Hi everyone, welcome to potluck food talks. Today we're going to answer comments from our social media. What do you think about that? Not sure, depends on the comments. Should we start with the hate comments? Somehow I can already guess what topic that we talked about, what hate comments, because there can only be one. Yeah, it was about the intern episode, when we talk about interns and staging and that kind of stuff.
People have very strong opinions about something that people do off their free will. No, no, no, absolutely. And I've heard even comments from friends like, by the way, I watch the reels of your episode and I don't agree with what your friend says. So those were friendly. Here is, let's read what Tom DJ Wilson says. He says, I'm not sure if this is a call out for unpaid labor or what? Far away from feeding people, encouraging people to work for free? Yikers.
Yikers. Ariane, Tom DJ Wilson, nothing is more yikers than saying yikers, first of all. Yeah, this is what I don't understand. You know, I thought that we made it very clear that we don't think that staging or chefs that stage at Michelin star restaurants are better than chefs that don't stage at Michelin star restaurants. It doesn't make anybody better. It doesn't make anybody a better cook. It's just something that you can do if you want to. I think that that's the first wrong premise.
I think because I've also heard that from friends, people think that we say you have to go to these places and work for free. Otherwise you won't be anything in your career. And that's absolutely not like that. Not at all. First of all, we're not telling anyone to do anything. We're just sharing our experiences because we did this and we did this without being forced first of all, out of free will. And also we think we had nice experiences, you know, like I think you agree with me on that.
There were moments where, of course, they were hard moments, but aren't there hard moments also at the university or at any job? You know, like it's not like a fairy tale. Yeah, exactly. This is like, this is exactly what he's saying. Very much, I always try to, when I talk about the subject, say exactly this, hey, staging in Michelin star restaurants or working in Michelin star restaurants, not better than working in non-Michelin star restaurants at all.
It's like going to the theater, to the opera or to ballet, you know, it's just a different aspect of the same animal. If I actually could, you know, I starved quite a lot when I was in the beginning of my career. If I could be, like if I could redo my career, I would actually do it differently. I wouldn't starve that much. I would go to a restaurant and stay for a bit longer rather than jumping around. But you know, that being said, nobody forced me to stage.
Everybody was very clear that it was going to be hard work and that it was going to be unpaid, my free will. Nobody's forcing anybody. Sometimes people go and they realize that kind of like if you want to enter the army, they're sort of like, yeah, I'm up for it. Then when they're there, they're like, well, I guess I'm not that up for it, which is fine also. Fine to not do something that you don't enjoy, right?
But it's also totally fine to say to somebody, hey, we're doing something very special here and if you want, you can come for a short amount of time and gather this experience. We're not going to pay you. It's going to be very hard labor, but it's going to be an experience, you know? And I've never regretted doing it. I was not surprised by the hard work because I knew it was going to be hard. And yeah, it's taught me a lot.
It's also enabled me to see a lot different styles of food, live in different countries very, very easily, you know? And I used my skills, you know, to enable that for me, which is starving in restaurants. But yeah, I feel like this entitlement is sort of like, yeah, you are influencing people to work for free. It's kind of like nobody's fucking influencing you. Yeah. And besides that, we're not making any profit of it.
It's not that we have a restaurant and we want people to come to work free for us. It's not the case at all. You know, like we're just telling our experiences and if you don't like it, just, you know, go listen or watch something else. That's it, you know? There is enough content on the internet. Yeah. So then there's this guy, D. Games, and he says, someone should call the police on you guys. Because all this rich toxic content only reinforces all that is wrong in the restaurant business.
Okay. Okay. I understand that there's also like a struggle of people that say that all stars should be paid, which I think is not wrong to fight for that. Like, let's say, you know, like, it's not that you get like a minimum wage, but at least you get some money for, you know, to survive or whatever.
Yeah, at the same time, I think the interesting thing about this place is also, there is a lot of people that say that these places that work with 40 interns and they need 40 interns to have, let's say, three Michelin stars, that that's like a business model that should not exist, right? And, or that everybody should be paid. And okay, I think that that's a valid argument and everything.
But at the same time, I think precisely the interesting thing about going to these places is that you're going to work with 40 other talented chefs and the environment that this creates from people from all over the world. That's actually, it has maybe even more value than the actual recipes or processes that happen in the restaurant, right?
So, and probably if you, if you, you can't pay 40 interns or I don't know if that would work and probably in my case, you know, I was like 18 years old when I did this, I wouldn't be probably one of the selected ones to go there. Exactly. Actually, my mindset was I'm 18 years old. I'm offering to work in these places for free. For sure they're going to take me, you know, like I'm fresh, I'm willing to learn, I'm willing to do this. And for me, it was a super clear opportunity.
