“I remember this Spanish guy screaming,” said chef-volunteer Karla Hoyos, describing the first time she met chef José Andrés. “He had just come from a meeting with FEMA [the US emergency management agency], and he was furious. And I thought, ‘Oh, no, no, nooo…’.” She shakes her head emphatically. “I am not going to deal with this person. I don’t care who he is.”

It was September 2017, shortly after Hoyos had arrived in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, the deadly storm that devastated the island, killing nearly 3,000 people, making most roads impassable and knocking out 80% of the power grid. Several days earlier, Andrés had touched down with a team from his non-profit, World Central Kitchen (WCK), which he founded in 2010 after returning from Haiti where he fed survivors of a catastrophic earthquake. The organisation originally emphasised longer-term programmes – such as supporting nutritional training for young mothers – but after Maria, its efforts now focus on deploying an army of culinary first responders to feed people during and after the world’s worst disasters, natural or otherwise.

As Andrés absorbed the enormity of the challenge facing Puerto Rico, he began calling in the troops, asking chef friends and others to pitch in. At the time, Puerto Rico was still under curfew, so the WCK team was working from 04:00 in the morning until about 20:00, and each day ended with a debrief led by Andrés at a hotel, one of only two open properties on the island.

Hoyos recalls the questions he asked. “How can we do better? How can we feed more people? Are we feeding them fruit? Healthy food?” A few days later, Andrés was due to deliver 5,000 meals to a town one hour away, but he told Hoyos to prepare an additional 1,000 sandwiches. When she pointed out that there were only 5,000 people in the entire town, making the extra food unnecessary, he replied, “What about the people I find on the way?” Her initial fear – that he would turn out to be another “hot-tempered” chef – quickly abated. “He thinks of everything, and he actually cares.”

To Andrés, this intensity is just part of the job description. “[Chefs and cooks] have one of the greatest responsibilities in the world,” he says. “We touch everything: agriculture, labour, immigration, the environment, diplomacy, national security. If we are not using our voices to say something, to help make the world a better place, why are we here?”

His views on the matter were shaped early by Robert Egger, the founder of DC Central Kitchen, a non-profit based in the nation’s capital, where Andrés lives. Egger’s group not only rescues imperfect produce from farmers to reduce food waste, but also salvages human beings that society has left behind, providing culinary training to the formerly incarcerated and other overlooked populations. “He taught me one of the most valuable lessons of my life,” says Andrés. “Too often charity is about the redemption of the giver, when in fact it should be about the liberation of the receiver.”

Before Andrés became famous for feeding an island, he had already scaled the heights of his profession, building a culinary empire in DC and beyond – nearly 40 restaurants to date, including The Bazaar, Zaytinya and his 12-seat avant-garde minibar. And don’t forget to add bestselling author, TV host, podcast producer, educator and Nobel Peace Prize nominee to the résumé. His latest endeavour is a new cookbook, released on 12 September, which focuses on recipes associated with WCK’s global relief work.

Born in Asturias, Spain, and raised in Barcelona, Andrés was shaped by his country’s food culture. “We don’t do much to good produce, fish and meat – it usually comes down to a little extra-virgin olive oil and some salt.” It was an approach he first learned at home. “We weren’t wealthy growing up, and my mom and dad had four boys to feed, so it usually came down to good, fresh food, cooked simply.”

After dropping out of culinary school, he began working in Barcelona kitchens and on Spain’s Costa Brava, where he met chef Ferran Adrià, his future boss and mentor. It was 1988, four years after Adrià had taken the helm at elBulli, a humble seaside restaurant in the Catalan town of Roses where Adrià went on to break every culinary norm imaginable. After lunch service, Adrià would stay behind in the kitchen to experiment, and Andrés was always there by his side. One day, they attempted to fry a gelatine only to have it explode in the oil. “Our reaction was one of surprise, like ‘we’re crazy!’,” says Adrià, “but at the same time, there was also this feeling of ‘everything is possible’.”

Eventually, Andrés left Spain for the US, doing stints in New York and California before taking the reins of a new Washington DC, restaurant called Jaleo. It wasn’t long before he drew customers, media attention and the respect of his peers. Adrià extols his protégé’s formidable skills – “José has a special talent for everything related to gastronomy” – and the sentiment is echoed by Andrés’ good friend Eric Ripert, the chef of NYC’s Le Bernardin, the only restaurant to maintain its four-star rating from The New York Times for three decades. “José is, in my opinion, if not the most creative, one of the most creative chefs today in the world. The man can cook.”

You hear the same level of admiration from chefs at the pinnacle of the industry, but the respect and affection that Andrés inspires is rooted in much more than his culinary prowess. “Cooking is not something you do just for the 1%. It’s a much larger world than that,” says Marcus Samuelsson, the Ethiopian-Swedish star chef and TV personality. “José has the capability, wherever he is in the world, to make others feel seen. He can do it in multiple languages. He can even do it with languages he doesn’t speak, because he has that emotional connection with people.”

When asked how to describe Andrés, Dominique Crenn said she would not even lead with the fact that he’s a chef. “This guy is an incredible human, and I’ve experienced that for myself.” Not long after becoming the first woman chef in the US to earn three Michelin stars for her Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and Andrés was a constant source of support. “In my industry, it’s a boys’ club, but he saw me for who I was. And he’s a great listener.”

