Melissa Clark wrote in yesterday's New York Times Dining In section about the many strange things she saw and tasted in Madrid at last week's Third Annual Madrid-Fusión gastronomic conference.
Among them were de-furred, deep-fried rabbit ears, which some chefs there called the best chicharron (cracklings) ever.
Wrote Clark, "I kind of missed the familiar porky tang."
She also noted that the hottest new chef on the Spanish scene, Angel León of Casa del Temple in Toledo (scroll down to #7 here), was now using fish eyes - the whites only - to add body to sauces.
For contrast, León used dried, powdered fish scales as a thickener in another dish, which "added collagen for a thin, shiny, gelatinous consistency."
Yum.
But wait - there's more.
Exploding desserts were said to be the next big thing, with celebrated chef Ferran Adrià of El Bulli in Rosas demonstrating how to take a fresh strawberry milkshake and make it effervesce into a cascade of pink, flower-like bubbles after being mixed with dry ice.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
reminds me of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
2 - HW Saxton
I'll freely admit to once eating a BBQ
pigs ear sandwich once when I was drunk
at a Zydeco club in Lake Charles,LA.
They were mainly fat & gristle for those
who are curious, but slathered in spicy
sauce and washed down with 4 or 5 quarts
of beer they ain't all that bad.
But I couldn't eat fried rabbit ears to
save my damn soul.For one, rabbits are
too cute and two I don't drink anymore.