And actually what is also interesting is that you would, in these places, you would see actual chefs with, even with Michelin stars that would stash. They would leave their Michelin star restaurant and go to a place like Mugaritz or some other places to be there like for a month or a couple of weeks or whatever. And you would work hand in hand with these guys, you know, and that's part of the value of the experience. Absolutely.
First of all, you know, sort of like if you pay stargers, then less people will have the opportunity to become stargers like you just said. That's for one. Also, I don't understand this thing that really goes against my, my general opinion of like free will and free choice that we have in, you know, in the countries that we live in, fortunately, of me saying sort of like, hey, I can only justify paying somebody if they have a certain level of experience.
But if you don't have any experience and you still want to come, you are free to come here and to exchange work, basic work for knowledge and for experience. You know, it's not like you don't get anything. So yeah, it's kind of like, yeah, again, where's this entitlement coming from? You know, nobody's forcing you go work somewhere else. So what else? We have here Evan Clark-Gree and he says we should talk about cooking on fire. We did, didn't we? We have an episode on grill.
It's one of our first episodes. Oh man. I mean, for me, cooking on fire is one of the most magical things ever, honestly. Evan, maybe we should do another episode. Just, I mean, we talked about barbecue and different styles of barbecue and stuff, but maybe we should talk a little bit more intently about open fire. We can talk about Shabari and Saison and, you know, the bridge between, you know, primal and high-end. I mean, it's a cool topic.
I was thinking perhaps inviting someone, someone, I know Florencia, the head chef of X-Ted, she could be a cool profile for that talk. Oh, that's awesome. Let's do that. Le Miguel asks, your thoughts on Filipino food? I have very limited experience with Filipino food. I worked with lots of Filipino chefs when I was in Dubai. And the things that I ate at karaoke nights or in bars when I was out with them was very delicious. A little bit pork heavy.
I don't know whether that was just because we were living in Dubai and they were just like eating pork whenever they could because they wouldn't get it otherwise, you know, but you know, stuff like adobo and how is this one thing, which was like fried liver in like a sauce or something. It was very delicious. Really, really tasty. I really want to go to the Philippines, actually. I think it's, it feels like it's a really beautiful place. Yeah, for sure. It's an interesting country as well.
For me, it was crazy to find out that San Miguel beer comes from the Philippines. Did you know that? No, I didn't know that. Yeah, like San Miguel is a beer brand that you see here everywhere. Yes. And it turned, yeah, like it was created in the Philippines while it was a Spanish colony. And of course, when it stopped being a Spanish colony, like the headquarters moved to central Spain to the, you know, like Imperial Spain or continental Spain.
And but still like the people like the beer, so they still have like a huge size of the market in the Philippines. Wow, that's pretty interesting. I didn't know that. And also something really crazy for me is, and I want to get into the bottom of this because I don't know why that is, is that in Venezuela is the only place in the world that I know that you call the spring rolls lumpia. And then I found out that that comes from the Philippines.
So I was like, I was like wondering why the, how did that happen? Like probably there was Filipino immigrants that went to Venezuela and called it like that or, or Spanish Filipinos. I have no idea, but I would like to understand that because it's even like the only place in South America as far as I know that they're called lumpias and not spring rolls. That's really interesting. Yeah. It's a super interesting food culture.
And I mean, the like Filipino community that I've experienced, it was super warm and welcoming and yeah, I'd really like to go and eat more. Well, and I know Chelle, you know Chelle, gallery by Chelle. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. Like, well, he, he actually, he worked in Mugaritz and in El Bulli. He's married to a Filipino, a Filipino woman and has a Filipino, Filipino kids.
And yeah, what they did is like this normal philosophy kind of cooking, you know, like centering on the communities and the producers and doing like a progressive avant-garde cooking that has nothing to do with tradition, just focused on the territory and the produce. And I think that's pretty interesting. Like they are like, I would say in that part of Asia and Southeast Asia are like three major players doing that kind of cooking. That would be Darren from the Wakan in Kuala Lumpur.
The other one would be Locavore and this guy gallery by Chelle. Yeah, true. And then Dyer717 asks, how to keep improve and learn, become a head chef. Well I would say 60% of the job is to get dressed, show up and do some reading. And that's 60%. Wow. If I knew it was that easy. No, it's not that easy. That's the thing. It's not that easy. It's okay. I mean, in my opinion, first you learn the cooking aspect, right?
