2024年10月8日，西班牙，圣塞巴斯蒂安 （San Sebastian，Spain）。
也许这位对葡萄牙最传统美食的现代化负有最大责任的人揭示了他的哲学秘密和一些最著名的食谱。
Belcanto**（里斯本）的厨师JoséAvillez在葡萄牙Gastronomika举办了题为“传统与现代”的讲座，深入探讨了东道国的美食。他是负责更新葡萄牙最传统美食的人之一，这一过程并不容易，以至于他区分了两个阶段：前十年，他甚至收到了书面威胁，因为他的同胞认为他正在破坏这个国家的美食；在另一个十年里，他们理解了他的工作的重要性：“这是一个有趣的过程，在这个过程中，我为葡萄牙人和游客，几乎是我们人口的四倍，找到了一道具有身份认同的美食”。
在Belcanto，他提出了一种看待葡萄牙美食的不同方式，以记忆和传统为出发点，为未来奠定基础。这位出生于卡斯卡伊斯的厨师在一个养有鸡、兔子和鸭子的农场长大；他的父亲是一名猎人和渔夫，所以他从小就与农产品有着密切的联系。我通过这个产品了解了葡萄牙的地理，”他坦言。
他肯定地说，我一直认为传统也是进化，在尊重所有这些身份的同时可以进行创新，这就是为什么“在Belcanto，13年来，我们一直在重新诠释传统，创造更现代的美食”。这位厨师在法国厨房迈出了第一步，并于2007年在El Bulli工作过一段时间，他说：“我在那几个月里成长了很多，我认为西班牙厨师对我的烹饪进化负有最大的责任，但我一直想专注于一种具有葡萄牙身份的美食，包括其技术、产品和口味。
然而，在葡萄牙，大众旅游现象已经发生了一段时间，这也改变了Belcanto的日常生活：“我们试着越来越多地倾听客户的声音，更好地了解他们，意识到世界已经发生了变化。我们的公众经常旅行，但他们不知道我们的美食：我们向他们展示我们的传统，但我尽量不解释太多。这是一次通过我们的美食之旅，”Avillez解释道。
随着食客形象的改变，“我们有机会向他们展示我们最擅长的东西。他们经常在不了解葡萄牙的情况下来，他们的第一顿午餐或晚餐是在Belcanto。有责任在三个小时内介绍一个国家、一种文化。我们通过他们的口味传达不同的地区”。
不同的建议
Avillez和他的团队现场准备了几道食谱，比如甜菜根鞑靼配松子奶，“我童年的回忆”；来自阿尔加维的“我喜欢的产品”，含有黑墨鱼墨水、乔夫冰淇淋和灰烬；亚速尔群岛的哈克，用骨头、头和奶油做成的酱汁，代表葡萄牙南部的汤，配面包、葡萄和蛋黄；或者乳猪，“一种我们一直提供但从未停止进化的产品”。现在，它配以猪蹄和香菜炖煮，香菜是他学会用琼·罗卡、生菜和蛋奶酥土豆做的橘皮泥。
José Avillez, from hatred to respect with Portugal as his banner
Perhaps the man most responsible for modernising Portugal's most traditional cuisine reveals the secrets of his philosophy and some of his most famous recipes.
José Avillez, chef at the Belcanto** (Lisbon), unravelled the cuisine of the host country at Gastronomika, Portugal, with his lecture 'Tradition and Modernity'. He is one of those responsible for updating Portugal's most traditional cuisine, a process that has not been easy, so much so that he distinguishes two stages: the first ten years, during which he even received threats in writing, because his compatriots thought he was destroying the country's cuisine; and another decade, during which they understood the importance of his work: "It has been a fun process, in which I have arrived at a cuisine of identity for the Portuguese and tourists, almost four times our population".
At Belcanto, he proposes a different way of looking at Portuguese cuisine, with memory and tradition as the starting point from which to lay the foundations for the future. The Cascais-born chef grew up on a farm with chickens, rabbits and ducks; his father was a hunter and fisherman, so he had close contact with produce from an early age. I learned about Portuguese geography through the product," he confessed.
I have always believed that tradition is also evolution, that it is possible to innovate while respecting all this identity", he affirms, and that is why "at Belcanto, for 13 years now, we have been reinterpreting tradition to create a more contemporary cuisine". The chef, who took his first steps in French kitchens and had a stint at El Bulli in 2007, says: "I grew a lot in those months and I think that Spanish chefs were the most responsible for my culinary evolution, but I always wanted to focus on a cuisine with a Portuguese identity, with its techniques, products and flavours.
In Portugal, however, the phenomenon of mass tourism has been taking place for some time now, and this has also changed Belcanto's everyday life: "We try to listen more and more to the customer, to get to know them better, to realise that the world has changed. Often our public has travelled, but they don't know our cuisine: we show them our traditions, but I try not to explain too much. It is a journey through our gastronomy," explains Avillez.
As the profile of the diner has changed, "we have the opportunity to show them what we do best. They often come without knowing Portugal and their first lunch or dinner is at Belcanto. It is a responsibility to introduce a country, a culture, in three hours. We convey the different regions through their flavours".
Different proposals
Avillez and his team prepared several recipes live, such as beetroot tartar with pine nut milk, "a memory from my childhood"; carabinero from the Algarve, "a product I love", with black cuttlefish ink, jowl ice cream and ash; Hake from the Azores, with a sauce of its bones and heads and cream, representing the soups of southern Portugal, with bread, grapes and an egg yolk; or suckling pig, "a product that we have always served but that has never stopped evolving". Now it is served with a stew of pig's trotters with coriander, a puree of orange peel that he learnt to make with Joan Roca, lettuce and soufflé potatoes.
