Maria Florence Perez
09/12/2021 6:01 AM
Clarín.com
Gourmet
Updated 9/12/2021 6:01 AM
In the networks circulates the picture of
a pagan saint who is venerated by pastry chefs, pastry chefs and sweet tooth
: "I entrust myself to help me with the weekend orders", "Never miss a cake in my house", "Protect us from temperatures that take away our preparations ”, pray the supplications.
With the required white halo and a whisk in hand,
Saint Osvaldo (Gross) protects his devotees.
The faithful did not appear spontaneously: the director of Pastry of the Argentine Institute of Gastronomy (IAG)
has more than 30 years of career
, has spent decades training the new generations,
his television programs made him known throughout the continent
and his
six books published
They are a permanent source of consultation for amateurs and professionals.
At the hands of Planeta, he
has just reissued
La pastry without secrets.
“It is one of those books that became mythological.
That's why we decided to renovate it and take it out again ”, he explains.
Gross is confident that,
despite the proliferation of chef recipes on the Internet,
the book remains irreplaceable when cooking
: "You put a packet of sugar on top to lock the page and go to work," he says.
Gross with his new book.
Photo: Fernando de la Orden.
This Santa Fe who at the beginning of the 90s abandoned his profession in geochemistry to bet on a gastronomic career that led him to an unthinkable popularity,
lives a present of enjoyment
.
In January he turned 60: "
It is a time to let go of things and choose what each one wants to do,
" he says.
Also, to capitalize on the experience to look at the fashions and the new waves of today in perspective.
-In your book you wrote that the current pastry shop is colder and more vain due to the logic of social networks. Now does the pastry chef's ego weigh more than emotion and taste?
-Sometimes, the skill weighs more, it is sought that everything is like a work of art and the flavor is abandoned a little to achieve those textures that are molded in a certain way.
I differentiate the pastry "to look at" from the pastry "to make".
I am past the stage of doing everything modern successfully.
Now I do what I want and what serves to teach.
People often appreciate that.
Luckily, I don't have to be fighting all those 30-year-olds who kill themselves for doing perfect things.
Let them kill themselves!
That's why I educated them ... (laughs).
The San Osvaldo stamp that circulates among pastry chefs, pastry chefs and sweet tooth.
-There are also young pastry chefs who are committed to highlighting simple products that we feel very much like croissants. Does it have to do with a search for our identity in pastry?
-There is a fashion with all the
viennoiserie
that are the bills like the chocolate bread and the croissant.
That raised recipes such as croissants that became cult-like.
The tourist came to look for that, it is very good.
There are other things like alfajores that could become fashionable and be everywhere in the same way.
In Buenos Aires and many large cities, we have an important tradition of Italian and Spanish pastry chefs.
The pavita locatellis and the salty sacraments attract the attention of chefs who come from abroad because they are not in other parts of the world.
Those things, like crumb sandwiches, can be explored.
-The dulce de leche is in almost all the favorite products of the Argentines. Do we abuse it too much?
-Yes, it ends up being like a cape that buries everything.
Although it is a very good and delicious product, abroad it does not have so much prestige.
At first, it seems very sweet and not so original.
In every country where there is a cow and sugar cane there is something similar.
The cream balls filled with dulce de leche and are very heavy, in a macaron that has such a sweet cap it is much worse.
On the other hand, a millefeuille of dulce de leche is fantastic.
It is totally exportable because it is very good.
-You said some time ago that the chocotorta was a "chocotonta" and many were offended ...
-Yes, they were very offended but I took it on the side of those who teach things and the truth is that the chocotorta has no technique, it is like the Quaker nougat that my mother made.
I would not include them in a curriculum.
Then if she is rich or not is something else but they are not used to teach.
-We Argentines consume a lot of sweets, do you have any kiosk weakness despite the fact that they are industrial products?
-For years in my suitcase there were always Rhodesias, I took them on a trip.
I was leaving for twenty days and had been twenty.
Anything with a crispy wafer inside I like.
Bonafide's Nugatón seems fantastic to me and Kit Kat, too.
Now there are some Vasalissa bars that I really like.
Anyway, I am not very kiosk, nor very ice cream.
I wouldn't especially go for an ice cream cone.
I buy the package of Rhodesias at the grocery store and put them in the fridge.
It gives me less guilt that they are cold than at room temperature.
Osvaldo Gross was a jury for El Gran Premio de la Cocina.
-Do you consider that programs like
Bake Off
are educational?
Do they help people to open their minds to different preparations and flavors?
-They open their heads in that sense and also teach the difficulty of achieving a product.
Because there, just showing the flaws, the public realizes that it is not so easy.
The work that the pastry chef does is highlighted and the reason for the price of these products is understood, the hours that are invested in making them perfect.
-Would you like to participate in a reality show like this? Did they ever summon you?
-No, the first season they did not summon me and the public was furious for weeks because they understood that if there was an authority in pastry it was me and I had to be there.
I still don't know if I would adapt to such a scripted program.
It would be difficult to answer whether I would like to be or not because I don't know how I would get along with that.
In these formats that come from abroad, spontaneity is lost a bit.
-You are the great reference in pastry for many years. Now that after Bake off and MasterChef
Damián Betular has
gained so much place in the media, do you feel him as an heir of yours?
-He is a good pastry chef but there are hundreds like him in Argentina.
That is the bad thing about reality shows, that many times stars start to be created from the appearance on the open screen and there are many super talented people who do the work very anonymously and it costs them much more to make their way, start a business, succeed and else.
From that point of view, it is very unfair to them.
-On television other things are also played such as charisma, not only professional talent ...
-Of course, but they have written to me and they have told me: if you gave Betular classes, then you are good.
The sentence is reversed.
And it's not that he's good because I taught him.
He had a fantastic career, in hotels.
I admire him professionally.
As much as his place as executive chef at the Hyatt (where I was kicked from) solves, as his prowess for the cameras.
But sometimes that deification brings a lot of discontent in people who work a lot and need a pampering.
Not everything has to be concentrated in three or four heads.
-Your name is a brand in itself, why have you never had a restaurant or other type of business?
-In part I think that by inheritance: my father worked from 18 to 65 years in the same company.
I started almost 30 in the bakery at the Hyatt and if they hadn't fired me, I'd still be there.
It is true that I do different tasks, I do not put all the eggs in the same basket.
Until 2019 he traveled the world teaching.
But an enterprise with personnel in Argentina is very difficult.
Any gastronomic talks to you about that: the lawsuits, the whole tax issue.
I'd rather have tea in a five-star hotel for a year or so.
Something where you dedicate yourself to pastry and you don't have to wonder if the freezer chamber is broken and when they are going to repair it.
Osvaldo Gross and his creations in a production for Clarín.
Photo: Archive.
-Have you ever said that you would like to do a gastronomic review: what details do you think speak of the quality of a restaurant?
-In principle, the general aspect: how are the tables, the cutlery, that it has a tablecloth, that everything is neat and clean.
That the menu is not eternally long: with 10 entrees, 10 dishes and ten desserts we are fine.
And that the service is cordial.
With regard to prices, it must be borne in mind that depending on what one wants to eat, they will find different ranges.
Often times the price has nothing to do with the quality of the risotto, for example.
You will pay to have a 50 x 50 cloth napkin instead of a paper one or some fantastic paintings that create a party atmosphere.
In a much more popular place they will not charge you so much and you will eat delicious anyway.
But the atmosphere and personalized attention are paid.
-You may also be interested in:
Osvaldo Gross's best recipes
Look also
The best croissants in Buenos Aires according to pastry chefs and cooks
Who is the Argentine baker who made the cover of a prestigious North American magazine