`An Interview with Juan Echanove - Olive Oil Times

An Interview with Juan Echanove

By Olivarama
Jan. 30, 2013 10:29 UTC

My hum­ble rec­om­men­da­tion to Jaén would be to invest more in R+D and less in the bulk pro­duc­tion of cer­tain oils

The major­ity of Spaniards dis­cov­ered their dis­pro­por­tion­ate pas­sion for gas­tron­omy through the pro­gramme, Un país para comérselo. To date, Televisión Española has run two sea­sons of it. To deal with this pro­fes­sional chal­lenge, Juan didn’t need to rehearse any role, although he is accus­tomed to doing so because of his pro­fes­sion as an actor. On the con­trary, this time round he just had to be him­self. Without any arti­fice. A task that was not par­tic­u­larly dif­fi­cult for him, espe­cially when we remem­ber that he was the one to come up with the orig­i­nal idea, its direc­tor and the pro­tag­o­nist.

When Juan Echanove decided to embark on his lat­est tele­vi­sion adven­ture, he couldn’t even begin to imag­ine the trail of awards he would soon receive for the same both in Spain and abroad. In real­ity, these well-earned prizes are not for his work alone. Imanol Arias, his insep­a­ra­ble travel com­pan­ion, was also dis­tin­guished, as was the entire team accom­pa­ny­ing them on their gas­tro­nomic trip through the var­i­ous Spanish regions.

Episode after episode, they all made every pos­si­ble effort to demon­strate that our cui­sine still holds many secrets, hid­den in the least expected nooks and cran­nies, and await­ing dis­cov­ery through the warmth of their inhab­i­tants.

Committed to the cause, Juan has never fal­tered in his deter­mi­na­tion to spread the pecu­liar­i­ties of our raw mate­ri­als. Just a few months ago, he was named hon­orary ambas­sador for the cen­te­nary tree con­ser­va­tion project, Aceite y Olivos Milenarios del Territorio del Sénia, which we already described in detail in our last edi­tion of OLIVARAMA.

Naturally, Juan was not cho­sen by chance for this role. Not by a long shot. Like us, this actor orig­i­nally from Madrid, tries not to miss any of the gas­tro­nomic fairs cel­e­brated in our coun­try. Every time des­tiny has brought us together at one of these events, he has always shown his weak­ness for gourmet olive oils. So much so, that he didn’t hes­i­tate to wel­come our mag­a­zine and even pose with it. A detail we appre­ci­ate.

It would appear that Spanish gas­tron­omy does not hold any secrets for you. This is so much the case that, among other things, you now have a per­sonal blog ded­i­cated to the plea­sures of the palate, you have pub­lished your own book of recipes, Curso de cocina para novatos; and you have directed the hit TV pro­gramme Un país para comérselo… Where does this love of food come from?

Well, basi­cally from the fact that since the age of 18 I’ve been jour­ney­ing the length and breadth of the coun­try with trav­el­ling troupes of play­ers.
Thanks to this, I’ve had the chance to meet all classes of chefs, who have been reveal­ing the secrets of their pro­fes­sion to me.

I imag­ine that when you were trav­el­ling with Imanol Arias and the rest of the team all over the coun­try to reveal the typ­i­cal gas­tron­omy of each region, you came across new and tan­ta­lis­ing sur­prises. If you had to choose one, which would you high­light?

The biggest sur­prise was to see how the pas­sage of knowl­edge from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion is so con­sol­i­dated and the fact that the influ­ence of the major inter­na­tional kitchens have already taken hold in Spanish cui­sine. I would also under­line the strength of con­trasts exis­tent in Navarre. Specifically, between the green Selva de Irati and the desert of Bárdenas Reales.

I’m not sure whether in Navarre or some­where else, but I bet you came across some dish or other which because of its obscu­rity, or dif­fi­cult prepa­ra­tion or pro­duc­tion, does not have a guar­an­teed future ahead of it. Which dish to you think should be sal­vaged from obliv­ion for its gas­tro­nomic qual­i­ties?

In this case, I would choose the cod tripe and the fil­loas de san­gre (blood crepes).

On your TV pro­gramme, when you vis­ited Jaén some of the province’s pro­duc­ers did not fully iden­tify with the dated image of the oil indus­try in the province that was con­veyed. What is your real per­cep­tion of olive oil from Jaén in the cur­rent times?

The first thing you learn when you start to make a TV pro­gramme is that you can’t always please every­one. Apart from offer­ing Jaén all of my affec­tion and recog­nis­ing its efforts, I would humbly rec­om­mend they invest more in R + D and less in the bulk pro­duc­tion of cer­tain oils which, under the man­tle of extra vir­gin olive oil, do not actu­ally reach the min­i­mum organolep­tic qual­ity required. This is a rec­om­men­da­tion I would make to myself as well, as a Spaniard, in my field of work.

Changing scene and trav­el­ling to the Territorio del Sénia, you recently took on the role of ambas­sador for the thou­sand-year-old olive trees of the region, located between the bor­ders of Aragon, Valencia and Catalonia. What does your role con­sist of specif­i­cally?

