This is subtitled 'A Season at elBulli'--which is what it is--a book that is a highly detailed account of the last season of stagiaires at elBulli on the Costa Brava in Spain.
It is not so much a book about Ferran Adrià as it is about his technique. Her approach is to tell the reader everything. I mean everything. And while some of this is fascinating – the revelation that El Bulli's highly qualified apprentices are made to wash the rocks that surround the car park by hand at the start of every season is like something out of Kafka.
Every year, 3,000 young men and women apply to become El Bulli stagiaires, a job for which they will not be paid, in spite of the fact that the majority will leave acclaimed kitchens elsewhere for the privilege. "We're like the Barça," Adrià tells them, on their first day. "Maximum seriousness, in order to have a good time." On the plus side, their stage is almost bound to guarantee future success (among many other star ex-stagiaires is Noma's chef, René Redzepi). The restaurant's "family meals" – the food the cooks eat together before service – are considered the world's best. But beyond this, the regime is brutal and bewildering. Apprentices are expected to perform the same task – preparing milk-skin yubas, removing rabbit brains from rabbit skulls – for weeks on end.
Abend reports all this dutifully. For the reader, it can get frustrating. On the one hand, we learn everything about some of the stagiaires--socioeconomic backgrounds, prior expereinces, the works. But not enough about the food itself. Oh well. If, as Adrià and his close colleagues believe, El Bulli's adventures in gastronomy really are history in the making, then at least Abend was there to capture the moment.
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