It was not the most expensive nougat in the worldbut it is the longest in the Canary Islands. It measured 26.40 metershalf of the piece that was made in Madrid and that still holds the national record, and weighed more than 95 kilos. The Valladolid chef Paul Pastor He led a Christmas baking project in which a dozen collaborators were enlisted. «This year we did not want to abuse, but next year we will kill the people of Madrid»says the promoter of an initiative that had the endorsement of the City Council of Santiago del Teide and the Tamaimo Neighborhood Association. In the end, more than 1,200 people tasted a Christmas product which began to be made after nine thirty in the morning under a huge tent set up on Méndez Núñez Street.
Pastor, who until last Friday gave a workshop aimed at restaurateurs in the Santiago municipality to make nougat, closed the week with the most difficult one yet: «The mayor (Emilio José Navarro – PP) asked me to do something different and I listened to him,” says a gastronomy professional who arrived on the island three decades ago to occupy a position as executive chef of the Gran Hotel Bahía del Duque Adeje. «To be the first we have not yet wanted to surpass the record of Madrid», he explains ironically in relation to the 50-meter nougat that has the honor of being the longest in Spain.
The elaboration
Before starting to assemble the nougat, they were candied 20 kilos of fruit and others were toasted 18 almonds, one of the star products of the area. Some 3/4 slats were also purchased. [tres centímetros de ancho y dos de alto] which were plasticized to build molds that were assembled in two-meter sections. All of this settled on almost 30 meters of kitchen paper. «We start by tempering the chocolate –In the previous hours there was some fear that the day would be too hot and not compact this product well– and filling the plate as if it were formwork,” says Pastor at the beginning of a laborious preparation.
Besides 38 kilos of fruit and almonds, on the shopping list there were other basic ingredients such as 50 kilos of chocolate [negro y blanco], 12 gofio and between five and six of cookies. In raw materials alone the bill exceeded two thousand euros. “The most difficult thing is to find someone to accompany you in a madness like this, but in the case of Santiago del Teide everything was easy,” he says long before he revealed a freshly baked secret. “The mayor told me that next year we will go back for the record,” she says in an off the record that lasted the same as a bar of chocolate nougat from 26.40 meters at the doors of a school. Yesterday’s one was taken away in 45 minutes. “It has been a success, we sold everything in the blink of an eye,” confesses the Pucelano.
Pablo Pastor is a gastronomic guru who has found his home in Tenerife. “I have been on the Island longer than in my homeland,” explains an expert who advises Tenerife Tourism, the Government of the Canary Islands, the Cabildo of Tenerife and Tenerife town councils when it comes to putting together good recipes. «We had a great day and the chocolate has held up», commented when there were only a few chocolate shavings left on a red board that contrasted with an endless number of orange figures that crowned the white chocolate: «There were little trains, balls, horses, little soldiers… made in dark chocolate. “There wasn’t a single one left,” he repeats once the tension that had accumulated for more than four hours disappeared.
With the aftertaste of having participated in an experience that sweetened the Saturday day for more than twelve hundred people, Pablo Pastor is left with the good “harmony” that presided over the production of the longest nougat in the Canary Islands and with a message that sounds like a threat: “Next year, more.”