1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,920 Hi everyone, welcome to potluck food talks. 2 00:00:07,920 --> 00:00:12,640 And because you asked for it, we're going to talk about Mugaritz part two. 3 00:00:12,640 --> 00:00:16,520 I think there's still a lot to talk about Mugaritz. 4 00:00:16,520 --> 00:00:18,320 Yeah, that's true. 5 00:00:18,320 --> 00:00:21,240 What did we talk about the last time? 6 00:00:21,240 --> 00:00:22,240 Where did we end? 7 00:00:22,240 --> 00:00:27,480 I have to say, like, while I was in Mugaritz is when I fell in love with the city or the 8 00:00:27,480 --> 00:00:28,480 bus country in general. 9 00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:29,480 Yes. 10 00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:31,840 I can remember two special moments. 11 00:00:31,840 --> 00:00:33,400 One was going to a cider house. 12 00:00:33,400 --> 00:00:34,400 Oh yeah. 13 00:00:34,400 --> 00:00:36,520 I was like, what is this? 14 00:00:36,520 --> 00:00:38,280 I think it was Petritegui. 15 00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:43,560 Like in the back of my memory, rebuilding the whole thing, I think it was Petritegui. 16 00:00:43,560 --> 00:00:45,600 I mean, this was like 20 years ago. 17 00:00:45,600 --> 00:00:47,240 And then going for pinches. 18 00:00:47,240 --> 00:00:50,880 I remember the first time I went for pinches because we would work so hard. 19 00:00:50,880 --> 00:00:55,280 And then we had just one day off and this experience of getting into one bar, one pinch 20 00:00:55,280 --> 00:00:59,720 or one drink next bar and doing the same and doing like eight bars in a night. 21 00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:00,720 Wow. 22 00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:02,840 That was so nice. 23 00:01:02,840 --> 00:01:03,840 It's super fun. 24 00:01:03,840 --> 00:01:04,840 Yeah. 25 00:01:04,840 --> 00:01:05,840 It's the same for me, honestly. 26 00:01:05,840 --> 00:01:11,880 So, you know, for me, it's a mixture of San Sebastian, but also like the Basque countryside. 27 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:20,080 I really still today when I smell like wood fire, often remember getting out of the car 28 00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:26,200 in front of Mugurids and smelling the like the fire burning, the charcoal burning, you 29 00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:32,360 know, and just like mix of like cold mountain air and just like fire aspect is really stuck 30 00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:33,360 in my mind. 31 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:38,480 You know, that actually happened to me when I first returned to the Basque country. 32 00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:45,120 It was at least 10 or 11 years after I was in Mugarids. 33 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:51,160 And I remember smelling the air and having that memory effect of, oh, I've smelled, you 34 00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:53,200 know, like this forest air before. 35 00:01:53,200 --> 00:01:55,040 And it brought me right there, right back. 36 00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:56,040 Yeah. 37 00:01:56,040 --> 00:01:57,040 What about techniques? 38 00:01:57,040 --> 00:01:59,040 Are there any memorable techniques that you remember? 39 00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:00,960 What was your time in Mugarids? 40 00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:04,720 Well, there's obviously a few classic ones, no? 41 00:02:04,720 --> 00:02:12,360 There's most notably the caseina de ajo and the fine parsley dust particles. 42 00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:15,560 I think we talked about that, right, in the last episode. 43 00:02:15,560 --> 00:02:16,560 Yes. 44 00:02:16,560 --> 00:02:23,400 I mean, there were lots of amazing, amazing techniques that were kind of impossible to 45 00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:24,400 do. 46 00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:29,080 I remember, you know, I told you, I started in the pastry section and I spoke with my 47 00:02:29,080 --> 00:02:32,280 friend Kevin about this the other day, actually, because we were just laughing about it because 48 00:02:32,280 --> 00:02:34,720 we had a pastry section at the same time. 49 00:02:34,720 --> 00:02:35,720 And he heard the episode. 50 00:02:35,720 --> 00:02:39,880 By the way, he's invited to do like a Mugarids episode. 51 00:02:39,880 --> 00:02:42,600 He said he wanted to do like, let's say a part three. 52 00:02:42,600 --> 00:02:43,880 Yeah, we have to do it. 53 00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:44,880 Yeah, for sure. 54 00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:46,760 He's got some stories to tell. 55 00:02:46,760 --> 00:02:47,960 It's really funny. 56 00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:54,480 So there were a couple of dishes that I was doing on the pastry section that were actually 57 00:02:54,480 --> 00:02:56,920 so infuriatingly impossible to do. 58 00:02:56,920 --> 00:03:01,280 So for example, we had a dish that was called licorice, right? 59 00:03:01,280 --> 00:03:02,960 It starts off kind of okay. 60 00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:07,120 You take kaolin, which is like an edible clay. 61 00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:09,640 You blitz it with star anise. 62 00:03:09,640 --> 00:03:16,680 Then you take celery sticks and you cut them into, you know, sort of rectangles and you 63 00:03:16,680 --> 00:03:21,460 vacuum pack them with the star anise kaolin for I think it was like 23 days. 64 00:03:21,460 --> 00:03:23,480 So I had to make my mise en place 23 days in the head. 65 00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:27,280 That was the first thing. 66 00:03:27,280 --> 00:03:34,200 So then you take the celery out of the kaolin after 23 days, you brush it off. 67 00:03:34,200 --> 00:03:37,760 Then you take sugar cane honey. 68 00:03:37,760 --> 00:03:42,420 You color it with charcoal powder. 