You work through, you have to concentrate on the craft before you can think about managing. Just work yourself through the kitchen, all the stations, do some pastry, do some baking. Just get to know everything until you feel like a really solid chef. And then when you feel like you've got a really good hold on your craft, then you need to really look at how to deal with people. I feel like nobody really shows you that. I know nobody really showed me that much.
Only like much later I worked with people where I could kind of see a positive sort of inspiration. Because the kitchens that I worked in, the treatment was always really poor. And they worked, everything worked and functioned, but nobody was happy and people were burning out and that can't be your goal as a professional, but also just as a human being. So really learn how to deal with people. That sounds really simple, but it's actually quite complex.
When you have a team of 10 people, you can't treat everybody the same. Some people work well under pressure, some people don't. And you need to treat every single person as an individual, which obviously they are, but that's very difficult. So spend your time learning cooking and then spend your time learning how to deal with people. And then once you've done that, you can become a decent head chef.
And then you can't forget that most of the learning is going to happen when you're already in position. I would add to that communication. Well, you mentioned that, but that's like a super important thing to learn how to properly communicate and setting the tone. And it's actually one of the key things for a kitchen to work. You know, and it's also one of the key things that can make your team motivated or frustrated just depending on how you communicate.
Yeah. Honestly, I think that's one of the most difficult aspects of being a head chef is like you come in, it doesn't matter if you have a good day or bad day. You have to kind of pull everybody along. And then when you have a kitchen meeting, it doesn't matter if you're tired or whatever, if you stand in a meeting, you're like, oh yeah, you know, today we're doing this amount of covers and blah, the whole energy is going to drop.
You got to really, you know, and sometimes I come in and I have a bad day and I still try to be like, Hey chef, how are you? Are we days off? Blah, blah, you know, talk a little bit about, just have a little bit small talk, a little bit of connection with people and have like a little bit this drive forward, you know, that like things are happening and that can be very, very tiring and very difficult, you know, but you know what they say, it's, it's lonely at the top.
So then there is this guy called stop her roar. He says, have you guys seen the grand chef? It's a Korean flick from 2007 before K food got huge. It's a little cheesy, but I think it captured Korean food, especially at the time really well. I have looked it up and I've not seen it yet, which is really cool because I love these sorts of movies, these sorts of dramatic chef movies, even if they're often very, very cheesy.
Right now I'm watching a film on Netflix called hunger, which is like set in Thailand, I think, and it's like super over the top dramatic, like a fried rice, you know, chef starts because like working in a mission in star kitchen and the chef is like, like the food concept is super, super stupid. He's like, oh, okay, tonight we're going to have a dinner and the concept is going to be flesh and blood and succulents and everything. Oh, the chef said like, yeah, wow.
Yeah. Amazing. Um, so yeah, I really liked these over dramatic. Yeah. Yeah. I want to see it as well. And he says, well, if you guys love iron chef too, Oh boy, you're in for a treat. Nice. Big iron chef fan. We should make an iron chef episode. Oh yeah. Sure. Don't know why we haven't, but I need to rewatch some stuff. And then someone talked about, or, or suggestion to use gazpacho as a hangover antidote. And he said, ah, that's awesome. Way more natural than medicine for sure. Yes. Oh, sure.
Food is medicine. There, there are even more comments on internships. There's one saying I only work for free for real charity. Good for you. And then there is an, then there is someone who says, ah, but internships for Senator, judges, major corporation, doctors, lawyer, that's all okay. Right. And then actually answering to the ones that are against, uh, unpaid internships. Ah, I see. Yeah. That's a good point also.
I mean, what, what, uh, also something to point out, uh, I think that like internships and any like normal restaurant should always be paid. Like if you're going to do an internship because you're at school and you need to do an internship in a hotel or something like that, and there should be always the option to get like a paid internship. Actually, if you do an unpaid is because you're going to, uh, a lost mountain in China to learn to make noodles with a Kung Fu master.
And that's the reason you do it for free, you know, like not because whatever. Yeah, totally. And you know, like those are the actually small details also is kind of like, well, you know, you do get stuff at a, at an internship, you know, when you, but you don't get all the same stuff. Starging is not the same as starging, you know, at Mugarritz I got accommodation and food that's all I really needed, you know, and then like, guess what?
When I was done with Mugarritz, um, I got an offer to go and start at Noma and Noma doesn't give you accommodation. So I decided to turn them down and all other things. And I ended up fine, you know, didn't go to Noma still. Okay. Like it's, you know, nobody makes you do anything. It doesn't have any fucking effect on your career. The only person really influencing your career is yourself and the hard work that you put it.
