDs are well under a buck a throw. Cutting out commercials lets you get five half-hour episodes and, if you squeeze out title sequences too, you'll often get six on a DVD, and you can group them the way you want. You miss out on a few minutes of outtakes or whatever, but I'll live. (And I once fit 26 episodes of Good Eats on an 8-hour tape, so the random access of DVDs is a true boon.)

Ed, I heard the torent link is not working. Any way to fix/update?

Rob

Vital Information wrote:Ed, I heard the torent link is not working. Any way to fix/update?

Rob

Updated in the post, and here's another link down here:

Digital Distractions

Direct link to .torrent file

I downloaded it, and the sound works, but the video doesn't. Am I doing something wrong?

You probably need the files required to decode the video. An easy way to do this is to download VLC, an open-source media player for windows and mac osx (and many other operating systems).

You can get it at http://videolan.org/vlc/

It should be able to play the video with no problem.

Yeah, I have lots of the codecs and Windows Media Player, Quicktime, and Realplayer all had problems. VLC worked just fine.

does anyone have the file on their computer and would be willing to email it to me. Ther no seeders on line and i can not download the torrent. I would really like to see it and show it to my cooks. By the way i am the chef at mk restaurant if tht will speed up the process. my e-mail is toddstein9@gmail.com


thank you

I think it's about 400 MBs, if I remember. Probably not something that can be emailed.

where is the best place to find it? ther e are no seeders on the one site listed above

todd

That's where I found it.

I think I still have a copy of it. If you'd like, I can mail it to you. PM me your mailing address, and I can mail it out. Or if you are in Evanston, I am sure something can be arranged.

Now available on DVD.

Surprised this wasn't mentioned -- Travel Channel is airing this tonight at 9 PM and midnight.

Bob S. wrote:Surprised this wasn't mentioned -- Travel Channel is airing this tonight at 9 PM and midnight.

Thanks Bob, well worth watching, tivo or vhs.

Just happened to catch Bourdain's show as I was eating some most excellent wild salmon The Wife prepared -- one of her better dinners, and one of Tony's best shows.

Must admit, I've never admired Bourdain -- seems an empty toque -- still, this was a fascinating look inside the mind of El Bulli.

Ed, thanks for posting the eating itinerary -- most helpful, in retrospect.

I laughed out loud and slapped my knee several times during this show -- it was hilarious.

Hammond

See the links here:

http://extramsg.com/modules.php?query=n ... ame=Search

I found him very down to earth and very interested in learning about and exploring foods.

extramsg wrote:I found him very down to earth and very interested in learning about and exploring foods.

Can't say that has been my general reaction, but in this episode, particularly during the actual meal itself, I was impressed with Bourdain's blow-by-blow description of the tastes he was experiencing, both in the narration (which I'm guessing he wrote, but perhaps not) as well as during the very act of eating.

What left me a bit perplexed, though, was his preface about being an "eater" rather than a "diner" (a distinction I find useful...I think), and then the rest of the program, which seemed clearly focused on a "dining" experience (not the satisfaction of a primal urge, but rather a refined, highly intellectualized social action that seemed to require constant commentary).

Anyway, I don't mean to beat on Bourdain, and this show has certainly encouraged me to spend more time with him in the future.

Hammond

I have to say this was the first time I could sit through an hour of Bourdain. I liked the half-hour "A Cook's Tour" on Food TV, but "No Reservations" just has too much filler for me. (But I don't think that's necessarily Bourdain's fault, either.)

Given that a one-hour show actually has somewhere between 45 and 50 minutes of actual show, I do wonder if the original documentary was presented intact or if they had to edit it down.

As for the show itself, I have to admit that I've found articles about Adria more interesting. That may be because of the novelty factor -- I've read enough about him now that the sights on the tape have a hard time competing with the mental pictures and the impressions those articles conjured up.