26-01-2016
What is post-avantgarde in cooking? Catalan Quico Sosa, historic supplier of Ferran Adrià and "culinary thinker " tried to outline the borders of this new trend, to which the 2016 edition of Madrid Fusión was dedicated
When a congress illustrates “the language of post-avantgarde” you first need to consider the conceptual issue, especially so if the festival is not dedicated to art but to gastronomy. Hence at Madrid Fusión the initial step was exactly this: what are the rules of the alleged cuisine of the future, of the post-avantgarde? The answer arrived in practice from those who, more than others, are considered the forerunners of this new-born trend, that is to say Ricard Camarena, David Muñoz, and Joan Roca himself; conceptually, instead, it arrived from the person indicated in the presentation of the Spanish congress as the “pensador culinario” [culinary thinker], “genio oculto en la trastienda de la alta cocina”[the hidden genius in the back room of high cuisine], “druida culinario” [the culinary druid].
Quico Sosa during his speech in Madrid
Sosa thus explained, when presenting the “post-avantgarde manifesto” on which we will return: «Let’s start by saying that everything in fine dining is based on products, always: the dichotomy with technique is only illusory. If we consider nouvelle cuisine, however, it indeed represented a stronger attention to raw materials, seasonality, pure flavours, it made sauces lighter and so on. Avantgarde did something different: it took products and stylised them, territory was included, but it was interpreted allegorically, thanks to technique».
Post-avantgarde it’s like a summary of the two previous currents: it once again focuses on product and territory, without changing its basic nature (in terms of texture or whatever) too much, but working with it using the technical and conceptual heritage of the last upturned twenty years.
Ricard Camarena with culinary critic José Carlos Capel
So in the same way as not everyone was Bocuse or Marchesi in the days of nouvelle cuisine, nor Adrià or Blumenthal with avantgarde, the new current perfectly coexists with those who ignore it or linger on a déjà vu. In fact, more than that: as we mentioned, post-avantgarde – given it is an almost “moderate” summary, tolerant of other currents – postulates a peaceful coexistence. «We need to relativize models [instead of creating string categorizations, that is]. Few chefs belong to a movement in a rigorous way. Boundaries are usually fluid, and this time more than ever. The menu of a post-avantgarde restaurant can gradually include all schools, respecting the intimate nature of the one it feels it belongs to, in modernity. We used to have a dish, then we broke it apart, now we reinstate it»: this process, however, can even take place, for instance, within the same tasting menu.
Sosa had already replied to the legitimate doubt that this intellectualisation of cooking doesn’t always find suitable creators (that is to say chefs), sniggering: «For sure, it is today expected from chefs to be more prepared. Yet I don’t want to elude the question and reply with another one when asking: which one is better, an intellectual or an intuitive poet? I say: it depends on the outcome. It’s the same with cuisine: we had intellectual-chefs who created theories and avantgarde and it’s clear that fine dining needs to be connected with cultural, intellectual and artistic elements. This, however, cannot be transformed into an obsession, a disease: in the end, we always need to deal with the supreme judge». In this case, luckily, the palate.
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journalist born in 1974, for many years he has covered politics, mostly, and food in his free time. Today he does exactly the opposite and this makes him very happy. As soon as he can, he dives into travels and good food. Identità Golose's editor in chief