So you can stop maybe hiding behind these like bullshit reasons that you pulled up or I have to do this. I have to do that to put yourself down and just fucking do what you feel like doing. Then here's someone who commented on cooking forest soil. You remember we talked about that, the Nari Sawa dish where you take up a piece of the forest and you cook it. And he said, probably using a rotovap. Otherwise it might be dangerous to eat. Yeah, for sure.
I don't think he uses a rotovap to be honest with you. Yeah. No. Okay. But obviously a rotovap is, would be the safer option. Well, a rotovap for those who don't know is basically it's a lab equipment and it's a portable distilling machine. That's what it does. Yes. It distills anything. You can extract the liquid aroma of it. But to clear that up a little bit with the soil, obviously Nari Sawa is not just using any, just any fucking soil that he just digs up in front of his car park.
There are many different types of soil with very different compositions. There's even healing earths. Earths that you eat. It's old medicine here in Germany, for example, that is cleaning out your stomach. And he uses very, very particular soil from the forest. That's obviously, you know, you have to check it, you know, whether there's any diseases in it and stuff like that. But it's not like soil isn't edible per se.
I mean, soil, depending on how loamy it is, it's made up of a lot of organic materials. So mainly you're not eating solids anyway. You're just extracting the flavor. But you do have to be careful with soil. You're listening to this, like soil is tricky. Like you have to really watch for diseases in soil. Yeah. Like anything that, working with fermentations, anything that feels dangerous, make sure you know what you're doing before doing it.
I've seen so many people like applying like bullshit techniques and calling them fermentation. You know, like, I mean, like, do your homework. Today is so easy to learn anything. Just watch some experts doing it and before trying new things, imitate them.
I've even seen like, you know, like I was in this talk where there was Ramon Perise, who was one of the creators of Vugaritz and who, it was so funny, like on his LinkedIn profile at some point, he was, he described himself as a fermentation Gandalf. And it was like this, this round table where there was also like a microbiologist and the microbiologist was actually challenging him on things like, and you're doing this, like this, like that. Oh, okay.
But that's like very dangerous doing it like that. You know, like even like such an expert guy could be challenged by another more, with a more scientific profile expert, you know, like you really need to know what you're doing. Absolutely. You need to be careful. You really need to be careful with stuff like this, you know. Food in general, you know, you have a lot of responsibility.
You have to, people are a little bit reckless sometimes, you know, also with cross contamination and seafood and stock rotation and, you know, adding, you know what I hate adding like old batches of something into a new batch, you know, just kind of like, oh, I have a, like a gazpacho for example, you know, oh, I made a new batch of gazpacho. I only have like a teaspoon left. I'm going to put it in. It's like, no, no, don't do that. Yeah, man. Don't do this. You will continue doing this.
And sometimes, and suddenly you'll have a gazpacho with bacteria that are four weeks old and you can really, you can really kill somebody. There is this place that I really like. I really like this place and I go very frequently here in San Sebastian and it has happened to me twice. I actually know all the head chefs, so I wrote him an SMS, like a voice message, but it happened to me twice that I went there and then Saladilla Rosa was acid. Oh my gosh.
Acid and, and you know, like that you would feel this activity in your tongue, you know, like coops. Oh, that's horrible. And dude, like, first of all, taste everything before sending it to a table. And you know, like if the salad has been there for, I don't know how long, at least five days you need to get that effect. Use a fresh one and throw it away. You know, it's not your money. Yeah, exactly.
It's, and like, honestly, you could really kill somebody, you know, like you need to, as much as like, you know, this hygiene and, you know, as much as allergies piss people off, you have to take it seriously, man. Don't argue with people if they actually have a, have a phenyl allergy or not, or if that exists or whatever, you know, just take it as it is, you know, deal with it because you have a responsibility and you can really kill people.
So, and then I have this comment from your friend, Kevin, and he says, we got to do the chef draft, choose your poissonier, pâtissier, et cetera. What does he mean? Do you know what he means? I think he means choose your section. No, maybe. I think he means like building like a team of, like a dream team of chefs. Oh, that's what he means. Oh, fuck yeah. Oh, damn. Yeah. Oh my God. Ooh, that's difficult. I don't feel ready to, I don't feel ready to give this answer yet.
Yeah. I also don't feel ready. I need to, I need to think about it. I really need to think about it. I've worked with too many amazing chefs that it's, yeah. Yeah. Let's leave that for homework. Let's leave that and we do it at the beginning of the next episode. Is that an amazing question, Kevin? Really, really good question. I've never played this game before. Yeah. Let's think about it and do it in the beginning of next episode. Yeah. That's it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks.
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