69 00:03:42,420 --> 00:03:44,040 So it's pitch black. 70 00:03:44,040 --> 00:03:45,880 You bring it to a certain temperature. 71 00:03:45,880 --> 00:03:48,560 It was like a hundred up to 160. 72 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:54,440 Drop it to like 130 and it had to be just right so that you could take a stencil, dip 73 00:03:54,440 --> 00:04:00,400 it in this caramel and it formed a clean film on the bottom of your stencil. 74 00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:03,040 Then you would take this celery stick. 75 00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:09,080 And you would drop it through this caramel film and it had to be the perfect temperature 76 00:04:09,080 --> 00:04:16,840 so that the caramel would coat this stick of celery perfectly. 77 00:04:16,840 --> 00:04:21,520 If it would be too hot, it would just goop down and you'd have a sticky hot black mess 78 00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:23,920 all over your section. 79 00:04:23,920 --> 00:04:25,440 You do this in the middle of service by the way. 80 00:04:25,440 --> 00:04:32,240 You had to do it a la minute because this thing had a life of 15 seconds to, you know, 81 00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:34,280 to like be edible. 82 00:04:34,280 --> 00:04:38,040 If it was too cold, the thing would goop fall down and just kind of shatter, you know, and 83 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:39,500 just look like shit. 84 00:04:39,500 --> 00:04:41,920 And you drop it into lactose powder. 85 00:04:41,920 --> 00:04:43,280 So it would be covered. 86 00:04:43,280 --> 00:04:50,680 Anyway, long story short, it would look like a licorice sweet, black, shiny, covered in 87 00:04:50,680 --> 00:04:52,320 like a white powder. 88 00:04:52,320 --> 00:04:56,440 But you'd eat it and it tastes like licorice but it's celery. 89 00:04:56,440 --> 00:04:58,120 Incredible. 90 00:04:58,120 --> 00:05:07,080 And like I just said, this thing had a life of, I don't know, a minute max because it 91 00:05:07,080 --> 00:05:12,480 was in the middle of fucking summer in Spain and you had a table of four and it'd be like, 92 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:14,560 yeah, we need four licorice right now. 93 00:05:14,560 --> 00:05:15,560 You'd make the first one. 94 00:05:15,560 --> 00:05:20,000 You'd be like, you know, like, just like a retard with like hot caramel, like burning 95 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:23,240 yourself like, ah, shit. 96 00:05:23,240 --> 00:05:24,240 Trying to get it right. 97 00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:26,040 Obviously the caramel doesn't stay at the same temperature. 98 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:29,080 So you're like looking, you're checking the temperature, the first one is on the plate. 99 00:05:29,080 --> 00:05:31,040 You're like, fuck, you make the second one. 100 00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:32,680 Maybe you make the second one. 101 00:05:32,680 --> 00:05:34,280 Maybe you even make the third one. 102 00:05:34,280 --> 00:05:35,800 You're not going to make the fourth one. 103 00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:38,920 And even if you would make the fourth one, by the time you make the fourth one, the first 104 00:05:38,920 --> 00:05:40,840 one's inedible. 105 00:05:40,840 --> 00:05:47,560 I did this dessert in service, absolutely in the shit, or I think a month and a half. 106 00:05:47,560 --> 00:05:49,360 And then they dropped it. 107 00:05:49,360 --> 00:05:54,280 They were like, all right, it's not like, um, we're going to change you from the pastry 108 00:05:54,280 --> 00:05:56,080 section to like a different section. 109 00:05:56,080 --> 00:05:57,080 Don't remember which one. 110 00:05:57,080 --> 00:05:59,280 And they were like, we're not going to have anybody else learn this dish. 111 00:05:59,280 --> 00:06:02,520 It was an experiment and it's not working. 112 00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:05,440 We don't want to, nobody has time to learn how to make it. 113 00:06:05,440 --> 00:06:10,840 I think, I think that probably all the chefs were laughing at you like, oh, look, he's 114 00:06:10,840 --> 00:06:13,400 actually trying to do it. 115 00:06:13,400 --> 00:06:17,600 Probably you know, the guys on the fish section just like fucking drilling their salmonella, 116 00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:20,840 you know, like it's like it's a Sunday afternoon. 117 00:06:20,840 --> 00:06:26,360 I'm just, you know, whipping kuzu meringues and making fucking caramel. 118 00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:28,400 Oh, it was, it was hectic. 119 00:06:28,400 --> 00:06:32,920 It was not fun because also, you know, you could only do salt so much. 120 00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:36,600 And then somebody screaming at you because they don't, you know, like they also know 121 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:41,440 it's like very difficult and not like it's super possible, but, um, they don't care. 122 00:06:41,440 --> 00:06:43,280 They want to put their, I see, we're going to push them anyway. 123 00:06:43,280 --> 00:06:45,280 We're going to see maybe he makes it possible. 124 00:06:45,280 --> 00:06:48,000 And then at some point they were like, ah, no, it was never possible. 125 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:49,000 Sorry. 126 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:51,000 Yeah. 127 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:55,040 You actually said something really important. 128 00:06:55,040 --> 00:07:02,040 Like back in my time, they would write this by hand in a, in a blackboard with chalk, 129 00:07:02,040 --> 00:07:06,520 you know, but then they actually printed and put it on the wall. 130 00:07:06,520 --> 00:07:07,520 That is this mantra. 131 00:07:07,520 --> 00:07:11,920 Like the kind of like the kitchen slogan of Mugari. 