Carola Puracchio transforms seaweed into culinary delights at her restaurant, Amar.
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00:00I moved to this place, in front of the sea, with the idea of living in harmony with the sea.
00:09How do I help our marine ecosystem?
00:14The only thing that came to my mind from what I knew how to do was to cook it and take advantage of it.
00:19And then the gastronomic experience was given.
00:24It is based on love. Love for the place, love for the sea and love for what we do.
00:30My name is Carola Puraquio. I cook with seagulls and sea products.
00:42Amar is born with the idea of being able to help the ocean to free itself from an invasive exotic species
00:48that does a lot of damage to the marine ecosystem,
00:51which causes our native seagulls to grow in less quantity and in places where species have disappeared.
00:59That is why the focus of Amar is on that species, which is the guacame.
01:03With that we cook everything, pastas, we dry them, we make condiments, we make salads, a lot of products.
01:13When people come to eat, I tell them why I cook this seaweed.
01:17What is the seaweed and how it affects the rest.
01:22It is also about showing why we do it.
01:27I thought it was going to have an invasive smell.
01:30And no, I realized that not only does it not have a smell, but the flavor is exquisite.
01:35Of the different varieties that Carola prepared for us, which is incredible.
01:43It is known as sea lettuce.
01:47It is a complete experience.
01:49The food, its different flavors, and then the walk we do to the sea,
01:54which really, with the explanation she gave us, she even gave us seaweed to take home.
02:01I didn't imagine I could have such a close to a garden for free.
02:05I didn't know there was an invasive seaweed.
02:07It was a pleasure and a discovery.
02:12I am a part of it and an accomplice of it.
02:15This task of helping me clean the ocean.
02:18When they get to know the sea and see what it is, they get excited right away.
02:22And most of them want to know more.
02:24And most of them say they are going to keep eating seaweed.
02:30Building the little house or having the little house as a gastronomic experience was a bit of a coincidence.
02:38I was born in Camarones, in this little town.
02:43We were about 300 inhabitants, more or less, surrounded by the sea.
02:50We used the sea to supply ourselves with fish for our consumption and for fun.
03:00Later, in the 1970s, seaweed was always collected in Camarones to export.
03:08I started to have a relationship with seaweed because I used to go with my grandparents and my uncles to the coast to harvest seaweed.
03:18They were collected, dried and sold to a company that exported them.
03:22They were never consumed as food.
03:25In the beginning, Fernando de la Torre, a biologist, a researcher, is the one who helps me with all the doubts, with all the questions.
03:34I think Carola's project is wonderful.
03:38We can transform this invasive exotic species into a high-quality food,
03:44in work, in value and in high-quality nutritional food for our consumers.
03:50I think it is a positive project in a lot of ways.
03:55A restaurant close to the coast, with a view of the sea, with resources obtained sustainably from the coast, a few meters from the restaurant table, seems perfect to me.
04:08Everything we do is very aligned with my essence and with what I believe and consider to be healthy for the environment.
04:18Everything we use is local product.
04:20The tables are made of recycled wood, from a farm that was once in a field.
04:26We work with fishermen who fish.
04:30It is fresh fish.
04:32The same with the seaweed.
04:34They are collected daily.
04:36The experience in La Casita is about that, about showing the products with which I grew up.
04:43We are going to cook with seaweed.
04:45We are going to make some pastas and some buñuelos.
04:48This is a seaweed that is not cooked, which is this one.
04:53The invasive exotic one.
04:57And this one, if you put a condiment, an oil, and you put it in the oven, you get some tasty chips, as if they were fried potatoes.
05:06If it is the first time that you are going to eat seaweed, it is convenient that it is chopped very small, so that it goes unnoticed and only feel the flavor.
05:14Normally, we usually do workshops to show people that it is not difficult to cook, that it is easy to make a dish with seaweed at home, that you can...
05:26...mix the seaweed with our traditional dishes, such as tallarines or a hamburger.
05:34And it was given with this cooking, a little bit experimenting, what goes well and what doesn't.
05:41The truth is that everything that can be done with seaweed is incredible.
05:45And I say that it is the food of the future.