2023-07-16 08:08:00
Life is only complete with the memory of life, said the legendary French author Marcel Proust.
He considered that the maximum intensity of life does not occur in the present but when it is remembered from the future. And it is there where we find enormous beauty.
This is the pleasant sensation that remains when conversing with the young chef Sebastián Caliva (44), a Cordovan who, from the kitchen of the Hotel Tower in Neuquén capital, positions himself as a respected and prestigious chef in Patagonia. More than a cook, Sebastián seems like a sentiment tracker.
Who always has a spare heart.
“You have to look inside to see clearly,” says someone who seems to have chewed more of his life than the dishes he has under his belt.
And when that look reaches its beginnings and with a snap he sees himself here on the heights of the Tower, that man, at that moment, shares a face of satisfaction.
He was born in a town of 1,000 inhabitants, Villa Río Icho Cruz, 14 km from Villa Carlos Paz and regarding 50 km from Córdoba capital, along National Route 14, Punilla Department, and grew up freely among the streams, mountains, and rivers of the area. .
Son of a single mother, the second of twelve siblings. Grandson of a guitarist and bricklayer grandfather, housewife grandmother. “Very humble family with many shortcomings and with many values as well, instilling respect for others and work and to fight and seek progress. I am the first of all generations in the family to finish high school and go on to a tertiary degree. The study was not instilled much, only the culture of work”, says Sebastián (@sebacaliva22).
Although her mother cooked at home, the person she saw doing this the most was her grandmother, who lived a few blocks from her house. “I remember seeing how he made the potato gnocchi and stealing some of them raw to eat. He also helped him knead the bread in a wooden pan already cured from so many kneadings ”, go on.
Since they lived in the countryside, they did not have electricity or gas. They would walk a kilometer to collect water and another kilometer for firewood. “I have in my memory very present walking through the mountains looking for firewood and collecting pine mushrooms, and there is a plant that we call “Coconut plant” with a trunk full of thorns, its branches very similar to the aguaribay branch ( that of the false pink pepper) and around that plant grew dark yellow mushrooms above and lighter yellow below similar to fresh pine mushrooms. We collected them, cut them into thin slices and let them dry in the sun on sheets of newspaper; then they were kept in a jar and used for a polenta with tuco or a good tuco for some noodles”, he recalls.
“The first dish that I have a notion of having cooked when I was 8 years old was a soup with chopped vegetables and some meat, for my brothers, I was 8 years old. I learned it by watching my grandmother and my mother cook, a great bursar who with a potato and an onion do miracles for you ”, she graphs.
At the age of 10, following selling newspapers on the town’s main avenue, he went to a “Piedra Negra” grill, on the banks of the river, to work as a waiter. He “Takes the platinum platters with the ribs made on the grill and the vacuum on the grill. It was a free tooth.”
Here is another point that contributes to your gastronomic journey. The mom of the owner of the grill was Italian: “I remember seeing and trying those braised meat ravioli (now I know the term), or brain and spinach, with a filet or bolognese, knife-cut noodles with beef stew… all one craziness”. Obviously he watched how they were made.
“My grandmother made tortillas and homemade bread for the owner of the grill. I have so marked in my memory the sensation of putting my hand in the dough to wet the flour and then adding the not so hot fat and punching inside that dark wooden pan and then kneading and cutting the buns to then shape it while letting it rest to bake it. Every time I knead at home (we don’t buy bread, I do it) my head automatically travels to those moments. I think that at the time I did not value what I was doing, but today I understand it from a distance: I was inadvertently training for gastronomy and life”, recover.
At the age of 14 they took him to work with his grandfather, who was in charge of cooking for a crew of masons. He mate cooked with peperina and homemade bread with chicharrón at 10 in the morning and wheat stew or lentil stew at noon. “The stew was prepared with the prior guidance of my grandmother.”
“I remember going to the stream to gather fresh watercress for salad or to the field to look for mushrooms to pickle. I used them as a snack before lunch with pickled aubergines, always served with homemade bread made in a clay oven, ”he adds.
At the age of 16, already living in Carlos Paz, he works as a waiter in “Sckorpion”, at the entrance of the town’s chairlift. At 18 he enrolls in the night to attend high school. At the age of three he finished it and thought regarding pursuing hotel or tourism, but he was not very convinced.
At that time, “Tarjeta Naranja sent clients a magazine called “Revista del estudiante” And for the first time I see the ad that said “you want to be a professional chef…” and three cooking schools that were in the capital Córdoba appeared. One was Celia, the other Azafrán and the last one, Tomás Sánchez cooking and pastry school. This is what I want”. He called the first two and did not like the treatment he received. The last one, and not by ruling out, he was amazed by the warmth in the reception.
