My First Mistakes with Lanzarote's Local Ingredients

When you arrive in a new place, you think the challenge is understanding the ingredients.

But in reality, the challenge is knowing how to use them.

In the beginning, I made a very simple mistake in Lanzarote:

I treated the ingredients as if they were Italian.

Same techniques.

Same approach.

Same expectations.

But it didn't work.

The fish behaved differently.

The vegetables had less water and more intensity.

Some flavours were more direct, less "constructed".

I kept trying to force the balance.

I added things. Adjusted. Corrected.

But the more I tried to fix things, the further I moved away from the result I wanted.

The problem was clear, even if I couldn't see it straight away:

I was trying to control something I needed to learn to listen to.

One of my biggest mistakes was not simplifying.

Instead of taking things away, I kept adding more.

Instead of adapting, I insisted.

Over time, I completely changed my approach.

I started focusing less on "building" a dish and more on understanding the ingredient itself.

Learning what it could offer, rather than forcing it to become what I wanted.

That's when I began to see different results.

Cleaner.

More balanced.

More authentic.

Mistakes never really disappear.

But they become more valuable.