I'm Christopher Kimball and this is a special episode of Milk Street Radio. Today, it's an extended cut of my latest interview with Jose Andres. When Jose isn't running 40 restaurants or feeding millions with World Central Kitchen, you can find him cooking the foods from his home country. Croquetas, amigas, garlic soup, the list goes on and on. His latest book is Spain, My Way. Jose, welcome. Welcome back to Milk Street. I'm so happy to be here with you again, Chris. Now, the last time we talked, you didn't have 40 restaurants. I think you had 20 something. You served 600 million meals around the world, World Central Kitchen. And growing. And growing. And so how do you manage your time? This is a serious question. How do you do so much? Yeah, I mean, sometimes probably regret I've done so much because I want to be here, but then I need to be there. And I want to be there, but I need to be here. So, you know, I make sure I balance my free time with my hobby time, with my business time. But for me, it's all the same. Cooking is the way I've always been happy. And feeding others is the way I'm the happiest. We talked about this at the time, but I think you you tried to bring in food to Gaza from the water. Could you just talk about that? Like, what was your plan and what were the challenges? Well, we deliver food twice by boat in very difficult conditions. With no machinery we could bring in and use using whatever we have there. But the purpose was clear. We had to be bringing food to the north. We had to be bringing food to two people that were going hungry. And we were we were never taken as an answer. And on the day of the second mission is when the seven members of Wolls-N-Trojkicien perish by the drone attack by by the IDF. Obviously, these these was a day that forever will be with me. And the message is very clear. Conflict should not happen worse, should not happen, and especially civilians, humanitarians. Hospitals, doctors, schools, press. They can never be victims in a conflict. They can never be target. Is never excuse to target innocent human life. And that's all I have to say about this. So you're involved with this massive humanitarian effort, as you said, 600 million meals and counting. And at the same time, you have all these restaurants and you're serving people food. It seems like the the span of your interests and your your energy is from the very worst of humanity, right? In some ways, to the very best, because cooking for other people is one of the best things we can do as humans. They somehow those things go together for you in some way. Yeah. Now, I think we're close to a billion meals now, because only in between Ukraine and Gastronomia, we've done more than. The 650 million meals together. So the numbers are used to staggering in how this organization keeps growing. In Ukraine, it was almost 300 days in and out. But let me tell you what I keep going. That when I go, I see that in the worst moments of humanity, always the best of humanity shows up in America. When is a tornado when is a hurricane or the fires in Al-Tadine? And Pali say it's there. You don't see Republicans there. You don't see Democrats there. You don't see religions there. You see people helping people. And going the extra mile used to bring hope to others in the middle of the mayhem. And I think that's what keeps me going. Let's turn to food for a second. You know, I think you write in your book, Spain, My Way. Anything claimed to have been invented in France was probably originally made in Spain, which I love. But you said mayonnaise is actually based on Mahon. And so the word mayonnaise is a Spanish origin. Yeah. Mayonnaise is one that for Spain, obviously the connection with Mahon Israel. That is the capital of Menorca. If you've never been, it's in the Balearic Islands, in the Mediterranean. Beautiful place, a place you will want to be born and probably you will want to retire. And the story will say that the French forces capture Mahon under the Duke of Richelieu. It seems that the the chef of Richelieu, they are in Mahon itself. Got the egg yolk and the oil because, you know, traditionally French will do it with butter or will do it with cream, but it was no butter or cream available. But there we had plenty of oil. And there in Mahon, that's the place that mayonnaise seems was really created. And I will go all the way in that mayonnaise is a Spanish invention. I am Jose Andres, and I endorse this message. Even if it was done like this story by French in the island of Mahon, if it happened in Spain, it is Spanish period. Nobody can refute this very simple truth. You're you're a definitive guy. You know, one thing I've always wondered about, you know, I've talked about the garlic bread soup that you'd have towards the end of the month. When recipes are designed based upon what's really available, you're not doing it just because you like it. It's it comes out of the ground. It comes out of the need. How do those recipes migrate into the 21st century and still retain their meaning? If the people making them, you know, have other options, they have more money. They travel the world. Does that stale bread soup with garlic and water you made for me years ago? Does that still live in the 21st century in some way? I think it lives everywhere. Maybe it's more difficult in the cities. You know, when you live in a city, you have a supermarket that has ingredients from all around the world and you don't understand really any more that wonderful timing of the seasons. Either way, I do believe some of the best dishes really do come from the necessity of the moment. One of the recipes I have in this book, migas, migas was one of the first dishes. That really made me think about how much I was going to be loving cooking and food. And this is when I visit being very young, the town of a family member of my father. And he will have this big cast iron cauldron. And there he had the table, wooden table that maybe was two, three generations old. And you could see the marks of its life in the surface. And right there was this mountain like a volcano of breadcrumbs. And that bread, that was a few days old, was not going to go to garbage or two ways. So when it went into the pot with the fat of the pork melting, that dish of simple bread toasted on its own fat with a garlic clove as the only thing to give it a little kiss of some other flavor. And then fry egg after fry