132 00:07:11,920 --> 00:07:17,440 That is something like the, the impossible from the, how is it the possible from the 133 00:07:17,440 --> 00:07:21,160 impossible gets measured by the will of a human being. 134 00:07:21,160 --> 00:07:22,160 Yeah, basically. 135 00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:23,160 Yeah. 136 00:07:23,160 --> 00:07:25,200 The difference between what's possible and impossible. 137 00:07:25,200 --> 00:07:26,200 Exactly. 138 00:07:26,200 --> 00:07:32,680 First of all, that like the interest, like the, the history of the quote is interesting 139 00:07:32,680 --> 00:07:38,640 because one day I was, I don't know, like watching random quotes on Wiki quote and I 140 00:07:38,640 --> 00:07:41,320 found the quote and I was like, oh, here it is. 141 00:07:41,320 --> 00:07:46,920 And it was from a basketball coach from the States. 142 00:07:46,920 --> 00:07:53,000 And I sent this to Ramon once and he was like, ah, like, well, our history of that phrase 143 00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:58,440 is that it came in the label of a wine someday and somebody really liked it. 144 00:07:58,440 --> 00:08:00,560 And so it stuck, you know, and that's it. 145 00:08:00,560 --> 00:08:01,560 Yeah. 146 00:08:01,560 --> 00:08:02,560 Yeah. 147 00:08:02,560 --> 00:08:06,600 But for me, it was a very strange, the, the, that it was like a basketball coach from like 148 00:08:06,600 --> 00:08:08,600 some college team in the States. 149 00:08:08,600 --> 00:08:09,600 Yeah. 150 00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:13,360 But yeah, like that thing of doing impossible things, I think that's one of the key things 151 00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:14,360 of Mugari. 152 00:08:14,360 --> 00:08:17,960 You know, like they, they don't like the goal of a dish. 153 00:08:17,960 --> 00:08:23,440 First of all, that's also something like they have very clear, how to say, like a hierarchy 154 00:08:23,440 --> 00:08:29,640 of values where, and this is absolutely counterintuitive flavor is not on the top. 155 00:08:29,640 --> 00:08:30,640 Yeah. 156 00:08:30,640 --> 00:08:35,680 Like, like if they cook a dish, it's not for it to be tasty. 157 00:08:35,680 --> 00:08:36,800 Not necessarily. 158 00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:41,720 Maybe it's more important that it's intellectually challenging, that it's tell that story, that 159 00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:43,760 it's technically very difficult. 160 00:08:43,760 --> 00:08:45,080 Like all these kinds of things. 161 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:46,080 Right. 162 00:08:46,080 --> 00:08:47,080 Yes. 163 00:08:47,080 --> 00:08:48,600 And for that can be the interesting. 164 00:08:48,600 --> 00:08:52,960 And at the same time, the uninteresting part of going to eat there, because that that's 165 00:08:52,960 --> 00:08:58,880 actually the reason why it's not on my places where I go to eat, because that's not what 166 00:08:58,880 --> 00:09:01,760 I look for in, in a restaurant. 167 00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:04,480 That said, I think it's a super interesting place. 168 00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:09,840 Like I, I talk a lot, for instance, with, with teachers from the Baskin-Linari Center 169 00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:15,440 and they go there a lot because for them, they get a lot of ideas, concepts, things 170 00:09:15,440 --> 00:09:19,720 that they, they can then talk about and teach and stuff. 171 00:09:19,720 --> 00:09:25,160 And like in that regard, also like as a chef going there to do a, a train ship, you learn 172 00:09:25,160 --> 00:09:30,680 all these techniques, all this difficult stuff that you can then somehow translate into the 173 00:09:30,680 --> 00:09:32,840 normal world, which is not Mugaritz. 174 00:09:32,840 --> 00:09:33,840 It's not the normal world. 175 00:09:33,840 --> 00:09:38,680 There's like this crazy culinary monastery with, that's a strange technique. 176 00:09:38,680 --> 00:09:42,080 And yeah, like techniques that I saw that I really liked, like I also have to say in 177 00:09:42,080 --> 00:09:44,480 my time, it was very, very different from yours. 178 00:09:44,480 --> 00:09:46,280 It was maybe 10 years difference. 179 00:09:46,280 --> 00:09:47,280 Yes. 180 00:09:47,280 --> 00:09:49,920 And, and in my time there were two menus. 181 00:09:49,920 --> 00:09:54,000 One was called Natura and the other one was called Sustrayak. 182 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:55,840 So nature and roots. 183 00:09:55,840 --> 00:10:01,840 So the roots one was actually pretty classic cooking, you know, like you wouldn't get a 184 00:10:01,840 --> 00:10:06,960 squab, you would get a French toast, you would get like, you know, this kind of things. 185 00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:10,600 And the other one Natura, it was more creative and crazy and this kind of things. 186 00:10:10,600 --> 00:10:15,600 A super nice technique that I later, later found out that it is a technique from Michel 187 00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:16,600 Braud. 188 00:10:16,600 --> 00:10:17,600 It was a foie gras. 189 00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:18,600 Oh yeah. 190 00:10:18,600 --> 00:10:24,880 It was at first, it was first, I think soaked in milk, but I don't remember the temperature 191 00:10:24,880 --> 00:10:29,560 of the milk, if it was warm or cold and it was to take the beans out of the foie gras. 192 00:10:29,560 --> 00:10:34,640 So you would soak it in milk, then take the beans out with tweezers and then it would 193 00:10:34,640 --> 00:10:41,960 be frozen like really hard frozen, like in a blast freezer until it was hard as a rock. 194 00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:48,200 And then it was, and this is a counter-intuitive part, thrown into a fryer, the whole rock 195 00:10:48,200 --> 00:10:50,240 of frozen foie gras. 196 00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:54,160 And so you would get like a perfect cross on the outside and on the inside what's perfectly 197 00:10:54,160 --> 00:10:57,200 creamy and then you would slice it and just serve it like that. 198 00:10:57,200 --> 00:10:58,200 Really? 