“It was a lot of sacrifice to study because then I was already the father of my first son, Yoel, who is 23 years old today. It was to work and three times a week to take school at 1:30 p.m. to Córdoba capital, study and go back to work. Taking care of my son… the truth is that it was a lot of everything but it was worth every minute I spent in that school. I didn’t feel tired, I wanted to learn, I liked smelling all the seasonings, seeing new products, cooking techniques, armed with mise en place, I was in my sauce”.
While studying, the cook at the hotel resigned on December 23. “That’s when I volunteered to cook and started on December 26 to cook for a group of students from Ushuaia. what did i cook Chicken with green cream, with natural potatoes.
When his second daughter Martina was almost 2 years old, Sebastián felt that he was stuck in the kitchen, that he wanted to grow professionally and wanted to continue studying, but because of the salary he had, he might not, where he was, he might not do more than he did for a matter of costs. “Then I meet my current partner, Alejandra. She, a native of San Antonio Oeste, studied and graduated as an architect in Córdoba, who was leaving for Neuquén in 20 days, a city that was familiar to me for various reasons. One, my mother had a partner who is the father of some of my younger brothers, who in their youth, together with friends, had worked in Neuquén”.
He needs a change and as soon as the summer season ended he resigned and came to Neuquén. “I spread my curriculum throughout the city in the 15 days I was here, I returned to Córdoba with all the desire to gather my things and come. I had my two children there and I can assure you that it was the most difficult decision I had to make in my life, but I did it. It cost a lot at first. But I did it and I’ve been here for 14 years now. I have another son, Burak, he is from Neuquén, who is regarding to turn 8 years old. The two that I have in Córdoba come whenever they can or we travel when we can. Summer season they both come here”.
“I chose Neuquén because I feel that you can grow here, it is a city that is in full gastronomic development and I think that little by little people are encouraged to try new things. And this excites me.
Regional products drive you crazy and trigger your culinary creativity. The goats from the north of Neuquén, the turkeys, the chichoca, the ñaco, the nickname, the trout from Junín and Aluminé. The cheeses from Ventimiglia, the red fruits from Plottier, the smoked products from Finca La Araucaria, the wines from the wineries, the mushrooms from the area, “the oysters in season are fabulous to work with, the apples from Alto Valle. For me the vedette is the pear, a noble and versatile product; there is no other like it. As a garnish for a dish, for a starter, a risotto with pears and brie cheese, with wine, sparkling wine, in salads….
In August of this year he celebrates his 10th birthday at the Tower hotel. “Currently I run the hotel’s gastronomy, with its points of sale: snack bar on the ground floor, piano bar on the second floor, business event rooms, the Great Room located on the first floor, the Meeting Room on the second floor and the Condor Room on the second floor. third floor of the hotel. Aura restaurant that is open to the general public, located on the first floor of the hotel.
Working in a hotel restaurant from his point of view has nothing to do with a street restaurant. “You work more slowly, you can organize yourself in advance. In the hotel restaurant you serve people, you give them warmth, you serve the client, so that he feels comfortable that he feels like he is in his house. You can pamper him perhaps with a recipe from his country. We have had guests who have been here for months and they have already tried all the dishes on the menu and they ask if you can do something special, perhaps from their country of origin and that comforts the client and enriches them as a professional”.
On the other hand, “in some restaurants on the street you order, you take out dishes following dishes, you don’t stop to think regarding how the customer ate.”
The difference between serving and dispatching is listed several times in the conversation. “Here, at Aura I have a varied menu, I try to ensure that each and every one of the dishes I make have a balance between their products. And always highlight the star product of the dish. I do not use industrial broths; each protein that I use has its sauce with its own cooking juice. The garnishes are elaborate”.
“My cuisine is fusion, there are dishes with a bit of different cultures,” he defines.
Beyond the different preparation techniques “the greatest expectation for me is when they bring the dish to the diner’s table and he looks at it as it is assembled and designed, he feels the aroma. And in the first bite you see that happy face of the diner and they nod their head and look at the plate and go with another bite until they finish the whole plate… I think that’s when you feel satisfied. They are sparks of happiness for me”.
As with almost all the cooks that one talks regarding their lives and trajectories, in the case of Sebastián one also sees a newly assembled or unassembled suitcase all the time in his story. The suitcase as a metaphor for what is lost, what is mixed, what disappears and is found once more.
“More than once it seems that the road was long and difficult, but in my case I conclude that absolutely everything that happened to me and made it happen was worth it”, the interviewee sincerely.
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