Spain's Basque Country offers scientific and innovative haute cuisine
Date
3/13/2016 12:20:17 AM
It's a scene reminiscent of Clockwork Orange: A chair large screen and cap of brain sensors with dangling cords await the next guinea pig.
culinary Center (BCC). This gastronomy school in European culture capital San Sebastian is but one manifestation of a four-decade culinary
revolution that has made the northern Basque Country famous for its traditional haute cuisine and its more controversial experimental counterpart. 'In many places in the world there's a certain degree of aversion to what we come up with' says BCC collaborator Andoni Luis Aduriz whose avant garde Mugaritz Eaterie is rated the world's sixth best by Britain's influential Restaurantmagazine. 'It seems that often it's identified as an exercise that harms tradition or puts it in question' says the 44 year old Basque chef. 'But in Basque Country there are a series of restaurants that have stepped out of the margins of this tradition trying to find new options.' Bubbles fermenting acorns From ice shavings with shrimp juice to apple chunks covered in a mould-like substance Aduriz and his team like to disconcert diners at Mugaritz using a strong dose of science.
Customers have for instance been treated to what looks like unappetising rotting bread which has actually been injected with the fungus found in French Roquefort giving it a mouth-watering cheesy taste. But Aduriz's experimental approach to gastronomy goes beyond his Michelin-starred restaurant near San Sebastian. He and his chefs have worked closely with scientists of all kinds to find new cooking techniques or textures and determine how their discoveries can be used not only at Mugaritz but in the wider world. Take bubbles. The team worked with a rheologist who studies the flow of matter to make them stable and edible. The result? Chocolate or honey-flavoured bubbles sometimes served with soap bar-shaped ice cream.