Chef Ricard Camarena, in Cheste: “Today we are going to fill three trailers with more than 25,000 portions of food” | Gastronomy: recipes, eating places and drinks | EUROtoday

“Today we are going to fill three trailers with food and distribute more than 25,000 portions.” This is what Ricard Camarena says, a Valencian chef with two Michelin stars, who has spent 24 hours in an industrial warehouse cooking with 80 individuals below his route and that of his spouse, Mari Carmen Bañuls (co-owner, normal director of the Ricard Camarena firm). “We could be more, due to the number of people who have contacted us to come and lend a hand, but we are not capable of managing more people,” he says.

Yesterday, at 9 within the morning, Camarena was getting ready to prepare dinner lentils in his restaurant and make sandwiches to distribute to those that got here to his institution, positioned within the north of town of Valencia. That’s when the sunshine got here on. “I called the owners of Costa Brava Food, a meat company with which we manufacture processed products, and asked them if we could use all the production capacity of the factory to cook there. In their facilities we make everything from croquettes to empanadas, and they told me to go there quickly, that they would remove all the product from their chambers. They have donated tons of food,” he says on the cellphone.

The warehouse is in Cheste, probably the most affected areas, “but it is on a hill and, although a little water entered, the facilities are up and running and here we are cooking with your generosity and that of many companies and individuals. It’s easy to say, but bear the economic part and stop producing what makes you money… When things go wrong, we all make ourselves available to everyone,” says the chef.

Mari Carmen Buñols is the other pillar of this operation. With the help of two people, he takes care of all logistics, receives products and manages shipping to the most affected areas. “This is being complicated because we are doing it with volunteer transporters, and Mari Carmen is in contact with municipal police and mayors, all of whom are overwhelmed. We seek direct contact to see the real needs they have and how we can solve them in inaccessible and practically isolated areas such as Cheste, Chiva or Buñol,” explains Camarena. “We have people from our company who live in these areas, and we are organizing private brigades with vans that come, collect and go to specific places to distribute the food. We do two delivery and reception schedules with trailers, and Mari Carmen has organized the pick-ups in the towns.”

Yesterday they left the ship in Cheste at twelve at night and today, at seven in the morning, they were already there. “I spent the 30 kilometers of the journey crying, but in 24 hours we have achieved incredible efficiency, and today, at eleven in the morning, we had produced the same amount as yesterday all day.” Today they cooked a lot of stew. “We have made about 2,800 kilos of meatballs with sauce and greens, 2,000 kilos of beef shank in sauce with potatoes, about 6,000 kilos of breaded rooster and croquettes, 800 kilos of chickpeas with meat, and now we’re getting ready beans with emperor, which we A pallet simply arrived. Additionally, since in lots of areas they will already prepare dinner as a result of they have already got electrical energy and water, in the identical shipments we’re going to ship many trays of completed merchandise (hamburgers, steaks or preserves), so that individuals can have them at house, simply in case. “, account. “When the food emergency passes, we will think about how else we can help. The important thing is to go from maximum impact to minimum. If you can only get mud, then get mud. In seven days I will be removing it. The misfortune is going to be unimaginable. It is something unspeakable. But being of service to others and seeing that with what you do you can improve their lives in some way is one of the most beautiful things there is. There is no feeling that surpasses that: neither money nor power. Helping others is true power.”

He says that the inspiration to carry this out has been the work that José Andrés does with Word Central Kitchen. “But since I had everything at hand and could include the strategy of cooking in an industry, something that until now we had never done, I launched myself and it has been exponential. If by moving the spatula you can make 20 servings of chickpeas, great, and if you can make 100,000, the movement is the same,” he says.

World Central Kitchen in Valencia

Pepa Muñoz, chef at El Cuenco de Pepa and member of World Central Kitchen (WCK) in Spain, has been the one who has mobilized chefs from the area such as Bego Rodrigo (La Salita restaurant, Valencia) or Carito Lourenço and Germán Carrizo (restaurant Fierro and Maipi bar, both in Valencia), among many, to organize the preparation and distribution of food. This is how Bego Rodrigo tells it: “The first nights, without any organization, were very hard. I made 40 trips with my motorcycle to distribute sandwiches, give hugs, and bring batteries so people could recharge their phones. But since Thursday, WCK has been in the facilities that the Tourism Center (CdT Turisme) has given up to be able to cook and Ricard Camarena in the warehouse, and I make more phone calls with all the companies and individuals that call me to send food and distribute it. On the weekend there are more hands, when they are missing starting Monday, I will start cooking, because this will not end next week and we will have to be there when no one is there anymore. This is going to take a long time and I tell it to all the people who are sending us food, which is a lot,” he explains.

The Fierro restaurant’s communications team adds that since WCK asked for bread on Friday, hundreds of bakers are helping. But not only from Valencia, which have joined in from the Guild of Bakers and Pastry Chefs, but also from cities like Madrid, bakeries like Madreamiga or Panem have joined in. “We are WCK ambassadors and they asked us for bread, because they don’t even get flour,” says Bego San Pedro, from Madreamiga. “I sent an audio to the WhatsApp group that we Madrid bakers have and we just sent a van with hamburgers, panettones, cookies, muffins, bread and water through some guys from Valencia who live in Madrid and who are going up and down carrying things ”.

The chef Vicky Sevilla, like many other places throughout Spain, has put her restaurant Arrels, in the Valencian town of Sagunto, at the service of citizens. “My partner almost drowned, a truck driver rescued her, we are between helping and in shock,” says Sevilla. “From the first day we offered the location as a food collection point, and people have turned to it. Now we are going to start making food that the town councils of Sagunto and Quart de les Valls, which is my hometown, have told us that they are going to be in charge of distributing. The helplessness we feel is enormous, so we start cooking, which is what we can support the most.”