The first chef on stage at Madrid Fusión Alimentos de España set the tone. For the first time Andoni Luis Aduriz was inaugurating a congress he has never missed since the very first day - and this is year twenty-one - with an invitation to check out the mindset mechanisms that govern Mugaritz. In what appeared to be an innocent remark - “Creativity isn't about going mad - it's about paying attention" - the Gipuzkoa chef succeeded in condensing not only his own work, but also the work of a good many of the professional chefs who took their turn on the first day of the congress, a standing-room-only event. The landscape-inspired distillates presented by the Roca brothers, the apple baked with patience by the Disfrutar threesome and the range of desserts fashioned from fish leftovers by Angel León have something in common. They all arise from the conscious observation and the unbreakable commitment of a profession bordering on passion.

Although Mugaritz is celebrating its quarter century, Aduriz overcame the temptation to turn his talk into the ‘greatest hits’ of past glory, "because that wouldn't be true to the spirit of the business”. Instead he gave us a peek at that "box of tricks" where the ideas come from and where, despite an anarchic image, tenacity, obstinacy and patient toil carry more weight than the spark of genius. This time, the thread sewing the creative process of season 25 is memory as a treacherous concept and tepidity in a hugely polarised society. The best of his talk, as usual, were his own pearls - "In such a cacophonic, overstimulated world, the most innocent move is revolutionary" - and the humility with which he admitted that on many occasions those experiments had produced some "dreadful" results. What is important is the path one treads, as they say.

Where Mugaritz outlines ideas, the team behind Barcelona's Disfrutar squeezes technique to the very limits, going so far as to poach an entire nut twenty-five times or bake an apple at 60 degrees for three months to get a certain texture. Both of them provide some brilliant samples of the elBulli legacy, from different perspectives. With the didactic touch so typical of them, Mateu Casañas, Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch did not just give a talk, but regaled Madrid Fusión with an exposé of some of the milestone techniques during their journey, such as their black creations, koji applications, crunchy microwaved textures, and amylopectin faux pastries.

Poor rich land

Another project arising from technological discoveries, albeit with a connection to emotions, memory and respect for nature is the range of distillates presented by the Roca brothers. "Esperit Roca", as they have dubbed this project, attempts to bottle the landscape with herb bitter from the higher Pyrenees, a carob bean liqueur, cocoa spirit, or a rock tea gin. The new range of products - limited in number - is in keeping with the liquid cuisine that El Celler de Can Roca has been working on since 1998, and has produced soil distillates, wines from fruit or legumes, beers, kombuchas, grappas or alcohol-free wines. Joan combined them with lamb or hare recipes to bring out their rural characteristics, while Jordi produced a dessert to reinterpret a child's afternoon snack of bread with olive oil and chocolate.

A close examination of the landscape of a region, La Mancha, "which looks poor, but if you look carefully you find it's very rich indeed", was the subject of the lucid talk by Javier Sanz and Juan Sahuquillo. The operators of Cañitas Maite and also of Oba, which recently won itself a star, presented full-use recipes of goat kid, duck and hare - consumption of which is residual in such a carnivorous country - garnished with wild herbs they ferment to draw out all too fleeting seasons. Being aware of what goes on around them has led them to waive the classic items - starters, fish, meat etc. - and to organise work in the kitchen on the basis of fermentations, foraging, pork cuts and plantations.

The idea is to observe and shift the focus, as Ángel León changed it for his desserts, making use of what used to be thrown out as waste not so long ago. “Aponiente uses up 10,000 kilos of fish, but almost 2,500 kilos were wasted", he admitted. Using fish skin, guts, eyes and scales, he and his creative crew have produced a range of original desserts - moray eel skin mochi, scale pie, or fish-eye popcorn, for example. As the man said, it is really all about paying attention.