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Interview
12 January 2020 2.00 h

Gessamí Caramés

"Pin-up" cakemaker on TV3's "Cuines" programme

“Cooking needs its own time to do, and so does filming; you need to have a plan B”

The pin-up on the popular cookery programme explains how she found her vocation for cooking, life in and out of the studio, who some of her role models are, and shares some of her opinions on food and cooking

“I’d always enjoyed cooking and everything to do with nutrition” “It’s not my way of dressing at all; I just dress comfortably”
“The colourful image I project goes well with desserts” “The recipes on the show are Marc’s. What I do is interpret them”

When Ges­samí Caramés was grow­ing up, no one could get her name right. She ex­plains that her par­ents called her Ges­samí be­cause in the hos­pi­tal where she was born the nuns used a cologne with the fra­grance of jas­mine. In the in­ter­view she talks about her role mod­els, her work in the Lasarte restau­rant, and how dif­fer­ent cook­ing on tele­vi­sion is.

I heard you wanted to be an actor.
I never took the en­trance exams for the In­sti­tut del Teatre be­cause they clashed with the uni­ver­sity en­trance exams. I chose to study au­dio­vi­sual com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­cause it was the near­est thing to the­atre. But I never had the same feel­ing for it as my fel­lows, who bought them­selves cam­eras and who watched lots of films. I had al­ways en­joyed cook­ing and every­thing to do with nu­tri­tion and diet, and so I signed up for a cook­ery train­ing course in Cam­brils. It was the hap­pi­est day of my life. I had such a good time. I learnt lots the first year and wanted to know about every­thing.
You dis­cov­ered your vo­ca­tion.
Yes, truly. I was very lucky. I never ex­pected I’d love it so much.
And then you met Marc Ribas on the Ametlla de Mar edi­tion of the TV cook­ery con­test, ‘Joc de cartes’.
Marc Ribas knew a re­la­tion of mine who had a restau­rant in the town. He men­tioned to him that they were look­ing for a young woman who made desserts to give the pro­gramme a bit of colour and to share the film­ing with Marc. I was post­ing my desserts on so­cial media and was well-known in town for my hobby. Marc called me to do an au­di­tion. They liked me, and I’ve now been doing it for two years.
Do you feel com­fort­able dress­ing up as a pin-up?
It was very ex­ag­ger­ated at the be­gin­ning, but we’ve toned it down since then. It’s not my way of dress­ing at all. I don’t have a de­fined style in my every­day dress. I just dress com­fort­ably, as that’s how I like it. But it works for the char­ac­ter, for Gessa, and it comes across great on the pro­gramme, giv­ing it real colour. When I have to do some­thing as Gessa out in the real world, I tone the make-up down, for ex­am­ple.
In choos­ing a young woman were they look­ing for some­thing that would call at­ten­tion?
It’s a good thing that they should go for the pro­file of a young woman. It pro­vides a good con­trast with Marc’s style, which is why they went for a young woman with a very spe­cific look. My physique made them think that the pin-up style would look good.
Cake­mak­ing has that sort of aes­thetic.
That’s right, the colour­ful image I pro­ject goes well with desserts.
You work in Martín Be­rasategui’s Lasarte restau­rant in Barcelona. Do you make desserts there?
We change tasks de­pend­ing on what is re­quired and the learn­ing in­ter­ests of each per­son. I’ve done a lot of dif­fer­ent things there. Right now I’m bak­ing bread, brioche pas­tries, and so on.
What do you like cook­ing the most?
I have a lot of fun with pas­tries. I like thick pas­tries, like brioche, and when they are well made they are very beau­ti­ful. I also like cake­mak­ing. You know when you are on to some­thing, when the flavours come to­gether in your mind. You think of one in­gre­di­ent and that brings to mind an­other two that you know will go well to­gether. I’ve also worked on meat, which in Lasarte is spec­tac­u­lar.
Are the recipes you do your own?
They are Marc’s. What I do is in­ter­pret them. Yet I al­ways say that the real cook is Anna Bro­tons; she’s ready for any­thing. For ex­am­ple, if a meringue needs to spend half an hour in the oven, she al­ready has it done. And if any­thing goes wrong on set, which some­times hap­pens, be­cause the spot­lights make a lot of heat, for ex­am­ple, she is al­ways there to save the day.
You do the­atre with cook­ery.
Cook­ing needs its own time to do, and so does film­ing. And when they don’t co­in­cide, you need to have a plan B, which means dou­ble prepa­ra­tion. Some­thing that takes three sec­onds to film might in re­al­ity take 10 min­utes to do. Heat­ing things up is quick, but if you have to let things cool down it takes a lot longer, and so it has to be chilled the day be­fore.
Who are your role mod­els?
French cake­mak­ers. Philippe Con­ticini is one, who is a mas­ter of flavours. And I re­ally like what Claire Heit­zler does. And Jordi Roca can­not be matched for cre­ativ­ity.
Should we be bet­ter ed­u­cated in cook­ery. Have we lost a lot of the cook­ing of the past?
Every­one knows what’s good and what isn’t in cook­ery. I can make some bis­cuits at home that im­i­tate those of a brand and they won’t come out with the same flavour, but my grand­mother might taste them and think they are much bet­ter. My palate was made for com­mer­cially made food, but there is an evo­lu­tion over the years. I used to love in­dus­tri­ally made choco­lates and now I find them fatty. I no longer enjoy them as I do qual­ity choco­late.

in­ter­view

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