199 00:10:58,200 --> 00:11:03,000 And I tried that and it's by far the best foie gras I've had in my life for sure. 200 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:05,000 Incredible, incredible. 201 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:06,000 In the fryer, really? 202 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:07,000 Yeah, man. 203 00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:10,960 And I asked Paco Morales, where is this technique from? 204 00:11:10,960 --> 00:11:12,160 And he said Michel Braud. 205 00:11:12,160 --> 00:11:14,680 So that's actually the only source I have for that. 206 00:11:14,680 --> 00:11:18,520 Man, I love Michel Braud. 207 00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:22,600 Yeah, your time in Muguriz was definitely a much different time. 208 00:11:22,600 --> 00:11:30,400 I am also more of a, you know, classical chef in the sense that I want things to taste good. 209 00:11:30,400 --> 00:11:34,920 I mean, you know, fuck me, I guess. 210 00:11:34,920 --> 00:11:39,080 But regardless, they were very interesting techniques. 211 00:11:39,080 --> 00:11:40,480 One that I found really amazing. 212 00:11:40,480 --> 00:11:44,480 I mean, the blood macaron is great and it's also delicious. 213 00:11:44,480 --> 00:11:46,680 What was it, pork blood or? 214 00:11:46,680 --> 00:11:48,840 Yes, pig's blood. 215 00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:54,960 For people who don't know, they realized that pig's blood behaves the same as egg white. 216 00:11:54,960 --> 00:12:01,640 So if you take raw pig's blood and you whip it in the kitchen, it starts foaming up like 217 00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:02,640 egg white would. 218 00:12:02,640 --> 00:12:08,920 And so they made a macaron, a recipe with pig's blood and filled it with a liver cream 219 00:12:08,920 --> 00:12:13,640 kind of sort of like a pate and they made a macaroon de casa, which means a basically 220 00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:15,120 hunted meat macaron. 221 00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:18,200 Yeah, and like a game, game macaron. 222 00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:20,340 Game macaron, yes. 223 00:12:20,340 --> 00:12:22,560 And I mean, it's an amazing technique. 224 00:12:22,560 --> 00:12:24,600 It's very delicious. 225 00:12:24,600 --> 00:12:25,980 It's really, really very tasty. 226 00:12:25,980 --> 00:12:27,880 And it's it's ingenious. 227 00:12:27,880 --> 00:12:33,200 On the same note, I think the use of kuzu, very interesting again for people who don't 228 00:12:33,200 --> 00:12:34,200 know. 229 00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:39,960 Yeah, kuzu, Japanese type of starch from a mountain yam. 230 00:12:39,960 --> 00:12:44,480 And I, when I was in the pastry section at Mugarrat's, we were making a, it was called 231 00:12:44,480 --> 00:12:50,000 russo, which is basically just, it just means Russian, but it's a term for like almost like 232 00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:51,000 a honey cake. 233 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:55,720 So it's like a meringue layers with like a buttercream in between. 234 00:12:55,720 --> 00:13:00,480 And so we were making a meringue, a coffee meringue on thickened with kuzu that would 235 00:13:00,480 --> 00:13:04,640 whip up when it's cooled down and we would dry it in the oven. 236 00:13:04,640 --> 00:13:05,880 It was very fragile. 237 00:13:05,880 --> 00:13:12,020 But what you would get was a very crispy, very light meringue that as soon as it came 238 00:13:12,020 --> 00:13:15,740 into contact with water would completely disappear. 239 00:13:15,740 --> 00:13:22,320 So the idea of this dish was that you had this coffee meringue, a buttercream also with 240 00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:30,720 coffee and you would make this little meringue sandwich, which looked thick and rich and sweet. 241 00:13:30,720 --> 00:13:36,320 But as soon as you eat it, it completely disappears in your mouth, but leaves the same flavor, 242 00:13:36,320 --> 00:13:39,880 which actually, you know, which, you know, we know by now Mugarrat's likes to do. 243 00:13:39,880 --> 00:13:42,340 They like to have this like mindfuck game. 244 00:13:42,340 --> 00:13:46,820 But in that case, it did quite work. 245 00:13:46,820 --> 00:13:54,200 It was just an absolute fucking nightmare to make, because you would, you had to assemble 246 00:13:54,200 --> 00:13:59,560 these little sandwiches a la minute when they were called away because they were so fragile 247 00:13:59,560 --> 00:14:00,800 and it was so hot. 248 00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:06,360 It was like 30 degrees outside, you know, that's these, these, these meringues were 249 00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:08,340 just melting away in your hand. 250 00:14:08,340 --> 00:14:10,920 You know, it was horrible to make. 251 00:14:10,920 --> 00:14:12,200 Really, really horrible. 252 00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:13,600 I had something similar. 253 00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:14,800 We had this dessert. 254 00:14:14,800 --> 00:14:22,480 It was, how do you call like this time and the spring when snow melts? 255 00:14:22,480 --> 00:14:24,280 Like in Spanish you call it the cielo. 256 00:14:24,280 --> 00:14:25,280 Oh yeah. 257 00:14:25,280 --> 00:14:27,160 Yeah, like, yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. 258 00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:30,880 You know, when you can see the grass, but the, and the snow is melting. 259 00:14:30,880 --> 00:14:32,560 So the spring is starting, right? 260 00:14:32,560 --> 00:14:37,880 Like, and it really evoked like that, that visual. 261 00:14:37,880 --> 00:14:39,440 And it was again, a kusu. 262 00:14:39,440 --> 00:14:44,200 This one was of matcha tea, so you would have like a green kusu. 263 00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:50,480 And the thing with kusu is that, yeah, it's like this liquid gel kind of like, you get 264 00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:52,640 this effect of having like a liquid gelatin. 