Ferran

The Inside Story of El Bulli and the Man Who Reinvented Food

By: Colman Andrews

Narrated by: Don Hagen

Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's Summary

More than just the most influential chef of the late- 20th and early 21st centuries, Ferran Adrià is arguably the greatest culinary revolutionary of our time. Hailed as a genius and a prophet by fellow chefs, worshipped (if often misunderstood) by critics and lay diners alike, Adrià is imitated and paid homage to in professional kitchens, and in more than a few private ones, all over the world. A reservation at his restaurant, El Bulli, is so coveted that scoring a table is harder than nabbing 50-yard-line tickets for the Super Bowl.

In his lively, unprecedented close-up portrait of Adrià, award-winning food writer Colman Andrews traces this groundbreaking chef’s rise from resort hotel dishwasher to culinary deity, and the evolution of El Bulli from a German-owned beach bar into the establishment voted annually by an international jury to be “the world’s best restaurant”.

Taking the listener from Adrià’s Franco-era childhood near Barcelona through El Bulli’s wildly creative “disco-beach” days and into the modern-day wonderland of Adrià’s restaurant kitchen and the workshop/laboratory where his innovations are born and refined, Andrews blends sweeping storytelling with culinary history to explore Adrià’s extraordinary contributions to the way we eat. Through original techniques like deconstruction, spherification, and the creation of culinary foams and airs, Adrià has profoundly reimagined the basic characteristics of food’s forms, while celebrating and intensifying the natural flavors of his raw materials. Yet, argues Andrews, these innovations may not be his most impressive achievements. Instead, Adrià’s sheer creativity and courageous imagination are his true genius—a genius that transcends the chef’s métier and can inspire and enlighten all of us.

©2010 Colman Andrews (P)2010 Gildan Media Corp

recasting needed

I'm sure that Don Hagen is one of the best in his field so this criticism is not pointed at him, but in order to maintain the high standard of the contents of the book, whoever casted the narrator should have chosen someone who does speak at least some Spanish. Mr.Hagen has even hard time with Chef Ferran's name.
Maybe just 2 hours of Spanish practise with a native tongue assistant could have highly improved the overall performance.

Great book though, but at times painful to listen

An invitation to know a fraction of a great mind.

Ferran story is remarkable, not a lot of people can navigate in the unknown and dominate it consistently.

Really liked how creativity can be broken down and explained.

If this were a true Ferran book, I could not imagined how it would be.

A well written and impeccably performed book.

A must listen if you're a fan of gastronomy, working in the culinary arts... or if you eat food.

Bravo Bulli

What made the experience of listening to Ferran the most enjoyable?

A great account of what made Ferran the chef he is today, revealing the evolution of the cooking that became the legendary cuisine of el Bulli.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator is the worst thing about this book. He is dry and without emotion, like the most boring history teacher you had at school. I had to struggle through the first hour until I became accustomed to his parched uttering.

Details and Facts

This was my first of this style of info book come biography, i enjoyed the well structured articulate speech flow, it felt almost as though the narrator might have been the author, i see this as a good thing btw.

I knew some facts about Ferran and El Bulli but this was full of great details loved every minute for cooks chefs and gastronoms of all types.