PACO TORREBLANCA a pastry baker with two HONORIS CAUSA

Don Paco Torreblanca has captivated the main island of the Antilles, one of the great gurus of the global confectionery, the best pastry chef in Spain and Europe, holder of two Honoris Causa, caused astonishment and joy for his genius and humility, to the access for all in the heart of Santiago de Cuba as our guest of honor.

The eagerness to grasp his knowledge multiplied with the passage of time, because he "got into the skin of the people," as he fascinates to do-from that of fellow journalists, even the delegates and the public attending the lecture he had to repeat in the first International Gastronomic Seminar Santiago de Cuba Excellencies 2015, and the International Symposium "From cocoa to chocolate".

Some said that he is a sculptor of pastry. Others said that master Torreblanca makes art teacher disguised pastry. The best press release states that “the monuments that this man does can not raise without the truest essence of art will run through his veins." From their words and images chocolate pieces born, supplemented with other products that create a sense of timelessness. "The coincidence of thought in time," as he describes they were born simultaneously with renowned works now universal plastic.

Paco, Havana these days is invaded by over three hundred artists from almost fifty countries, and there is a Belgian artist who proposes a flower that can smell like black beans ...do you ratify the idea that gastronomy, chocolate, is primarily an art?

I fully ratified it. In fact the Academy of Gastronomy in France has the title of Best One. It is recognized as art at the Academy of Fine Arts. It is a culture which advocates and supports what it is being said.

The presentation of my title Honoris Causa is the affinity between an ephemeral art, and other artists who, with other subjects and materials which are not ephemeral, over time, we've done things in the past, before or after, became or will be made. Undoubtedly it is a question of art. Total art. My country already is beginning to recognize.

Is the traditional pastry incompatible with Gourmet concept?

All the creativity that you see, and we have presented in Santiago de Cuba, can be very edgy or may not be, sometimes touching things we can not get or understand. But everything has to start from a base. There is no professional in the history of gastronomy and chocolate who do not know the basis of any product; if you do not know the roots, traditions, we can not evolve.

Any milk dessert, a sweet of fifty years ago, can be updated without losing its essence, so that what seems extraordinary half century ago today may be the same with other shades: much lighter, less sugar, the better nuanced flavors. Today Tiramizu, an example of a traditional product, has begun to evolve since it began in the cup, with marsala, with biscuits spoon type, and has evolved so that when we tested it, apparently it is not, and yet to the taste yes.

If we lose our essence, if everything is not globalizing so that we will become a bird with the same wings, the same feathers, same beak ... we have to defend the personality of our cultures. It's like a phrase from one of my books: "Keep your head in the stars but feet in the clouds."

In your titles appears baker, pastry, chocolatier. What would be your definition for your profession?

Now the term sweets cook is not used. My profession is pastry baker, is how it is called in France, best worker in pastry, best worker in pastry or chocolate, but before it was all together.

As with the classification of chefs, how do you think should be listed a pastry by Michelin?

There is no such rating equal to us, but in France the title of the best pastry worker is delivered by the President. I am the best pastry chef in Spain in 1988, who wins this title can no longer participate. I am the best pastry chef in Europe, which is same, after obtaining it you can no longer participate.

These titles, in my case better baker, are delivered by the Labor Ministry, and give you the honor of carrying the flag of your country at the highest podium. We all recognize that professional qualification to see the work of the recipients.

Is there a ranking as the best pastry chef in the world?

That is by team, I won the best baker in Europe because it is individual. Jacob, my son, is runner-up team, because it was a competition, there is no individual title of best baker in the world. In Europe there exists; in fact, it is considered that the winner of Europe is the champion team in the world because Europe is the world's leading confectionery, but at the individual level does not exist.

Therefore you are considered one of the best pastry chefs in the world.

Yes, that says the information of the media library, but I think in the end is an assessment made by the whole career, and so I have also the honorary title, that is unique in Spain and the world.

You have two Honoris Causa titles?

Yes, one in Art from the University Miguel Hernandez and another in Science and Technology from the Polytechnic of Valencia of Spain. They are the most important outside the professional sphere that will recognize the University titles.

I want to know about your origins. Where does your family tradition come from, what did your father do that influenced your taste for the culinary world?

First this tradition comes from my grandparents, but I'm not a career professional, I am an accidental professional.

My father was studying architecture in Barcelona when the Civil War began and enlisted as a volunteer Republican government. By losing the war he was condemned to thirty years in prison, of which he made fifteen, and in prison he met Jean Millet, a convinced Republican that came from France to make war on Spain, with whom he develops a great friendship.

I think if I had been sent to make bells, I would probably have been a ringer. I have always said that the vocation came to me afterwards. My father sent me there because his father was the same, and because the economic means at that time did not allow paying for a career. Then he sends me to Jean Millet’s home in Paris and he educates me there until I turned 24, when I returned to Spain.

You have already lived a few days in Cuba, I think different from the ones a tourist live.

Yes, I knew Cuba through a network of economically important tourism. I have visited the best places, but the reality of Cuba I've seen this time with different eyes, has nothing to do. I try to get informed when I travel: for example, when I go to Japan before arriving, learn to eat their food with chopsticks, as a gesture.

When I came to Cuba I already knew of its history, long before, and I've seen through the eyes of the people here. I've always said that when visiting a country, the first thing to do is to try to get under the skin of the people. If you get that goal, get into part of its being, its way of thinking, you hit it with its own eyes, that is the most difficult out there, but if you go with the plan that everything has to be very comfortable, then you're mistaken and you never know the country.

What did you like the most in the contact you had with students in your presentation?

What I have observed is the desire to learn. When I was explaining about my paper A + B, the vice versa tip, and the presentation of the Honoris Causa, the wonder to see our things, the admiration that it was not possible to make these products with this aesthetic, this color, these colors, then it gives you to see the desire to learn, always asking us the DVD, the urgent need to learn. I think this is youth that have these urges, and we must try to channel them and empower them.

There is a phrase that I love, which says that the ball must be given when it comes to the hand, not when it goes, and this is the time to seize this force having these young people and try to channel it, to the best of each one to think that this country is beginning to experience with strength, I do not know the time it will take to complete the boil, but I think we should seize opportunities and at least young people have to seize them.

I want to thank for your time, your generosity to join us and come to know this country, to be with us in Santiago de Cuba, and to reiterate that we are available to our means of communication open.

To me, Jose Carlos, has been a pleasure to have met you, it's a privilege to have been with you. I have spent these immensely happy, relaxed days. And what else I can tell you: you can always count on me and I'm at your disposal.