Chef Santi Santamaría is not okay with liquid nitrogen in the kitchen. In public attacks on Spanish avant-garde chefs, Santamaría has denounced the use of additives like dry ice and methyl cellulose, advocating a return to simpler, more natural cuisine. Santamaría even got personal, saying that he feels Ferran Adrià, Spain's most celebrated chef and owner of El Bulli, "is headed in a direction that is contrary to my principles." Yet Adrià and other Spanish chefs feel that there is no conflict between cooking locally and avant-garde techniques, and even Slow Food Spain agrees with them. Is high-tech cooking innovative or unnatural?...
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