Culinary Journey: In search for culinary innovation at “Fusion”
Who would have thought that while traveling to Madrid, Spain, to visit the “Fusion” gastro festival, I would be blown away by a young baker there! Yes, that’s right, a baker from Spain.
Miguel, an old friend of mine (on the picture left) introduced me to Xevi Ramon. Xevi is a third generation baker working in the family business, yet has a new approach to bread — he is transforming the business into a creative hub. He already works for and with some of the leading chefs of Spain, like the Roca brothers, developing bread for their special needs.
Germans are known for their passion for and their broad range of bread. And listening to Xevi talk about bread you feel his true passion for the product. But being at his booth and tasting his bread, I felt like I was taken on an eye-opening journey. This was not just about taste, texture and ingredients; it was like being beamed into a whole new world.
Taste the bread and experience an imaginative world
At first, I tried a type of bread from Galicia, made with seaweed. It was very crispy, tasty bread that brought pictures of a summer seaside holiday and “plat de fruit de mer” to my mind — in the most pleasant of ways.
Then I tried “forest bread”, made with a special type of wheat that grows on volcanic rock in Spain. Xevi explained to me that the way he works with this unique flour brings out a flavor that evokes a forest in autumn – right after a light rainy night… I thought he was joking! But with my eyes closed, smelling and tasting the bread took me back to the Black Forest, reminiscing about a walk with my family as a child … so he wasn’t joking at all!
While handing me another piece of bread, he started telling me a story about a certain traditional soup from Spain … an image of my late grandmother and the taste of her lentil soup with all those strong winter flavors like speck and potatoes came to life…
AMAZING MATCHA BREAD followed. And then another type, covered with seeds — which Xevi designed after spending some time in Germany — with a very distinct, stronger than ever taste of sesame.
After this sensational bread journey, I continued my visit further down the aisle, meeting friends and discovering new interesting products — not only for restaurants but also for airline catering. For example, I met Carl Jacobs from “apic studio”. Together with a chef from Belgium, Carl has actually developed a simple yet great solution for food photography.
Pictures documenting food creations
During busy restaurant service, chefs never have the time to properly document their creations. So Carl and his friend came up with the perfect solution, where within seconds and with the push of a button you have the perfect food photo. The software behind this allows for easy editing and automatically uploads photos into a database. I really need to get more information on this as it could be helpful for our daily business.
At LSG Sky Chefs we spend a lot of time developing and documenting our work. However, with so many kitchens around the globe photos always tend to look different. Carl’s “apic studio” could be the solution that will not only raise our standards once again but will also further unify our global culinary efforts.
“Fusion”, another exciting and impressive stop on my Culinary Journey, is now over…but the journey around the globe continues!
Culinary regards,
Jörg