The flavor does not depend only on taste or smell, but also on memory

Mamá Heladera and El Tribut have conceived a proposal as unusual as it is suggestive: the world's first frozen library. Until April 26, the Barcelona restaurant serves six literary classics transformed into ice creams by Irene Iborra and chef Albert Suárez, in a proposal that transfers research in neurogastronomy from the realm of intimate memory to that of shared literary imagination. The project also counts on the complicity of Lluc Crusellas, who has created a chocolate figure that inhabits the restaurant as another piece of this story, and with the images with which Maria José Gil Ulloa accompanies each of the proposals.

From The Odyssey to Ulysses, passing through Tirant lo Blanch, The Jungle Book, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Out of Africa, each creation seeks to translate a narrative universe into flavor, texture and memory. In this interview, Iborra explains how this process is built and to what extent an ice cream can activate memories that seemed forgotten.

--- Since 2021 you have been working with neurogastronomy to transform memories into ice creams. What exactly is a "neuro-ice cream"?

--- It is an ice cream designed taking into account all the variables involved in the perception of flavor. Not only what happens in the mouth, but also the imaginary that is built before arriving at the ice cream parlor, the prior expectation and everything that accompanies the experience. That is why it is not conceived as a conventional ice cream, but as a piece capable of activating memories, emotions and associations. Flavor does not depend only on taste or smell, but also on memory and the emotional bond that is activated.

--- In this project, you do not start from an intimate memory, but from a shared imaginary around each book. Does that change the way you create?

--- The mechanism is quite similar: it's about imagining what that universe built within the book could evoke. In this case, El Tribut had already done a first interpretation work. For example, with Out of Africa the idea of chocolate immediately appeared. And it's curious, because it's not native to Africa. But here the important thing was not so much the literal origin as the colors, the light, the spices and the feeling the book leaves. Within that imaginary, chocolate fit.

--- How is that translated in a case like The Odyssey?

--- We wanted to go for a clearly Mediterranean profile: olive oil, sea salt, and lemon. A combination very linked to the sea, but also to an idea of family cooking and, above all, to that feeling of coming home.

--- With The Jungle Book the starting point is different.

--- Yes, because we realized that almost no one had read the book. The real reference was the Disney movie, and that changes everything. Banana, honey, or those spicy ants interpreted through chili appear. You no longer work so much with the original work as with the collective memory that people retain of it.

--- And in the case of One Hundred Years of Solitude?

--- Here the starting point was clear: coffee. But also that whole tropical universe of Aracataca, the original Macondo. We added coconut and a sweet touch like arequipe, because coffee with coconut works very well and helps to build that dense and humid atmosphere.

--- Which one was the hardest for you to conceptualize?

--- Perhaps Tirant lo Blanch. It's a very sensual book and we wanted to work with fig, but it wasn't in season. Pomegranate alone was a bit flat, so we added orange to also connect with Valencia. From there, sage and honey to give it more layers. It wasn't about being literal, but about building a sensation.

--- Is there any book you proposed?

--- Yes, Ulysses, by James Joyce. It's a book that almost everyone has tried to read at some point. I myself have tried three times! Researching, I discovered that in chapter eight Bloom orders a gorgonzola sandwich with Burgundy wine. It seemed to me an image that allowed for building a dense, intense, and somewhat difficult ice cream. It's not something you would eat in large quantities, but it provokes you. Like the book.

--- Will these ice creams also be available at Mamá Heladera?

--- The idea is to gradually introduce them during the summer. But for now, they can only be tasted at El Tribut.

--- When you work with memories, what is the hardest thing to achieve?

--- To convince that this flavor makes sense within the story. The ice cream can be good, but here coherence with the narrative is required. There are many possible interpretations and you have to build one that works.

"Our secret is to change the form of the memory. Not to reproduce it, but to keep a part of it"

--- It's a paper to fill out by hand, with quite open-ended questions. Look, I'll read you the first one: "Write about a special moment where you remember aromas, tastes, textures, sounds… describe it as best you can." From there, we get more specific: where you were, with whom, what flavor or aroma predominates in that memory…

--- Are there memories that are especially difficult to translate?

--- Yes, there are very complex ones. For example, a client wanted to reproduce the smell of a baby, linked to the memory that, right after having it, she ate a lot of fuet. It's a very powerful memory, but very difficult to transfer to an ice cream.

--- Do you remember any particularly revealing cases?

--- A girl once came in who wanted to recover the sandwiches her father used to make her when she was little, with bread, ham, cheese, and egg. I tried to transfer that memory to the ice cream as faithfully as possible, but it didn't work. I made a sweeter version and, when I let her try both, she preferred the original, exactly the one I wouldn't have chosen. It was an important lesson: not to try to improve the memory with your criteria, but to respect it.

--- Are there flavors that connect with more people than you expected?

--- One of the first ice creams we made was béchamel. I thought it would be something very niche and, instead, it's very popular. It still surprises me.

--- Do you also work with your own memories?

--- Yes. I have one with my partner, from the early days. Açaí, banana, peanut butter… and lychee, because I wore a perfume with that note. It's a very intimate memory. I also have another linked to my mother and my aunt, who died young. And many others that come from trips or ingredients I discover abroad.

--- When people look back, what do they tend towards more: childhood, love, loss…?

--- They usually look for something they no longer have. Above all, family moments, childhood, grandmother's recipes appear. Also landscapes. People appear less directly, but when they do, they have a lot of emotional weight.

--- And how is all that transformed into an ice cream?

--- Our secret is to change the form of the memory. Not to reproduce it, but to keep a part of it, often the aroma. In the end, there is no exact taste of the past, but rather the way we remember it. As some say, reality is a collective delusion.

--- What is one of the latest ice creams you've been asked for?

--- We have been asked to recreate the taste of condensed milk that they were allowed to taste at the end of the adults' coffee. That is, it does not seek the taste of a coffee with condensed milk, but that of condensed milk with a slight coffee aftertaste.

--- How many ice cream requests have you received over all these years?

--- So many! I keep them all in different folders that I review from time to time. I would say there are surely more than a thousand. They would be enough to write a book!