“I like cooking competitions from abroad, ‘Hell’s kitchen’ or ‘Masterchef’ from the United States or Australia, where they are more demanding. Here the juries are more loving, they are less audacious challenges. “I don’t like ‘Bake off’ much today, I don’t watch two hours of a TV program, people watch the video on social networks for one minute,” says the chef and influencer Edgardo Ríos “Mambrunense”, who debuts in theater with “We are in the oven”, of Alfredo Allende.
The show combines humor and cooking, in a culinary theatrical experience that talks about food, love and the secrets that every good recipe has. With address of Carlos Kaspar, It debuts next Wednesday at the Regina Theater and is presented on Wednesdays in November. We talked with Ríos.
Journalist: What is this play about food and love like?
Edgardo Ríos: It has to do with cooking with love these recipes that I inherited from my mother and grandmother, watching them light the fire to save gas and leaving that taste that the meals had. I learned to cook as a child, that’s where I became passionate about cooking. In the work there will be recipes that I learned in my beginnings and there is also the love story.
Q: What are those culinary secrets that every good recipe should have?
ER: First, cook with enthusiasm, love that you intend to make that recipe for the family or yourself to enjoy. Taking the time, that is the secret, patience, love and the favorite extra seasoning to add, that personal seasoning of each one.
Q: What is it like to go from cooking to theater?
ER: It is something very new, in fact when I was a teenager I did theater and I remember that in the development society I learned in classes, but like every teenager I got bored. I haven’t fallen for it yet, I’ll realize after the shows, it takes me out of my comfort zone, which is making recipes. I also work from home so from the total comfort of having my small kitchen studio I go to the theater. It’s all new. I have sponsors and that’s where the idea came from, today the networks are my job.
Q.: How was your jump in the pandemic from cooking to becoming an influencer?
ER: It was very crazy, my partner and I lost our jobs because we were teaching cooking classes. We locked ourselves in like everyone else, we didn’t know what to do, we had to pay the rent, they didn’t pay our salaries until I said “I’m going to make a recipe.” We didn’t have money, the refrigerator was empty and so I made a bread recipe. They were all with the bread at that moment. I made a home video, I didn’t even have a table, I kneaded on the coffee table, with my small cell phone without a good camera, I filmed the bread recipe and it turned out beautiful. I uploaded the video to Tik Tok, it went viral with thousands of views. I got up the next day and thought about making another one, I had some black bananas rotting so I thought about a banana pudding that the Mormons taught me to make when they came to my house to teach English. I made the pudding which was one of the first recipes I learned and it exploded. I woke up the next day and there were already 100 thousand new followers, and I started uploading to other networks, I set up my YouTube channel to upload everything and I didn’t stop from there. Recipe that went up recipe that skyrocketed. I made a sponge cake that I added mayonnaise to and it generated controversy because the mixture contained that. In the end. We never stop again.
Q: How do you experience the challenge of uploading permanent content?
ER: I demand more and more from myself, where I moved I don’t have the light I want, I don’t like artificial light because the real color of the food doesn’t come through. Today I film with the phone and edit from there. If it’s cloudy it gets complicated but every day I want the shots to look better.
Q: Do you remember the historical cooks on TV? How do you differentiate yourself from them? }
ER: With them I learned, Maru Botana, Dolly Irigoyen, in my adolescence I became a fan of Narda Lepes, Lele Cristobal and I saw them on Utilísima. Doña Petrona for Narda, I didn’t get to see Petrona on TV but I learned many recipes from the book. Most of the recipes are from Doña Petrona, even if they are modified. And I don’t watch much of the current TV cooks because we are with the networks, I don’t have time to spend two hours in front of the TV. I like how Ariel Rodríguez Palacios explains it, but at that time I’m working and making videos. Nowadays you see one minute on networks instead of two hours of a recipe on TV.
Q.: And Mastercheff or Bake off type contests?
ER: I went to Mastercheff when I was a student because it’s for amateurs. They called me from “Kitchen Owners” but I don’t feel like it, the castings take a lot of time and expense, you have to ask for a car, bring the materials, the raw materials, semi-processed materials and to prepare them, so there are three recipes. A lot of money is spent.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