egg on the same calls the bread, the migas, the fry egg, breaking the egg yolk with the help of the fork, the bread kissing each other with the egg yolk and just putting the egg and the bread in the mouth. That's the moment that I have a feeling I fall in love with tradition. I fall in love with cooking. Sometimes the least amount of ingredients, if they are treated with respect, can be the most sublime of the dishes. You're listening to a special episode of Milk Street Radio with Jose Andres coming up culinary discoveries and explosions at the legendary restaurant El Boulis. We'll be right back. This is most your radio. My guest today is chef and humanitarian Jose Andres. His latest book is Spain, My Way. You know, one of the things about you that is interesting is that on one hand, you know, garlic soup and on the other hand, molecular gastronomy, right? And you worked at El Boulis as well. So how do you, is it just because you're interested in everything in cooking? Is it just because you're interested in everything in cooking? There's nothing you won't try. Or is your heart and soul still in simple cooking, but you're just, you know, having fun with molecular gastronomy. How do you get both of those ideas in the same head? Well, I know it's been sometimes a unnecessary controversy on modern versus traditional, the so-called molecular. And I say unnecessary controversy because I will argue right here with you that everything is molecular, my friend. Everything has explanation through physics. Everything has explanation through chemistry. Food, cooking, physics, they are united forever. So the amazing thing that we had is like we had the Harald McGee's of the wall, the Herbete's of the wall, the Ferran Andreas of the wall, the science and food and cooking class that Ferran and I, we created at Harvard at the School of Physics. It's a great way to learn science, but it's a great way to understand what is the perfect temperature to cook a protein, what is the perfect temperature to control the boiling of a neck, et cetera, et cetera. And with that knowledge is how humanity, going back centuries, a thousands of years, even if we didn't know the why, we were able to make cheese. We were able to make yogurt. We were able to make beer. We were able to make wine. Many of the things than to this day, we call the foods we love. So explain to me how you ended up at Elbuley. You, Fran just walked into a restaurant you were working at and thought you had a promise. In the summer, I will be in this restaurant, a seafood restaurant called Antuy. And was the best seafood restaurant in that town. And for Ron, who was working in Elbuley, young, 24, probably, me, I was much younger. And I remember that that was the first time I cook for him. And that was the first time I say hi. Brief conversation, but powerful enough. I already knew of him, but I kind of find that that was kind of a calling that he will be coming there. And when I already was thinking, I should work in Elbuley next season, I was there. And obviously my life in many ways changed forever. Could you describe what that kitchen was like at the beginning? I mean, what it was obviously very different than almost in the other type of restaurant. So how was it different? Well, I was at the very early, early. Moment of the big bang. Farrand had always was looking for for new things and the new techniques. I remember one day that we were cleaning all these shelves of lobster. And we said, if we put the shelves of the lobster near the oven and we wait days and then we bake it at low temperature because we don't want it to burn. And at the end, we kind of put it in the coffee grinder and will the shells of the lobster create the perfect salt? Well, we did it and we did with lobster and the spiny lobster and main lobster. And we did test and test and we realized that it didn't was no good. What's not flavorful had no aroma, had nothing. You see, that's what we did in the early days of Elbuley. We try a lot and we felt a lot. But when something will happen, we'll be magical. Was there something else that was really magical? Do you remember from being there? One of the dishes I was doing was these amazing chips of vegetables. I had there my pot of oil and I was frying the chips little by little. And also part of another one of the dishes in my station was kind of a gelatin of almond milk, a dish that we call a joblanco. So I had this gelatin and I was getting my mason plants ready and the gelatin, I will cut this kind of cubes. And then I could see the theorem when he was checking the cubes. But all of a sudden I began seeing his eyes and he was looking at the hot oil. And he was looking at the gelatin between his two fingers. And he passed it from his right hand to the left hand and he kept looking at the oil and we were all looking at each other in the kitchen thinking, is he going to put the almond milk in the oil? Yes. Foran, throw the gelatin of almond milk into the hot pot of oil where I was frying the vegetables. And as we know, oil don't like liquids. A big explosion happened as every time you put the liquid in hot oil. So when he throws the gelatin into the hot oil, were you thinking he's just crazy? Or are you thinking? Yeah. But then it's like, OK, but we've never done it. Right. Somebody had to be the first person. Ten years later, Ferran Andrea created what we call the liquid croqueta of jamón, a very iconic Spanish dish that you find in many tapas bars. That croqueta became one of the legendary dishes of Ferran. That liquid croqueta ten years later, how did Ferran make it? That liquid croqueta ten years later happened in that moment. I was describing you a few minutes ago. Ferran show us the way. I'm Christopher Kimball and you're listening to an extended cut of my interview with Jose Andres. After the break, Jose explains why you should never order churros at a restaurant. This is Milk Street Radio. We're back again with Jose Andres. I wanted to ask about escapache because I didn't understand this dish. You write an ancient technique from Persia for preserving food. I didn't know that. So to cook escapache, you cook it first, simmer it in the infused vinegar, then let it marinate for a few days. So could you give me an example of how you might use this process that was originally for preservation? Escapache, obviously, yes, it is a pickling method. So in Spain, we've been doing escapaches for a