265 00:14:52,640 --> 00:14:55,120 So it's super cool to make sauces with it. 266 00:14:55,120 --> 00:14:59,760 Then it was like a pistachio biscuit. 267 00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:04,920 Then we have like this frozen air, you know, like air when you take a tour mix and you 268 00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:08,920 make like a foam, like a very light foam. 269 00:15:08,920 --> 00:15:14,160 And that would be frozen and the blast freezer or with liquid nitrogen. 270 00:15:14,160 --> 00:15:19,640 It was the first time I worked with liquid nitrogen. 271 00:15:19,640 --> 00:15:20,640 And what else? 272 00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:21,640 Yeah. 273 00:15:21,640 --> 00:15:23,820 This was with orange blossom was the aroma. 274 00:15:23,820 --> 00:15:27,240 So you had orange blossom, matcha tea, pistachio. 275 00:15:27,240 --> 00:15:28,240 It was like a super nice dessert. 276 00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:29,240 It was just super delicious. 277 00:15:29,240 --> 00:15:30,240 Sounds really good. 278 00:15:30,240 --> 00:15:31,240 Sunflowers as well. 279 00:15:31,240 --> 00:15:35,840 The thing is there was this Gastronomica at that time. 280 00:15:35,840 --> 00:15:40,040 And I don't know their name, but it was like, you know, this international fair of chefs. 281 00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:45,320 So international chefs would come and we would have dinners of the restaurant completely 282 00:15:45,320 --> 00:15:47,800 full every week to cook the dessert. 283 00:15:47,800 --> 00:15:51,280 And that wasn't my mise en place. 284 00:15:51,280 --> 00:15:57,840 So they took pictures of me like doing the portions of that thing, you know, with six 285 00:15:57,840 --> 00:16:05,520 jackets in a freezer of minus 40 degrees doing the whole portioning of the things, man, because 286 00:16:05,520 --> 00:16:09,720 it was, you know, working inside the freezer just to get it done. 287 00:16:09,720 --> 00:16:16,280 It was just so absolutely insane to get that dessert executed. 288 00:16:16,280 --> 00:16:20,440 You know, I saw other things that I actually really liked. 289 00:16:20,440 --> 00:16:24,200 You know, I mean, if you hear me talking about Mugarets, you'll hear me hating on the food 290 00:16:24,200 --> 00:16:25,200 a lot. 291 00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:31,120 But you know, there's a lot of things that I enjoyed a lot also. 292 00:16:31,120 --> 00:16:36,000 One was the use of Inulina to make creams with a very particular texture. 293 00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:42,400 And we were making our pea Inulina to stick the Santa's lagrima together. 294 00:16:42,400 --> 00:16:44,400 It's like little pea teardrop peas. 295 00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:48,240 Inulina is like a type of sugar or? 296 00:16:48,240 --> 00:16:51,320 No, it's a what is it actually? 297 00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:52,320 Yeah. 298 00:16:52,320 --> 00:17:00,320 Well, Eric, don't you know that Inulina is a polysaccharide produced by many plants? 299 00:17:00,320 --> 00:17:03,560 So which makes it which makes it a kind of sugar? 300 00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:06,240 No, it makes it a kind of sugar. 301 00:17:06,240 --> 00:17:07,240 Yes. 302 00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:08,240 Okay, thank you. 303 00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:09,240 Yeah. 304 00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:12,080 You know, plants often use it as a means of storing energy. 305 00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:14,760 And it's typically found in roots and rhizomes. 306 00:17:14,760 --> 00:17:15,760 Yeah. 307 00:17:15,760 --> 00:17:19,280 These are the sort of things. 308 00:17:19,280 --> 00:17:20,280 Yeah. 309 00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:22,680 Come on, try that again to make it sound more natural. 310 00:17:22,680 --> 00:17:25,840 A DJ, doctor, whatever the fuck. 311 00:17:25,840 --> 00:17:29,320 These are the sort of things that you learn when you start with Mugarets. 312 00:17:29,320 --> 00:17:38,160 Anyway, so but like you would thicken, you know, juices and like stuff with it and it 313 00:17:38,160 --> 00:17:43,000 would have this really particular type of like hand cream kind of like texture is really 314 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:44,000 cool. 315 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:50,800 But you know, one thing one dish that really, really stuck in my mind where I was really 316 00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:55,560 kind of like, I really thought to myself, man, I'm just here like a little bit too late, 317 00:17:55,560 --> 00:18:00,320 you know, for me to see the food that I would have liked to see in Mugarets. 318 00:18:00,320 --> 00:18:06,240 Just when we were in the in the game season, some autumn, and I remember we just did a 319 00:18:06,240 --> 00:18:15,520 small batch of these dishes and it was snipe, which is what's snipe called in Spanish again? 320 00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:17,200 Snipers or snapper? 321 00:18:17,200 --> 00:18:20,440 The bird with the really long the game bird with the really long beak. 322 00:18:20,440 --> 00:18:21,440 Bekada. 323 00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:22,440 Bekada. 324 00:18:22,440 --> 00:18:23,440 Yes. 325 00:18:23,440 --> 00:18:32,960 Bekada cooked in like in like an intense juice sort of sauce together with the tripa de bacalao, 326 00:18:32,960 --> 00:18:34,960 which is the tribe of salt cut. 327 00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:40,200 Yeah, it's actually the swimming bladder of the codfish. 328 00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:41,200 And my god, that was delicious. 