Climate change and globalisation have changed everything. Including the seas and everything they give us. "The Mediterranean [Sea] has given us a great recipe book, but we are in a era where we have lost many of the elements we used to use", says Balearic chef Andreu Genestra (Restaurant Andreu Genestra*) at Madrid Fusión Food from Spain. "People don't eat like they used to, and they don't have the same palate. Everything has changed", he adds. And, in this change, there has been a major drawback in the kitchen, the presence of fats, which Genestra has made a way of understanding his new Mediterranean.

The evolution of gastronomy has changed the recipe book and the way of understanding what we know as Mediterranean flavour. The use of animal and vegetable fats has evolved until they are no longer used, losing the richness of flavours and recipes over time. "The culinary use of fats, both vegetable and animal, allows us to explore new paths with products that are in decline or no longer used", explains the Balearic chef, who has been working in the world of fats for years as a way of enhancing recipes, giving value to their use and not losing the flavour memory.

For Genestra, the concept of making the most of fats "has been demonised by fashions and certain concepts that are not considered healthy, and although I don't want to go into whether it's harmful or not... nobody has said that fats are harmful", he insists. All of this is the thread that runs through the flavour, in which fats, as a technique, become the protagonists without being so. To do this, he uses things that are no longer used today, but which were fundamental to Spanish cuisine, such as lard.

Flor de carité

He presents five dishes in which fat is the protagonist, without being seen as something negative. For example, the fat of the shea flower, which is used in cosmetics and ice-cream toppings, is used to dress gnocchi and "gives us a hardness that is useful for making saffron or paprika vegetable butters". The starchy roasted carrot gnocchi are topped with blue cheese, a fennel bulb seasoned with vinegar, and covered with a broth of Mallorcan soups made from the vegetables, cooked with sausage, butifarrón, lean pork and bacon. "Although it may seem otherwise, this is a summer dish", says the chef.