Listening is a skill Andrés learned early in his career, as demonstrated through a recipe in the new World Central Kitchen Cookbook, a beautiful compendium of dishes that were created or adapted for the organisation’s “activations” at disaster sites around the world. It features recipes from Michelle Obama, Meghan Markle, Guy Fieri, Ayesha Curry, Tyler Florence, Emeril Lagasse and other chefs who’ve served on the front lines, including some of those quoted in this piece.

During his first days in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, Andrés was cooking with a group of local women. “I made them some black beans the way I knew how to make them, the big-deal chef from Washington, and they looked at me in a funny way.” In the recipe that they subsequently taught him – Sòs Pwa Nwa

(see recipe below)

– the beans are passed through a sieve to create a creamy purée, which is served with white rice. “If I had listened instead of just started cooking, I would have understood what these women wanted.”

That take-home message became an integral part of WCK’s modus operandi. When the team arrives at a new location, it makes a point of collaborating with local chefs and community members, to better understand the food culture of a place. “José would say, ‘Yeah, I like paella, but I’m not gonna go to Ukraine and give them paella,’” says Hoyos. “You have to know what their comfort food is like. If you’re gonna help, it’s about them. It’s not about you.” Ripert echoes the sentiment. “For José, it’s always about others – he’s a sensitive man. But despite the harsh reality of war, of bombs falling or a crisis where people are almost having riots to get food, I see him wanting to go back and fight injustice.”

WCK’s effectiveness rests on its ability to react quickly, a trait its founder seems to possess in spades. When Samuelsson first teamed up with the organisation in the earliest days of the pandemic, Andrés had already seen the writing on the wall. “It’s like March 9th, [2020],” says Samuelsson, “and we close Red Rooster [his flagship restaurant in Harlem]. José calls me and says, ‘Hey we have masks, we have gloves, we know how to serve safe. I know your community is gonna need support. Can we collaborate?” In just a few days, they were serving 200 people daily, a number that quickly climbed to 1,500.

The more you read about WCK, however, the more you realise that filling peoples’ stomachs is not the sole purpose. It’s important, of course, and the food has to be delicious, but it’s also about feeding their souls. There’s a famous photo in the cookbook that was taken in Puerto Rico soon after Maria. Andrés and local chef José Enrique are seen serving a stew called sancocho in front of a cheery pink building. If you didn’t know better, their facial expressions and body language might fool you into thinking it was a cookout, instead of a mission.

According to Andrés, that’s intentional. “We must fill people with hope, especially when they have just been through some of the most traumatic moments of their lives. This is empathy.”

Sòs Pwa Nwa (Black Bean Sauce) recipe
When José made black beans and rice for a group of women in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, he learned two lessons: first, they wanted their beans smooth, without skins; and second, the Big Name Chef had a lot to learn about listening. These are the beans that changed everything: pureed and sieved until creamy and rich, perfect with a side of rice and good conversation. The dish he was unknowingly making was sòs pwa nwa, Kreyòl for “sauce pois noir,” or “black bean sauce” in English. Haitian chef Mi-Sol Chevallier tells a story about the dish: Growing up, before her family had a blender, they would peel each bean by hand. Hopefully you have a blender at home, but if not, you’d better start peeling.

Serves 4 to 6

Method 

Step 1
To make épis: in a blender, combine the scallions, garlic and just enough olive oil to get the blades moving and blend until you have a smooth, loose, bright green paste. Reserve 2 tbsp for the black bean sauce and refrigerate the rest for another use in a glass jar or other airtight container for up to 1 month. 

Step 2
To make black bean sauce: in a medium saucepan, combine the beans with enough water to cover by 1 inch. Soak for 4 hours or up to overnight.

Step 3
Bring the beans and soaking liquid to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and cook until the beans are very soft, 1 to 1½ hours, adding water as needed to keep the beans covered – keep a close watch and stir occasionally so the beans don’t burn.

Step 4
When the beans are soft enough to easily mash, drain them in a sieve set over a medium bowl. Reserve the cooking liquid and transfer the beans to a high-powered blender. Puree the beans until they’re very, very smooth, adding a little of the cooking liquid if needed to get the blender going. If you don’t have a high-powered blender and your puree still has some texture from the skins, you can press the puree through a fine-mesh sieve with the back of a wooden spoon over a medium bowl. Return the puree to the saucepan.

Step 5
Insert the pointy end of the cloves into the surface of the peeled onion until it’s studded all over (this is an oignon clouté, or “studded onion,” a traditional French flavour booster). Add the épis, salt and 1 cup of the reserved cooking liquid to the bean puree and stir to combine. Add the clove-studded onion and cook over medium-low heat, stirring regularly, for 20 to 30 minutes, to get the right consistency – you want the final dish to be smooth, creamy and the texture of a thick soup. Add more of the cooking liquid or water as needed. 

Step 6
Taste for seasoning and add more salt as needed. Serve hot with white rice. 

(Recipe excerpted from The World Central Kitchen Cookbook: Feeding Humanity, Feeding Hope. Published by Clarkson Potter.)

BBC.com’s World’s Table “smashes the kitchen ceiling” by changing the way the world thinks about food, through the past, present and future.

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