From Żelimucha to Białousy in northern Poland, to Čačak, Serbia, eastern Sicily, and parts of the Languedoc, after taking more than a year away from his popular cooking show to traverse Europe in search of the finest ingredients, despairing celebrity chef Gaston Ramirez has declared ‘Kill me now, my life is compote’.
The traditional dessert, made of pieces of fruit stewed in flavoured syrup, originated all the way back in medieval times, but Ramirez had hoped to give it a modern twist. He combed Poland for raspberries and blueberries, scoured Serbia for the noble plum, set sail for Sicily in search of the finest citruses, and stopped in the south of France in a quest after the common fig.
Ramirez found these fruits and more, and set to work in his kitchen trying to create the perfect contemporary compote. But despite and perhaps partly because of his culinary rigour, his connoisseur’s palette for complementary tastes, as he weighed citrus peel on infinitesimal scales and scraped seed after seed out of dried vanilla pods he never seemed able to find the right fit.
Over the course of the past year the famous chef, who owns restaurants in Los Angeles, Paris, and San Sebastián, has found himself distanced from his family while his Michelin stars are quite literally on the wane. His tongue is constantly burnt from the sugary syrup, and as he runs out of ideas his stores of fruit have started to rot.
Now Ramirez has revealed the full extent of his predicament. Sulky and sneering from behind the stove of his kitchen he told one intrepid reporter, who lingered cautiously on the threshold, that he is contemplating ending it all as his life has become compote and only compote. The dessert occupies him constantly, and when he goes to bed at night fruit pieces quiver stickily before his tired eyes.
This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Just last month, experimental chef Jepsom Bloementhal died tragically from a heady overdose of toxic wildflowers dripped in pig fat.
