NAVARRA GOURMET

Wine and oil. Liquid health

GASTRONOMY & HEALTH. Moderator Jordi Estadella

(Joan Roca. Restaurante El Celler de Can Roca. Girona. Agustín Santolaya. General Manager of Bodegas Roda and Aceites Dauro.)

Oil and wine. Curative?

“We're living through an exciting time, a time in which foodstuffs are possibly the great medicinal discovery of the 21st century", affirmed Agustín Santolaya, the director general of the Bodegas Roda winery and of Aceites Dauro oils. This winemaker, together with Mikel Ceberio, a gourmet reporter and director of Viandar Vinos, debated on the healthy powers of oil and wine in cooking. They were accompanied by Joan Roca, the chef at the El Celler restaurant in Can Roca, Girona, who prepared a "Cold soup of cherries with olive oil and ice-cream of seeds".

“The focus is once more on nature to discover the medicinal powers of foodstuffs", explained Santolaya, before highlighting the far from negligible capacity of these foods to transmit joy. This is the feeling which Roca also tries to convey through his dish, comprising wine-soaked cherries, pigeon thighs and texturised wine. The chef also prepared a wine-steamed loin of mackerel, accompanied by a compote of lychees and aroma of roses and a third idea, also inspired in wine: poached foie gras with grapes and a sugar cloud.

Oil and wine are the two sides of the same culinary coin. "One cannot be understood without the other; however, whilst wine, is extremely complex, oil is very simple", he indicated. This is shown by the winemaking process, which takes months, and the oil producing process, in which it takes just a few hours to go from the tree to the table. Santolaya wondered "how two products, which are philosophically so similar, are technically so different", although he did highlight the capacity of both products to transmit sensations.

For his part, the reporter Mikel Ceberio criticised the lack of knowledge about oil. He affirmed that it's quality has improved thanks to the chefs themselves, the wineries, doctors and the fascination of the gourmet world, however he revealed that advertising is widely responsible for the oil problems. "We boast how good olive oil is, but we've no idea about its properties. What's all this about pure oil, is it a non-existent category? And refined oil? And acidity? he questioned.

“Almost all chefs, including me, give little thought to the idea that dressing steamed vegetables is different from dressing griddled ones, or which particular type of oil to use for fish", he declared and also indicated that, as a positive aspect, "what has improved is the presentation", before going on to highlight the importance of a balanced use of oil.

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