The culinary genius who won your heart through the senses.
Young Alvar’s surprising ability to memorize (due to his hypermnesia) contrasts with his naïve perception of life. That innocence with which he faces each day shows reality from a different angle that is new and fresh. The events, filtered by his peculiar point of view, turn this story into a frenetic tale, very sensitive towards the world of adults, for example, regarding religion, human condition or sexuality, and with the comicality rarely seen. Alvar is a vibrant, dynamic, funny and brilliant character, but he is also complex and ambivalent. Likewise, the psychological portrait of the rest of the characters is as complex and realistic.
It is the Spain of the 1500s, full of sickness, new discoveries, illiteracy, hunger, economic and political crisis, where Alvar de Mondragón Cepeda is born. His mother dies and his father abandons him, and the people from his village, Oseja de Sajambre, falsely accuse him of having killed his own brother. So he decides to run away knowing something that he will always keep in mind: the world is a hostile and unfair place, and one always has to fight against it.
Alvar runs away from the land of his parents with the spring thaw in search for an owner that can provide him with food and take him away from the violent, dirty and bloody roads. During his odyssey, he gets to meet army men, religious men and politicians, until he finds Father Tomás, who takes him in the Monastery of Sahagún. There, the Father discovers Alvar’s ability to memorize biblical texts, entire prayers in Latin, historical facts and the art of mixing ingredients to provide dishes with an excellent culinary quality.
Alvar grows up and arrives in Valladolid, where the Court was at the time. There, he becomes Juan Pardo de Tavera’s cook, who is none other than one of the most important people within the Spanish inquisition. Alvar’s amazing personality and his exquisite food will drag the attention of both admirers and jealous enemies, who will compare his culinary experiments full of new ingredients newly brought from America with witchcraft.
RELEVANT INFORMATION: Among other TV projects, Luis Cerezo wrote and directed the TV series Los González in Spain, which was later adapted by Televisa (and acquired in many countries). El Cocinero (The Cook) is a project based on the homonymous novel which won the Premio de Novela Ciudad Alcalá de Narrativa before it was published. He has also worked as a screenwriter in films like N@ufragos (HBO), and he has his own producing company, Cinelibre. He also wrote the novel Eo, his literary debut that captivated the world.
AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series.
AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish.
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