329 00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:46,280 That was like for me, real gourmet cooking, you know, like that combination and like the 330 00:18:46,280 --> 00:18:50,560 fishy salt cut flavor, which sounds really weird, but like together with the game bird 331 00:18:50,560 --> 00:18:55,080 and like the texture that the fish gave to the sauce, the gelatinous texture. 332 00:18:55,080 --> 00:18:56,080 Like that. 333 00:18:56,080 --> 00:19:00,520 That's the aspect of Mugarets I like the most when they would do that kind of cooking. 334 00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:01,520 Yes. 335 00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:02,520 Like exactly what you're saying. 336 00:19:02,520 --> 00:19:10,160 We also had like the codfish tribes and we also had this different kind of little birds, 337 00:19:10,160 --> 00:19:11,160 game birds. 338 00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:14,960 I remember once there was a table, I don't know who they were, but they were like this 339 00:19:14,960 --> 00:19:19,480 super VIPs that they went, I don't know, three days in a row to Mugarets. 340 00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:24,160 So they had all the dishes up to the point that there weren't any more dishes to serve 341 00:19:24,160 --> 00:19:25,160 them. 342 00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:27,280 And for me, this was really interesting to watch. 343 00:19:27,280 --> 00:19:31,640 So Andoni went into the kitchen and he started like freestyling, you know, he started like 344 00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:32,640 cooking. 345 00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:36,020 There were like this pork tails here. 346 00:19:36,020 --> 00:19:41,680 There were like this little piece over there and he started doing like a surf and turf 347 00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:43,360 with the different ingredients that he had. 348 00:19:43,360 --> 00:19:46,960 And he started like freestyling some dishes and he sounded just like that. 349 00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:49,040 And that was like super interesting to watch. 350 00:19:49,040 --> 00:19:55,280 Speaking of which, the pig tails, amazing technique, amazing product, amazing technique. 351 00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:56,720 Super, super nice. 352 00:19:56,720 --> 00:19:57,720 Yeah. 353 00:19:57,720 --> 00:19:58,720 Like we, we had that. 354 00:19:58,720 --> 00:20:00,600 Do you have to shave them as well? 355 00:20:00,600 --> 00:20:01,600 Yes, of course. 356 00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:02,600 Of course. 357 00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:06,200 That was like a super, super nice thing to do. 358 00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:11,920 You know, you're there in the production table, like 12 chefs and there are like these boxes 359 00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:19,600 full of hundreds, if not thousands of pig tails, hairy pig tails, hairy dirty pig tails 360 00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:20,880 with dirt. 361 00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:26,400 You know, you have to wash them first and then shave them with, with, you know, razors 362 00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:28,200 one by one. 363 00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:29,200 Yeah. 364 00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:30,200 Okay. 365 00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:31,200 You were saying amazing technique. 366 00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:32,880 What, what, what makes amazing technique? 367 00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:33,880 Yeah. 368 00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:34,880 Yeah. 369 00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:40,040 By the way, same, same razors that Juliette, the head chef at the time would make me a 370 00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:44,720 shave with if I, if I had a stubble, come into work. 371 00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:50,760 Ah, the one of the, just to make it more humiliating. 372 00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:52,360 It's like go shave. 373 00:20:52,360 --> 00:20:54,960 No shaving cream, you know, no, nothing. 374 00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:58,640 No shaving cream. 375 00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:05,120 Just three stars because they had no shaving cream for the last 10 years. 376 00:21:05,120 --> 00:21:06,120 Yeah. 377 00:21:06,120 --> 00:21:07,720 But the pig tails, they were so nice. 378 00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:10,960 I mean like, yeah, you clean them and you vacuum pack them. 379 00:21:10,960 --> 00:21:16,680 Uh, you, you know, poach them off and then when they're still hot, you take them out, 380 00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:20,880 really carefully open them up, take all the, you know, the spine. 381 00:21:20,880 --> 00:21:23,000 Oh God, what do you call them? 382 00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,320 Well, the bones out, the little bones, right? 383 00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:31,200 And then put them on parchment paper and weigh them down so that basically you have one layer 384 00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:35,000 of skin and one layer of meat. 385 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:36,680 And my man, it's just so nice. 386 00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:39,800 And then you cook them on the plancha just on the skin side. 387 00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:40,800 They become so crispy. 388 00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:43,120 The meat is super fatty and succulent. 389 00:21:43,120 --> 00:21:44,640 It's like the perfect bite of pork. 390 00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:46,840 If you think of it, super underrated. 