It con­sists of receiv­ing all of the strength and his­tory of these thou­sand-year-old olive trees and, there­fore, pro­mot­ing that unique beauty wher­ever I go.

What would you high­light about these majes­tic trees, their envi­ron­ment and the oil they pro­duce?

Regarding the trees and their set­ting, I would empha­sise the wrin­kles that mark the olive grove which remind us that his­tory is the end result of human suf­fer­ing. Regarding the oil, I would focus on its purity and Mediterranean aroma.

Do you use these or other olive oils in your kitchen? How do you use it in your every­day life?

Yes of course. Every day I have toast with oil for break­fast, and some­times I repeat the same as a snack. I almost always use oil from the Territorio del Sénia for this.

At present, it seems that if the Spanish tor­tilla is not decon­structed” or if the ice-cream we have for dessert does not taste like black pud­ding from Burgos and brim with liq­uid nitro­gen, then gas­tron­omy can­not awe us… Do you agree with this ever-more fre­quent per­cep­tion? Is the tra­di­tional, every­day cui­sine at risk?

I have the soul of a child and have always adored sur­prises. There is as much risk in fly­ing too high as there is in hold­ing too tightly to tra­di­tion.

In your blog, I read that the episode of your TV pro­gramme ded­i­cated to Madrid regional cui­sine was one of the most com­plex to make. In real­ity, many believe that this region has lit­tle to offer apart from its tra­di­tional stew or offal. As a native of Madrid, how would you describe the cook­ing of your home­town? Does it use suf­fi­ciently high qual­ity raw mate­ri­als to com­pete with other regions?

Madrid, since it is the most obvi­ous –and unfair- image of cen­tral­ism, runs the risk of tak­ing on the role of becom­ing solely a great cen­tral mar­ket. Madrid is more than just a city with an air­port. It is an autonomous region replete with dis­tricts that pro­duce excel­lence.

Knowing that we are a mag­a­zine that spe­cialises in olive oil and gas­tron­omy, what recipe would you sur­prise the OLIVARAMA team with if you had to arrange a din­ner party?

I would make some cod fil­lets cooked at a low tem­per­a­ture and I would place a bot­tle of olive oil from the Territorio del Sénia in the cen­tre of the table. A guar­an­teed hit!

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

An extra vir­gin: Rincón de la Subbética, by Priego de Córdoba.
An olive vari­etal: Farga.
An olive grove land­scape: Territorio de Sénia.
A restau­rant that takes a spe­cial inter­est in olive oil: Hispania (Arenys de Mar, Barcelona).
A dish with extra vir­gin olive oil: Summer toma­toes.
A wish for olive oil: Presence in the world.

Juan Echanove

Born in Madrid on 1 April 1961, Juan Echanove is a renowned film, the­atre and tele­vi­sion actor, as well as a proven gas­tron­o­mist. Proof of this lies in his nom­i­na­tion this year as an Academic of the Spanish Royal Gastronomy Academy and his dis­tinc­tion with the award, Premio Conde de los Andes 2011, which he received in July from this same entity together with the Cofradía de la Buena Mesa for his role as the best artis­tic cre­ator in the field of gas­tron­omy.

In the­atre he has shone for his roles in El Cerdo, by José Luis Castro; Alrededor de Borges, by Jorge Eines; Como canta una ciu­dad de noviem­bre a noviem­bre, by Lluis Pasqual; El Verdugo, by Luis Olmos; Plataforma, by Calixto Bieito; or Desaparecer which, also directed by Bieito, was played in both Spain and abroad.

He has par­tic­i­pated in over 30 films, under the direc­tion of some of the most pres­ti­gious Spanish direc­tors. To men­tion but a few, he has worked on Tiempo de silen­cio, by Vicente Aranda; Divinas pal­abras and Siempre hay un camino a la derecha, by José Luis García Sánchez; Bajarse al moro, by Fernando Colomo; Madre Gilda, by Francisco Regueiro; Mi her­mano del alma, by Mariano Barroso; La flor de mi secreto, by Pedro Almodóvar; Sus ojos se cer­raron, by Jaime Chávarri; and Alatriste, by Agustín Díaz Yanes.

He has also worked on a num­ber of hit TV series, such as Turno de ofi­cio, by Antonio Mercero, Manolo Matji and Echanove him­self; Chicas de hoy en día, by Fernando Colomo; Hermanos de leche, by Carlos Serrano; Pepa y Pepe, by Manuel Iborra and Un país para comérselo, together with Imanol Arias. At present, he is work­ing on Cuéntame, by Tito Fernández, Agustín Crespi and Antonio Cano.

In the course of his career, Juan has received numer­ous awards, such as the Spanish Goya for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, the Silver Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festival, var­i­ous Fotogramas de Plata awards, the Vanity Best New Artist Award, var­i­ous MAX awards, the Premio Valle Inclán de las Artes Escénicas or the Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Festival, among many, many more.

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