10 Questions for Mario Batali
By Mario Batali
What drew you to Spain for your new show? Carly Harder, LAS VEGAS
Well, the main reason is that I was fortunate enough to spend my high school years there. At that time, everything was kind of odd and just a little bit burnt and a little wet with oil. And just like the English have in the past 25 years, they've figured out in Spain that they have the most amazing products and this amazing tradition.
What is your favorite Spanish dish? Sue Hansen, TALLAHASSEE, FLA.
Probably the most eye-opening dish for me was something called berberechos a la plancha, kind of a cross between scallops and clams, just thrown on the griddle. There's nothing on them. Maybe lemon. And it was just the greatest thing.
Gwyneth Paltrow as a co-star? Are you kidding? Janet Martin, NEW YORK CITY
Why not Gwyneth Paltrow? I think that perhaps you're thinking of Gwyneth as a macrobiotic vegan who is too thin for her own good. Gwyneth is a delightful person to hang around with. She also spent time in high school in Spain and speaks with a much more beautiful accent than I do.
You have years of successful recipes. Have any attempts produced a disastrous dish? Jonathan Yost, POMONA, CALIF.
Without a doubt, there have been as many disasters as there have been successes. What usually goes wrong is not anything technical. It's my misunderstanding of my clientele's basic trust for me. We did a pig's-ear salad that I found delightful and provocative, but it was a loser.
Do you enjoy cooking for celebrities more, and do you change your cooking for them? Roby Dhanju, PLANO, TEXAS
I don't change anything for someone unless I know they don't eat something. I don't create dishes that only celebs or friends would get. There's a democracy to the food that goes out in all my restaurants.
I heard that you and the Food Network had a falling out. Is that true? Agnes Turner, IRVINE, CALIF.
Absolutely not. The Food Network loves my presence on Iron Chef. They have a lot of new talent, and their business model isn't necessarily completely [in sync] with mine.
What has been your favorite secret ingredient to work with on Iron Chef? Ben Doty, SYCAMORE, ILL.
I think my favorite secret ingredient was probably Parmigiano-Reggiano. The potential for that ingredient is infinite. I also always love the live fish because I know it's going to taste good. The freshness of the ingredient is always the most important thing.
What country is the current epicenter of culinary vision? Joe Price, TULSA, OKLA.
Spain. It is the place where the most outlandish and yet most often delicious places are. At El Bulli, they brought us a bowl of what looked like bean soup, but the beans were actually a bean puree that had been spherified. Why de-beanify it in the first place? The reason is that it provokes you to think something entirely different about that food.
What was your favorite thing to eat as a child? Kristin Kelly, SPOKANE, WASH.
My mom made something that I always requested for my birthday called mock chicken legs. She would take ground veal and ground pork and mix it up with a bunch of spices, and then take a Popsicle stick and put it inside a little ball of the meat. Then you bake them. It was like a veal-and-pork hamburger rolled in ground-up Rice Krispies. It was delightful.
If you could choose any chef in history to face in a cooking competition, who would it be? Mike Doyle ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.
I think that the most interesting chefs on the planet right now are probably [Ferran] Adri`a, [Thomas] Keller, Pierre Gagnaire; but there's a whole world of Japanese cooking out there that I don't even understand. The most exciting thing for me would be to take a couple of us from Iron Chef America and drop us in Japan. That's where the real battle, I think, would ensue.
VIDEO AT TIME.COM
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