THE MOST expensive bread in the world contains gold, silver and flowers, and is made in Málaga – the latest unusual fact to come out of the Madrid Fusión culinary fair.
Created by Juan Manuel Moreno and costing €1,380 for a 400g chunk, the élite loaf was unveiled yesterday (Tuesday) at one of Europe's largest gourmet trade fairs.
Master baker Moreno says the 400g loaf contains a gram each of edible gold and silver, plus 20 grams of edible flowers, and uses salt which is hand-extracted from rocks in order to avoid having to 'blow them up', causing damage to the environment.
Moreno presented another VIP bread at Madrid Fusión last year, which was then one of the most expensive in the world – but 'only' a seventh of the price of this year's, at €200 a loaf.
Yesterday, he showcased two, of the same weight, price and ingredients, but the second also included quinoa and chia.
Moreno's Pan Piña in Algatocín, Málaga province, is considered one of the best bakeries in Spain and his regular clients include Arab Sheikhs and Chinese and Russian billionaire tycoons.
Other weirdness to come out of Madrid Fusión is Ángel León's sea-honey, sea-sugar and fish-chips.
Owner of the three-Michelin-starred restaurant Aponiente, León showed how slow-boiling the marine plant ruppia – harvested from the coastal marshes in the province of Cádiz – could produce honey.
He and other chefs have started using a type of worm used for fishing and found in the marshes as main ingredients for some of their dishes, insisting that the public's repulsion at the idea of eating worms is 'purely cultural' and 'should be challenged'.
Last year, León presented a type of sugar he had created from sea water, but admitted later it had 'not gone down very well'.
In a bid to get kids to eat more fish, León has been working with school catering firm Compass to create foodstuffs that do not, in fact, look like fish – pieces that appear more like chicken, plus pasta, and even chips made entirely from fish with no potato in them.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com