As if it were a wonderful lamp, every time I rub a clove of garlic on toasted bread, the memory of my grandparents appears. I was fascinated by the smell of a brown disc on Saturday. My father would take stale bread, break it up, and brown the crumb side until some spots turned black, releasing a fine wisp of smoke that covered everything. Next he rubbed garlic on it, added a trickle of extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of salt, and that was blessed glory. In the wardrobe of memory we keep the experiences, events and insights as well as the garments that we will later use to dress our stories, our identities.
I came back from a trip and while I was still in the car I asked the driver if I could sit in the front passenger seat. It was a high end vehicle that got me home from the airport. The conversation was perfunctory between the silence caused by my checking the phone screen. It often happens to me: suddenly the driver confessed his indignation after visiting a well-known restaurant with his wife and another couple.
-A scandal! A menu of 200 euros and they gave us eight pintxos. We had to go to another place after that because we were hungry. Not only that, they charged us 180 euros each for the wine tasting!
My disadvantaged position at the moment prompted me to jump out of the moving car, although I steeled myself and began to reconstruct the situation. In an attempt to mitigate his uneasiness, I argued:
“Well, it’s an establishment with a solid reputation that attracts customers from all over the world; I’ve eaten there many times and have always been impressed. I’m confused by what you’re saying. What products consisted of the menu?
—One shrimp, caviar and a chop for four! But how to lay a schnitzel for four? Look, I have a picture on the phone that I took of the bill.
He took the device, found the picture and gave it to me.
“Hey,” I said, “I see it wasn’t 8 steps, it was 12 with the desserts.” Oh! And they gave you red shrimp, barnacles, oysters, white truffles and espardeñas. And I see that the 180 euros of the wines was the total, not per diner. how long have you been
“Six months ago,” he replied.
I’m happy to share this story because it confirms that the memory of an event, the way the mind captures an experience, is heavily influenced by the emotions that surround it. It shows how misinformation about what was going to happen and ignorance or disinterest in what was going to happen triggered this tendency to incorporate fictitious information to support one’s reasons and arguments.
A few years ago, the Complutense University of Madrid, the Humboldt University of Berlin, the University of Göttingen, the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute and the Offenbach Design Institute, together with the research centers El Jardín de Junio and Mugaritz, promoted the project The Meal Experience, whose The aim was to examine the factors that determine guest satisfaction and memory of an haute cuisine gastronomic experience. It started with a personality and creativity test for the participants, which continued after the meal with a questionnaire to measure aspects such as interest, attention and satisfaction. It ended three months later with another test assessing what they remembered. All of this was supported by an analysis of facial expressions during his stay in Mugaritz.
The experiment showed something that intuition had revealed to us before: that the most accommodating, friendly, and agreeable guests tended to remember the experience better than those who experienced it from a position of greater suspicion. It has been observed that the way one captures the experience has to do with the personality of the guest; that good humor, company and interest are the keys to remembering.
So when you go to a restaurant, choose the company well and, more importantly, the vital vibe that will make you enjoy it… and remember it.
The dish: garlic and honey tart
Aduriz recipe, garlic and honey tartOscar Oliva Poza
Honey is a cultural product linked to human history. The oldest depiction of honey harvesting on the Iberian Peninsula dates back to 9,000 years ago. It is a painting in the Cuevas de la Araña in Valencia, where his collection is displayed in beehives.
ingredients (for four persons)
For the rosemary slices:
4 sheets of filo pastry.
Two sprigs of rosemary.
50 grams (g) honey.
50 milliliters of water.
For the garlic confit:
200 grams of garlic.
150 grams of olive oil.
For the conclusion and the presentation:
Garlic confit.
Baked filo pastry.
Treasure.
rosemary flowers.
drafting
rosemary slices:
Combine the honey and water and bring to a boil; Add rosemary, cover and leave to stand for an hour. Remove and reserve the rosemary.
Preheat the oven to 180oC. Cut the puff pastry into squares of the same size and place on baking paper. Paint with the previous mixture. Cook for 15 minutes or until you get a caramelized color.
The confit garlic:
Peel the garlic, dip in the oil and confit over low heat for 45 minutes. Reservations.
conclusion and presentation
Arrange the confit garlic on the filo pastry and serve with the honey. Accentuate with rosemary blossoms.