long time. And some of the escapaches that are more popular right now will be mussels. Nothing more delicious than a can of churros. A can of mejiones and escapache. It's almost like if mussels were created to be in this kind of pickle sauce. Pickle sauce that can be very simple, can be only some pimentón, the Spanish paprika and olive oil and the vinegar itself, and maybe a piece of bay leaf and two peppercorns or recipes like the escapache I give here in the book that has garlic cloves and carrots and onions and thyme and rosemary. And even I add a little bit of sherry on top of the sherry vinegar itself. When you make it with fish, let's say sardines, you will cover them with this oil and vinegar. The vinegar slowly will be penetrating in the flesh of the sardine, giving it a very nice level of acidity with all the flavor of all the aromatics. And that's something that can keep in the fridge for days or more. You could do it with tuna, you could do it with bonito. Escapaches of fish are great, but also we have the escapaches of meat, partridge we love to do in Spain in escapache. Other meats preserve very well in this kind of acidic mix. So I recently had an eight week goat, a friend of mine who's a Turkish chef, cooked and we had it three ways. But the last dish was the ribs. And he said, the fat is so delicious, all I did was salt it and grill it. And there's a quote in your book you're talking about a la brasa. You said to me, this is one of the purest expressions of Spanish cooking. An animal, some salt, some fire. And that's all you need to know. So I came away from eating that thinking, you know what? It's it's perfect. As he said, I don't want to put paprika on this. I don't put anything on this. It's the meat. It's the fat. It's the bone. It's the fire. That's all you need. And I was kind of a wake up call for me because that's right. I mean, that you just have to stop there, right? Yeah, sometimes we are over complicated things. And sometimes we waste time with all this recipe, all these spices, which I love. But that sometimes what if you let the meat speak for itself? And then you have the right charcoal with the right amber's very hot. Then you go and put it on top and you turn one time and you turn another time until the surface began getting this nice and brown color that if you look with a lens very close up, you see like these all these kind of minimal candles exploding in the surface of the meat. And and then I like it rare, but warm, nice and brown in the outside, but no burnt. And then you start slicing and you put it in your mouth and it's tender and has the flavor of the wood you cook with. And is you sublime? You you write, I love this. If you're in a Spanish restaurant that has churros on the dessert menu, walk out and if the confused server asks you why, you can tell them that Jose told you to. So so why should I walk out in Spain in a restaurant that has churros on the dessert menu? Well, it can be the one that has amazing churros. And and then that's the one that you shouldn't walk out. But usually churros, they are not for dessert. Right. Therefore. Late, late, late, late nights before you go to bed is the last thing you eat of our early morning breakfast and is the first thing you eat. So churros in a restaurant is not something traditionally you will see. That's done in another moment in another part of the sequence of life. Late night or early breakfast, but never at the end of dessert of a meal in a sit down restaurant. There's also a tradition of merienda, which is bread with wine and sugar the kids eat. So what? What? I'm going to try this at my kids. So I don't even know if that's happening anymore. But I remember being in this little town in Santa Coloma de Cerbello outside Barcelona. And that's where I grew up. And there is where I remember that toast of bread. With a sprinkle of red wine on top to let the bread absorb the wine and use the sugar sprinkle. And that was so, so delicious. Obviously, it was a great way for my brothers and I and the other children to fall asleep the one hour or two hours that our parents will have to have a break from the intensity for young boys. I don't know if today this will be allowed or even if my family will be persecuted with the alcohol loss of the land. But I can tell you that to this day is one of the most delicious things I remember having as a child. You have three girls. How old are they now, your kids? Carlota, 27, Ines, 23 and Lucia, 21. And the great news is that they keep showing up at home in this house, in this kitchen, they know when certain things arrive. And they know that in the right season, I'm going to have these amazing Clementines and nectarines from Ohio Valley in California. When there is the season of asparagus over there is the season of more else. I know that my daughters sooner or later are going to be showing up. And when they want something, they know they can text and we're ready for croquetas and the croquetas will be waiting for them in the fridge. So I want to believe that my daughters, in a way, they keep coming back, obviously, to see their mother, my wife, Patricia and myself. But I have a feeling that those foods of their childhood, who were the foods of my childhood, is one of the reasons they keep coming back home. Jose, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. I always give you my heart and let's cook together soon. I'd love to. Jose, thank you for your time. Thank you, Chris. Big kiss. That was Jose Andres, his new book is Spain, My Way. Thanks for listening to the special extended interview. To hear all of our episodes, please go to MilkStreetRadio.com or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on Facebook at Christopher Kimball's Milk Street on Instagram at one seven seven Milk Street. We'll be back later in the week with more food stories and thanks as always for listening. Christopher Kimball's Milk Street Radio is produced by Milk Street, an association with GBH. Co-founder Melissa Baldino, executive producer Annie Sinsabaugh, senior editor Melissa Allison, senior producer Sarah Clap, producer Caroline Davis, assistant producer Mari Arosco, additional editing by Sydney Lewis, audio mixing by Jay Allison at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, theme music by 2Bob Crew, additional music by George Brendel Eggloff. Christopher Kimball's Milk Street Radio is distributed by PRX. From PRX.
