Madrid Fusion
During the three days of arguably the most important gathering of cutting-edge international chefs, Madrid Fusion defined once again what seems to be the direction of what is the current culinary map.
Held in the comfortable setting of the Palacio de Los Congresos during January 26th through January 28^th, the gathering featured everything you could expect from celebrated luminaries, some very interesting demonstrations by up-and-coming young and not-so-young chefs to some very boring ones and other featured flops.

Madrid Fusion 2010 emphasized on Sustainability and Eco-diversity pretty much the current global culinary trends. What seemed fascinating was how much creativity has emerged from chefs limiting themselves to really shopping locally or growing their own products.

Some, loyal to their dogma and by having had a bad winter that ruined their crops for example, pushed the limits of creativity cooking with just whatever ingredient were around.

Such is the example of Rene Redzepi; fascinating chef, showing a keen sensibility of products, flavors and textures who presented between many others, a dish with Sea Urchins, Frozen Fatty Milk Sorbet Pickled Cucumber and Burnt Cucumber Skin or Miguel Angel De La Cruz which gave a mind-blowing demo featuring Pine Cones, Pine Nuts, all its by-products and all the amazing resources and ways of utilizing them; he presented between other dishes one of a Black Pudding Cappuccino with Pine Nut Cream, Infusion of Toasted Bread and Crumbled Pine nuts with Bee Polen.

The Orient and glimpses of Asian Cuisine had it’s place on the first day featuring demos from Malaysian-born Cheong Liew, Frenchman William Ledeuil and Dutch Chef Schilo Van Coevorden; all of them with different approaches to Asian Ingredients. The first one with his Clean Fusion demonstrated a method he calls Red Roasting; which is basically marinating and searing fish on high heat and slowly finishing at very low heat. Ledeuil focused on cooking A La Plancha; he used lots of pickled vegetables, broths, some French ingredients and a delicate approach to using almost no salt. The Dutchman had an approach of how to “resolve Asian-style” in his Hotel situation.

On following days a few other demonstrations stood up such as Thierry Marx which gave a somewhat Street Food theme to a rather very technical demonstration in which he featured Steamed Cookies, Gelification and Centrifugation. New Zealand-born Ben Shewry featured a dish of Potatoes cooked in its own soil and some other ones he serves at his small restaurant close to Melbourne, Australia in which he as well featured a deep respect for the earth and all its ingredients and animals. The same attributes applied to Yoshihiro Narisawa; this Japanese Chef which gave a demonstration that was impressive but iffy at times. He focused also on local ingredients and nature. He showed how he uses ground wood from the forests as substitution for flower in cooking and I must say that the cookie that had more than 20 types of wood in it, that was given to us at the end was quite tasty and amazing. He also showed the use of charcoal and ash and strips of raw wood to cure kobe beef.

Other demonstrations that were very inspiring were the ones by the Father-Daughter Arzak team in which they illustrated tension in two sauces achieved by two different densities in liquids. Michel Troisgros gave a lovely demo on uses of Caviar; fresh and pressed; Jason Atherton spoke about his restaurant operation in London and showed a couple of brilliant dishes using again, mostly local ingredients and paying homage to his native England; Andoni Luiz Aduriz revived the very old Latin American process of Nixtamalizacion or simply using Lime to alter the pectins of vegetables and later cooking them to achieve a chewey skin and a soft center to them. Finally Jose Andres shone with a rather State of the Nation speech; mostly about his vision of the business, his restaurant and demonstrated some clever dishes such as one called Maiz Maiz Maiz.

There were some flops and odd moments and some featured themes that simply did not deliver anything. Sometimes the organization wasn’t the best; but the Spanish vibe, the good food, the plenty of Jamon Iberico, the wine, las cañas, and the lovely atmosphere made up for it and made it absolutely worthwile.