Eduardo Casquero (Acyre): «From so much saturate the market, people will get tired of fed hamburgers»

The kitchen world is one of those issues that generates very different answers depending on who you ask. Some see the action of cooking as a mere procedure, others as a heavy task, but for many other people, kitchen, food and gastronomy is much more than a mere way to meet physiological needs. Eduardo Casquero, chef and president of the Association of Cooks and Posters of Madrid (ACYRE), speaks with passion of the profession he has dedicated to his life. A passion cooked over low heat over the years. Talk to love, but without condescension, of the sector to which it represents and defends. Casquero answers serenity when asked about as varied as current and, with their answers, make it clear that there is something else. That when we sit in a restaurant to eat with friends we are not only sitting to eat. That when it is cooked, not only is it cooked, but also evokes. Ask. It is often heard that there are sectors with a lack of labor. The kitchen is one of those activities that are usually framed in this category, is it really? Missing generational relief. In recent years, it is a profession that has been dignified a lot, but socially speaking, the concerns of young people have changed when looking for a job. Working conditions may not be the most suitable. It has been greatly improved in recent years, but it is still complicated, especially at the family conciliation level. We have in the medium term an important responsibility to achieve improvements. In cuisine we will surely be able to attract young people because television and social networks do a lot, but what is room, there are many problems. Q: How are working and salary conditions? R: They have improved. The businessman is making an effort to make it attractive, but there is still a long way to go. The schedules are the ones. There are business concepts that have changed, but it is still a sector that is not attractive in that sense. Q: In Spain we have many culinary proposals to which we can go based on what we want. What is the common element that have the proposals that work? R: quality. The value for money must have a criterion. When a business is raised, not only one must think in the short term, but also in the medium and long term for the business to survive. People demand a series of things that perhaps did not demand so much. We must be sensitive to what people demand. More proximity, seasonal, healthy and healthy products are being requested. And obviously, it is attractive. The competition is a lot and we must differentiate offering quality. Q: And on the contrary, what do you think is the most common sin? R: It falls too much into empty trends. A business model is very replicated in which the gastronomic offer is very similar. It falls a lot to fashions. Q: Why would I say that every time everything looks like? R: This is happening. There is a part of the gastronomy doing something personal, making a kitchen of yours, but then in general it falls a lot in, as I say, the César salad, the croquettes, the hamburger, and you have the feeling that somehow we all give the same. Because. Because we erroneously think that if one side it works well offering that, we can operate if we offer the same. Q: And why is this hamburger bum suddenly? R: If it's good, welcome. I think it has become popular because it is a more informal kitchen, it follows that tendency to eat with the hands that is spreading. There is always good, bad and regular kitchen. I have nothing against hamburgers and some are very good, but it is a fashion. It is a business model that is a curve. You arrive at your height and then little by little it declines. Possibly, because other products will end up appearing that will no longer attract the hamburgers so much. People will get tired of eating hamburger, even if you make them a thousand sauces, of a thousand meats. From so much saturate the market, people will not want to eat more hamburgers. Q: I wanted to ask him about the fifth range, what do you think of her chef? R: That there is also good and bad. The fifth range can be yours or fifth external range. You can make fifth range for yourself. Pasteurize, vacuum packing and that then guarantees you to have the product in optimal conditions. Then you regenerate it, you give it a baking blow or a jump in the pan and you have a good product. In the end the fresh product has a very specific expiration. Then you can go to the fifth external range, and there is fifth good, regular or bad range. Fifth range is not synonymous with poor quality. It doesn't have to be. Q: Do you think you should warn diners? R: What you can't do is sell it as homemade. If the fifth range is yours because you have made it, it is your kitchen. The deception is to buy someone external the fifth range and say that you have done it.«The deception is to buy someone external the fifth range and say that you have done it.» Pablo Mongep: how extended is the fifth range? R: enough. A lot. What is called assembly cuisine is called. The ribs made at low temperature come, you regenerate them in the oven or on the grill and with a garnish you already have a dish. It is very widespread. Few people today croquetas. Q: But then they are everywhere. R: They are everywhere. Many will be made in the premises, but many others. Q: What is Gourmet? Is everything Gourmet? R: It seems that we put the gourmet label and the product has to be good. No. For a product to be good it has to be of quality, seasonal, proximity. You know where it comes from, what process has followed. Gourmet is a stamp that does not always justify what they are selling in the package. That said. Everything that helps the customer buy a good product, welcome. Q: Why do you think that, despite the fact that restaurant prices have been uploading, they still work very well? R: First, restaurants are part of the economy. Prices do not go up because yes. Prices rise because the products that restaurants buy are also more expensive, especially at an era where inflation was fired and made the oil price multiplied by three. That the restaurant has to have an impact on the price because in the end you have to survive and make money with this. They work well because socially people have changed a lot. Q: What do you mean? R: We are a country where you like to leave. It has always been so, but now more. Before, people had a series of priorities, and now we have less time. After a working day, you may not feel like getting into a kitchen. Q: That change of priorities, can it be that before people could consider more easily buying a series of goods that involve great expenses and now not? Is it going out to dinner or eating was a kind of ritual or exhaust valve? A: I see it as a way to connect socially. We have sufficiently stressful lives and eat outside is a way of evading you. You go out, you are with friends and look for an experience associated with gastronomy. The fact is that before perhaps it was not so much valued to eat outside. The fun model has changed. It is a bit of social change. Q: This idea of ​​ritual, experience, doesn't it contrast a bit with the practice of timing the time that a client can be on a table? R: restaurants are looking to be efficient. That efficiency in the process of cooking is greater because we have some tools that help us to expedite many processes. Understood like this, okay. Understood as 'dispatch for people and pass the next' I don't share it. In this country we are very desktops. It's not just going to eat. When you go out to eat and say how and go because I have to go back to work is very different from when you go out to eat and look for that relationship, tell you things. Taking some reeds with friends is a bit too. The experience of eating depends, it can be tapas, a first and second tablecloth, but in the end it is something that frees you from the daily routine. Q: Last March, the founder of Mercadona, Juan Roig, came to say that in the mid -21st century the kitchens will cease to exist in the houses. In mid -June, the president of Ebro Foods coincided with him, do you think the kitchens of the houses will disappear? R: not at all. There are many people who like the world of kitchen, although it has changed the perception of it. Around the kitchen there is a lot of life. I am not very generalized. The habit of cooking is being lost, yes, but there will always be romantic. The kitchen will not disappear at all because it is the heart of the house. A house without kitchen … even if it is not as usual to cook as before. It is the soul of the house. It is not necessary to cook every day because you cannot always. Q: So you think Roig is wrong? R: I don't think he is completely mistaken. No one is right or wrong at all. The kitchen may go to the background, but not completely disappear. At home it cooks a little less, and that is evidence, but the kitchen is what reminds us of our fathers and mothers. To our grandmothers. The kitchen brings you the memory. Q: That is not given to you a pre -cooked shelf.