"I believe that there is not a single formula or a number of steps to follow when planning a dish."

Antonella Mariel Silva, 25-year-old cook from Cinco Salto, Rio Negro, Argentina. At a very young age, she moved to the province of Neuquén, where she stayed in several cities until settling in Zapala, where she decided to study gastronomy. In 2018 he began to study cooking in the capital of the province, where he obtained the title of Gastronomic Professional. His decision for this career began thanks to the love he feels for Patagonia, its climates, its richness in gastronomic supplies and its lands. Parallel to his studies, he began working in various restaurants in the area that have helped him grow within the profession. He is currently working on his own business. She has been dedicated to the industry for 7 years as an amateur and 5 as a professional.

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Mariano Pisani: What is it like behind the scenes in a restaurant in Patagonia?

Antonella Silva: I have not yet had the privilege of working in restaurants within the mountain range, but I did have the honor of giving a live cooking master class representing the center of Neuquén together with a professionally recognized chef from Zapala. . This was in the city of Villa Pehuenia and I can speak from this experience. The truth is that going behind the scenes when cooking in Patagonia is a wonderful experience. Being able to work with local inputs, such as the pine nut (which we have at our fingertips), being able to get to know them and give them many combinations, shapes, colors, aromas and flavors, makes behind the scenes and planning of each dish becomes something magical. I was also able to cook something live in the Laguna Blanca National Park, working with perch, which is a fish that is abundant in this lagoon. It's beautiful to be able to transmit everything we can achieve, the millions of combinations and uses in a single input.

MP: How do you plan a dish with local products that you don't see every day?

AS: I believe that there is not a single formula or a number of steps to follow when planning a dish. With local inputs, I think it goes beyond applying techniques and knowledge. I think it's also about letting your imagination carry you away and taking the risk of trying different combinations. Once knowing the flavor, texture and composition of our main ingredient, the magic begins there, imagining how the final dish could turn out, the height, the shape, the colors. And, in this instance, to be able to achieve it with the addition of other inputs that accompany it in this same harmony. In general, if I am going to use a local product as the main input, I try as far as possible that the other accompanying inputs are also locally produced inputs so that the final result completely leads you to feel and experience Patagonia itself. I think it is also a way of respecting the local product and the producers themselves.

MP: How much do creativity and imagination influence when making the dishes? Does it also influence the local gastronomy?

AS: Of course it influences a lot and I think it's a 50/50 between creativity and knowledge. Personally, the gastronomic institute (to which I went) gave me a lot of material to develop myself at a level and for this reason I am a person who highly values ​​gastronomic knowledge and study, as well as experience. In the local gastronomy is where I have experienced it the most in these years. In each planning I believe that there is the moment in which to apply techniques and knowledge with respect to our inputs, our public, etc. And then creativity and imagination begin, there are even moments in which the two are applied together, knowledge and creativity at the same time. I think they are things that go hand in hand.

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MP: A few days ago, the Brazilian chef, João Vieira, told me that cooking has a social duty to the environment that surrounds it. Do you think that also goes hand in hand with gastronomy?

AS: I follow his work on social networks and I admire him a lot. I believe with complete certainty that it is so. I believe that this social duty also refers to giving back to our environment something of what it offers us. The fact of being able to make the most of an input and create a great dish from it shows the respect that we gastronomicians have for the entire process of said input until it reaches our hands. And I believe that this is a way of fulfilling this social duty towards our environment. Also offering our public something with which they can feel characterized through a plate.

MP: With what dishes do you think they can feel characterized?

AS: I think that a person can feel characterized through a dish when it has certain particularities that have to do with the culture of the place, the soil, the climate, etc. For example: in this area of ​​Patagonia (Primeros Pinos, Villa Pehuenia, Moquehue), we have the Pehuén tree that gives us its fruit "el piñón". And this fruit is something that greatly characterizes the inhabitants of Andean Patagonia. Therefore, the addition of this local input to a dish makes us feel characterized, especially if it is accompanied with more local products such as oysters, pine mushrooms, michay, rosehip, our famous Patagonian lamb, etc. Of course, among all these local ingredients there are many combinations that we can achieve, but if I had to name a dish, I would choose our famous Argentine Empanada, because it really represents our culture. and it shows us that there are many combinations achieved with our local inputs that can be very good. Like, for example, lamb, oyster, trout and even perch empanadas.

MP: And with which dish do you feel identified?

AS: It is somewhat difficult for me to choose just one dish, but the truth is that I feel very identified with pasta and in particular with a stuffed pasta that is trout and pine nut sorrentinos in a pine mushroom sauce. It seems to me that eating them gives the feeling of taking a trip along the route of the seven lakes and takes me back to my childhood in the mountains. So if I have to choose I'll take that one.

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MP: Can it be said that the pine nut marked a before and after in gastronomy?

AS: The truth is that living in the mountains from a very young age, I can say that I always had it included, and when I dedicated myself to gastronomy at a professional level I was able to get to know it and adapt it to many more recipes than I already knew. But yes, I think it is a very versatile ingredient and could mark a before and after in the gastronomy of someone who does not know it.

MP: For you, what is the best thing about cooking?

AS: Being able to enjoy it like life itself. I think that the best thing is to be able to dedicate yourself to cooking with enough love and dedication so that when you try a dish, it returns or transmits that same love with which it was made. I love getting involved in the kitchen and doing it not only by profession, but also because it is what I love to do.