The recent Madrid Fusion Manila 2017 was a fiesta of food and ideas. This year was probably the best, more relaxed after the “first time” jitters of two years ago, and more meaningful.

The relaxed part we saw among the half-Filipino chefs and the Spanish Jordi Roca and wife Alejandra Rivas Gomes.
Filipino-French sisters Tatiana and Katia Levha, who run Le Servan, a popular bistro in Paris, transcended their eye-candy looks with their talk on the event’s theme, Sustainable Gastronomy. While they showed their Filipino roots by cooking pork as adobo, they also demonstrated the use of vegetable trimmings for broth and leftover cream, seasoned with salt and sugar, cooked overnight in the oven as sidings.

Filipino-British Josh Boutwood of The Test Kitchen in Manila amused us with his deadpan humor, saying his idea of sustainability is zero waste management in his kitchen.

Roca, who was suffering from a sore throat, asked his wife to talk for him, then showed videos of his popsicles, funny pieces like a facsimile of Roca’s nose, a finger (and you can guess how nose and finger go together), Darth Vader, and a hot Spanish male model.

It was around this time that an earthquake struck. The guests were not exactly evacuated, because going down the long escalator of the SMX building was daunting, and the weather outside uncomfortably hot.

Roca got nervous and had to be persuaded to return to the hall. His lively presentation ended with a standing ovation.

Pedro Subijana, one of the founders of Nueva Cocina Vasca (New Basque Cuisine), looked like a benevolent grandfather. He was worried that his much delayed talk would see people going to lunch instead, but they waited.

His talk retraced the food served every decade of the 40 years that Akelare, his restaurant in San Sebastian, has been in existence. It serves as a good historical reference to the movement he helped found. He said conferences like Madrid Fusion have given his profession dignity, and has promoted culinary tourism.

Perhaps the most awe-inspiring talk was given by Kamilla Seidler and Michelangelo Cestari, a Dane and a Venezuelan, respectively. Both are part of Gustu, a program in Bolivia which trains street food entrepreneurs in hygiene and presentation, as well as processing and packaging local produce and establishing culinary schools to train poor students. They have a fine-dining restaurant, also named Gustu.

While Gustu is worth emulating, another good example for the Philippines’ regional culinary programs was the experience of Indonesian chef Ray Adriansyah and his partner, Dutch chef Eelke Plasmeijer of Locavore. They buy the local produce of Bali—where the restaurant is located—such as heritage rice, hire Bali residents as staff, and use crafts by Bali artisans for their bowls, plates and decor.

Four Filipino chefs were special guests. Gene Gonzales of Café Ysabel discussed Filipino cuisine history, the calamansi as an ingredient, and bringhe served in the 21st century by converting the yellow rice into a rice crisp.

Jordy Navarra of Toyo Eatery paid homage to the mataw, Batanes fishermen who demonstrated how the arayu (dorado) is prepared and dried.

Sally Camacho Mueller, a noted pastry chef in the United States, showed how she includes Asian flavors in her desserts and adds savory flavors to her sweets, with ingredients like duck’s eggs and sea urchin.

 

Robby Goco of Green Pastures closed the conference with his talk on why the goat should be on the Filipino table, citing its healthier lean meat, grass diet and milk production. Goco also explained how a Spanish dish like caldereta can transform into a Filipino dish, with the audience giving suggestions like adding liver spread, cheese, raisins.

 

Source

The source of ingredients is so vital that the chefs have resorted to growing vegetables, fruits and flowers on their own.

Simon Rogan of L’Enclume in the United Kingdom is suspicious of commercial food companies and their chemically-treated produce.

Spanish chef Rodrigo de la Calle of Invernadero built a green house with a botanist to raise “gastrobotanicals.”

Gert de Mangeeler of Belgium runs his own farm, and warned that “simplicity isn’t simple.” He arranged his fish and vegetables with unlikely flavors from raspberry, beet-root and rosemary.

Beyond growing vegetables, Magnus Ek of Sweden dives for the seafood he serves at his restaurants, Oaxen Krog and Slip. He had interesting revelations, like how he gets 60-year-old clams only because they can no longer reproduce.

For his restaurant Nerua, Josean Alija sources his ingredients at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The waters near the museum make the squid (that only retired fishermen harvest) and the vegetables salty.

The environment plays a vital part in Spanish chef Kiko Moya’s L’Escaleta menu, which uses the Alicante region’s four major ingredients: saffron, rice, almond and mustard.

Paco Perez of Miramar not only runs the family restaurant, but also gets his ideas from vacations with his clan.

Family is always on Julien Royer’s mind in his French restaurant in Singapore, Odette. It is named after his grandmother and is a tribute to his restaurant family—the cooks, servers, purveyors and customers.

Two chefs got their inspiration from books. Vicky Lau of the Tate Dining Room and Bar in Hong Kong said she does “edible stories,” based on the poetry of Chilean writer Pablo Neruda.

Korean Tony Yoo looks to ancient manuscripts for his country’s traditional cooking. But for his restaurant, Dooreyou, he adapts new ways for his customers, who mostly belong to the younger generation.

The congress was just half of Madrid Fusion Manila itself. There were regional cooking to represent the Philippines’ three major islands and a side show of the Department of Agriculture, with chefs cooking their interpretation of three themes—rice, corn and nose-to-tail cooking.

Some outstanding items: Miko Aspiras’ rice ice cream, like cold arroz con leche, and Claude Tayag’s baby corn, roasted then dipped in taba ng talangka (crab roe).

And for the nose-to-tail day, there was an unusual combination of chocolate bonbons made by Risa Chocolate with cacao liqueur made by Quezon farmers by scraping and fermenting the inside of the cacao fruit.

Wonders never cease.

E-mail the columnist at [email protected].