391 00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:47,840 Yeah. 392 00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:48,840 Yeah. 393 00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:54,720 Those cuts, man, like they really work with strange cuts like tendon, lamb trotters. 394 00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:55,720 Yeah. 395 00:21:55,720 --> 00:21:57,720 Like these kind of things. 396 00:21:57,720 --> 00:21:59,760 Tendon was very cool also. 397 00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:00,760 Yeah. 398 00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:03,200 What about Andoni in your times? 399 00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:04,200 Was he in the kitchen? 400 00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:05,200 Not so much. 401 00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:08,920 I mean, I, you know, I'm, I like Andoni a lot. 402 00:22:08,920 --> 00:22:12,760 In the year that I was there, I saw him, I think twice. 403 00:22:12,760 --> 00:22:18,040 I have to say, you know, but like the few times that I saw him and talked to him, I 404 00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:19,320 liked him. 405 00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:24,240 I left like one day earlier than everybody else actually, because of, you know, just 406 00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:26,440 circumstances. 407 00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:30,680 And I had a little bit of a chat with him because there were cameras there, you know, 408 00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:31,880 so. 409 00:22:31,880 --> 00:22:34,760 And I think he's very inspirational. 410 00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:38,720 I think he is a poet in the way that he thinks. 411 00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:39,720 And you know. 412 00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:40,720 Yeah. 413 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:43,800 A poet and a philosopher, I would say as well. 414 00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:44,800 Yeah. 415 00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:45,800 Absolutely. 416 00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:46,800 Yeah. 417 00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:48,120 So I'm a, I am a big fan of him. 418 00:22:48,120 --> 00:22:52,000 Unfortunately, I didn't get to work with him very much. 419 00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:53,000 Yeah. 420 00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:54,000 I, I agree. 421 00:22:54,000 --> 00:23:00,240 Like in my time, he was more in the kitchen, but I mean, like the, the man in command was 422 00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:01,240 Paco Morales. 423 00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:02,480 He was running the place. 424 00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:05,080 He was super young and super ambitious. 425 00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:08,680 He was 24, just fresh out of El Bulli. 426 00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:11,400 That time was a peak time of El Bulli, you know, 2005. 427 00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:12,400 Yeah. 428 00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:15,840 Back then, El Bulli was the placement and he was just out of it. 429 00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:19,560 And he was, you know, fighting so hard. 430 00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:25,400 It's not, not for no reason that, that year, Mugari's got its second star. 431 00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:30,880 And I remember the moment it was actually, we were having staff meal and Andoni walks 432 00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:34,160 in and he's talking like super loud on the phone. 433 00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:38,160 Like probably he wanted everybody to listen, you know, like, oh yes. 434 00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:39,160 Okay. 435 00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:40,160 Okay. 436 00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:41,160 Good. 437 00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:42,160 Good. 438 00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:43,160 Thank you. 439 00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:44,160 Thank you. 440 00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:45,160 Thank you for the news. 441 00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:46,640 And then he hangs up and said, we just got a second star. 442 00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:50,600 And then he walks into the office, just like, like if nothing happened, you know, and all 443 00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:53,040 the chef, the party stood up and went to the office. 444 00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:55,040 What is this? 445 00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:56,200 What? 446 00:23:56,200 --> 00:24:04,360 So we delivered service and, and I was, I remember I was cleaning something in the basement. 447 00:24:04,360 --> 00:24:05,960 I was completely alone in the basement. 448 00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:08,960 You know, the basement, they had some stuff like the ice cream machine and some other 449 00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:09,960 stuff. 450 00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:11,560 And, and I was doing the cleaning there. 451 00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:14,720 It was my, my task at that moment. 