Tatiana Kukanova is synonymous with cookery and through her channel on YouTube she has helped and inspired a huge number of people with her recipes and with her cooking style. What I find incredible about this is that during school and college, this girl had no interest in food and she struggled to put together a pot of ramen! That was then however and this is now, and Tatiana is now an accomplished chef and something of a YouTube sensation. I worked with Tatiana on her show for a long time and I often get people asking me where she gets the inspiration for her zany recipes, and here is my take on it.
Traveling
Tatiana first got the food bug when she was traveling through northern Spain, there she met a very handsome Spanish chef who took her around all of the farms and vineyards, and basically showed her where the ingredients come from. Tatiana was so taken by this that she began to learn more and more from Xavier, before deciding to sign up for cookery lessons in Galicia. When she was in Spain it was not just Spanish cooking that she learned, but fusion food from all over Europe.
Teacher
When she was studying cookery in Galicia she had a crazy teacher who I actually met once and she was very much the good kind of crazy. In fact her teacher considered herself a molecular gastronomist and she was fascinated with putting foods together in a different way, and tapping into the 5 senses as people enjoyed their food. Her teacher had previously worked with Ferran Adria of el Bulli fame, the restaurant which was considered the world’s best for many years. Here Tatiana learned to take off the shackles and not to allow tradition to stifle your imagination.
Trips Abroad
Tatiana’s fascination with food has taken her all over the globe and it is usually from these trips that she will come back with a new and exciting dish or ingredient which she wants to try out on her YouTube channel. Instead of trekking the well-beaten path, Tatiana always preferred to go to stranger corners of the world to find out how they prepared food and to learn about a range of flavors which she had never experienced before.
The Lab
Tatiana tuned her kitchen at home into what can only be described as a laboratory and there she would try out lots of weird and wonderful things which would hopefully make it on to the show. I spent a lot of time with her back then and I can tell you that not everything worked out quite as well as she had hoped, the caviar ice cream was certainly one which I don’t look back on fondly. This was her headquarters and this is where all of the ideas stemmed from, prior to her presenting it to the world on her YouTube channel.
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