Congresses such as the Encuentro de los Mares are the place to share knowledge and create synergies. One of the best examples of this is the collaboration that began a year ago between Diego Schattenhofer (Taste 1973*, Arona, Tenerife) and Jesús Arrieta, a scientist at the IEO-CSIC Oceanographic Centre of the Canary Islands.

After listening to Schattenhofer's presentation, Arrieta saw that the chef had done three things in his fish curing process that caught his attention: "He extended the shelf life of the fish, he used less energy by not freezing it and, when served in a top restaurant, he increased its value".

In addition to these conclusions, Arrieta was concerned about the fact that around 15% of fish is lost during storage and distribution. In developed countries, around 50% of fish is thrown away, even if it is perfect.

With all these concerns in mind, they started an experiment in February: "We put three sea bass in a fridge, took samples and put three more in every 15 days. After 60 days, we saw that we could extend the life of the fish, with fillets that smelled and tasted good, different but not rare," explains Arrieta. The conclusion? "We had extended the shelf life of the fish. In terms of energy consumption, 35% of the world's fish is consumed frozen, but it has no prestige in haute cuisine. Arrieta's experiment was simple: "I put two double freezers, one at -20 degrees and the other at 2 degrees, and I saw that there was a 56% difference in energy consumption".

As for the quality of the fish obtained, it is the participants who will judge it by tasting some of these matured pieces at lunch and by answering a questionnaire.

The scientist was also interested in the microbes that could spoil the product, produce odours or flavours, or make us sick, but he was "more interested in the healthy fish community, to know if they contribute something to the product. From the DNA sequence, we need to know what these micro-organisms are. Then we can develop cultures to exclude those that spoil the product. Arrieta admitted that he has 10 million sequences on his computer waiting to be analysed. We will continue with other wild fish and, if all goes well, we would like this process to be another conservation technique, that would be our dream".

The enzyme, on the plate

Diego Schattenhofer and his team prepared several dishes for the participants to try. One consisted of slices of sea bass from different seasons, with five different curing times (up to 52 days), mussel cream, pickled seaweed and green mojo. The grouper was tasted with green mojo, citrus and centrifuged fish fumet with pectinase, flowers and beach banana, while the horse mackerel was tasted, on the one hand, after a 14-day enzymatic process and, on the other, bled for 48 hours, with emulsified sauce with crustacean carcasses, begonia, citrus reduction and roasted lime powder and decorative flowers.

Schattenhofer also explained that this enzymatic process "does not work with all fish, especially flat fish such as turbot or sole, which we have to remove in five or six days. The carabinero doesn't even last a day".

From all this, "we have learnt that the enzymatic part does not always work well, but that there are also good things in the processes, such as the aromatic part: if we know why it is produced, it can be inoculated in fresh fish, for example". He has also expressed his intention to test the ultrasound technique to make the muscle more tender.