452 00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:19,480 And then suddenly I see like from the very end that there was a door where, where the 453 00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:21,960 suppliers would come in. 454 00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:28,480 And I see a guy coming in and completely in his chef whites, uh, walking in and I look 455 00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:35,600 in it's that's Martin Berasategui and he walks into me and he, he touched me so in the face 456 00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:36,600 like congratulations, congratulations. 457 00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:50,040 At that time, and this is also something interesting at that time, Mugaritz was part of Martin 458 00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:51,040 Berasategui group. 459 00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:56,960 And this was the first years of Mugaritz. 460 00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:00,720 I don't know what happened, but they had like a real fight. 461 00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:03,520 They didn't talk to each other like for over 10 years. 462 00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:08,320 The moment they talked back to each other, it came out in the newspapers, but also interesting 463 00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:13,560 like Martin Berasategui, he made his name and he climbed up in his family restaurant, 464 00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:15,320 which is in the city center of San Sebastian. 465 00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:16,320 It's called El Alejandro. 466 00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:18,560 It's like a super classic restaurant. 467 00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:22,960 So he got his first mission in Star there before he moved to his venue where he's now 468 00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:25,260 or where he has three stars. 469 00:25:25,260 --> 00:25:33,120 And I know in the, how to say the, the divorce settlement between Andoni and Martin, Andoni 470 00:25:33,120 --> 00:25:39,100 took Bodegon Alejandro, which is part now of Mugaritz group, you know, like that feels 471 00:25:39,100 --> 00:25:41,760 like a, like a big fuck you in your face. 472 00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:43,200 You know, I didn't even know that. 473 00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:44,200 That's crazy. 474 00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:45,200 Yeah. 475 00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:51,120 Bodegon Alejandro is Ixogroup is not, and that's a Martin's historical family restaurant. 476 00:25:51,120 --> 00:25:53,680 And they cook the classics of the place, you know? 477 00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:54,680 Wow. 478 00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:55,680 That's crazy. 479 00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,080 I know, I knew they had beef, but I didn't know that. 480 00:25:58,080 --> 00:25:59,080 Yeah. 481 00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:00,080 That's, that's heavy. 482 00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:06,360 Back then we, they would send us like a lot to Cruzal and Bodegon Alejandro to do reinforcement, 483 00:26:06,360 --> 00:26:09,680 you know, like sending some staggers from Mugaritz there, which was also super interesting 484 00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:14,800 because you would see like completely classic recipes from, from a classic Basque restaurant. 485 00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:15,800 Yeah, that's very cool. 486 00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:20,880 Which is fresh air, you know, if you're in an avant-garde restaurant peeling walnuts. 487 00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:24,440 And when I say peeling walnuts, it's already peeled walnuts. 488 00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:29,880 You're peeling the outer skin of the, of the brain looking piece of, of walnut, you know? 489 00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:30,880 Yeah. 490 00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:31,880 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 491 00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:32,880 Yeah. 492 00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:38,720 But you know, actually what's, what really stuck with me, like from the time Mugaritz, 493 00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:43,280 you can't really call it a technique, but you know, because you have this stark difference 494 00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:49,200 of you have Mugaritz, which at my time was already so high end, so away of everything, 495 00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:56,160 you know, and then you have this vast culinary landscape of really traditional and really, 496 00:26:56,160 --> 00:27:02,320 really good food and seeing the connection between that, like the two extremes, you know, 497 00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:07,720 and also the way that's the tradition and the terror and the produce gets translated 498 00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:13,680 through such a very finely designed lens. 499 00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:18,040 That was very, very, you know, that's, that was really informative, you know, that gave 500 00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:26,480 you a completely new perspective on what food can be and where it can head. 501 00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,520 That's it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks. 502 00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:33,380 If you like what we're doing, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss 503 00:27:33,380 --> 00:27:34,640 an episode. 504 00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:38,640 You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok as Potluck Food Talks. 505 00:27:38,640 --> 00:28:05,640 The show airs every Monday.