The herbalist to the stars

Juan Carlos Roldán has transformed the Sierra de Otíñar, a breathtaking expanse of forests, cliffs, and limestone crags just 15 kilometers from the city of Jaén, into a source of innovation and discovery for the chefs of his province. Pedro Sánchez (Bagá), Juan Aceituno (Dama Juana), Juanjo Mesa León (Radis), Juan Carlos García (Vandelvira), and Javier Jurado (Malak) are bringing the heirloom vegetables that Roldán cultivates in the mountain garden inherited from his father to the Michelin-starred world.

Even more special are the 300 wild species he collects across 7,000 hectares of forest, which he knows stone by stone and plant by plant. Species introduced by humans and then forgotten, which have even found their way onto the plates of a cult restaurant like Alchemist (Copenhagen).

Paco Morales traveled to Roldán to identify forgotten plants used in Al-Andalus before opening Noor. The Cordoban chef spent several days in the mountains of Otíñar. He then presented his findings to a research group on wild plants at the Basque Culinary Center. Juan Carlos and his father, Juan, collaborated on documenting the species included in the book 'Silvestre, la gastronomía de las plantas' (Wild, the Gastronomy of Plants), published by the center.

Calls and visits from other chefs followed: Andoni Luis Aduriz, Ricard Camarena, Javier Ollero, Edorta Lamo, Luis Lera, Nacho Manzano, Dani Carnero, Ángel León, Francis Paniego, Carlos Casillas, Edu Pérez, Miguel Carretero, Oliver Peña, Lluis Bernils, and Manu Lachica. Chefs from Jaén, such as José Santiago (Cibus, Renacimiento Culinario, Úbeda), Patricia Díaz (Ahjito Izakaya, Jaén), and Alejandro Ramírez (Almoroje, Raíces Segureñas, Siles), have also accompanied him to the countryside to learn about wild plants.

This man, with a heart as enormous as his stature, earns his living as a civil servant at the University of Jaén and presents himself as a "gatherer and basket weaver." He is recognized as a keeper of rare knowledge in these times and is sought after by chefs, botanists, and pharmacists from all over Spain for consultations, talks, and conferences. His friends in Jaén affectionately call him "our Panoramix."

For Juan Carlos Roldán, Otíñar was a childhood paradise. “When school finished, I’d take off my shoes, put on my swimsuit, they’d smear me with oil mixed with water, and let me loose in the fields. I’d spend the summer fishing, catching ducks and snakes, jumping from puddle to puddle” he recalls. His father, grandparents, and great-grandparents had all been born in the small village built in the early 19th century by the newly minted landowner who acquired the communal mountain range for the settlers who would tend his olive groves and flocks.

Although there was a desire to name the new town after another name, the name Otíñar prevailed, which had been given centuries earlier by the Basque-Navarrese Christians who helped Ferdinand III of Castile to seize the city of Jaén from the Kingdom of Granada in 1246.

For the children, Otíñar would have been paradise, but for the adults it had become hell. The abuses perpetrated by the last landowner during the Franco regime eventually drove out all the residents, including Juan Carlos's father, who had to trade the family trade of shepherd for that of construction foreman in Jaén. By the early 1980s, the village was deserted.

To uproot the original inhabitants and prevent them from claiming any rights to the land they had worked for generations, the landowners desecrated the cemetery, razed the graves, demolished their old houses, and cut off the public roads leading to the village. Juan Carlos's father managed to acquire a small plot of mountain land in Otíñar to plant a subsistence garden like the one he had in his youth. He resisted the landowners' hostility and joined other former settlers in a campaign to get the Jaén City Council to commit to reopening the roads and reclaiming the area for public use.

Juan Carlos became involved in that struggle, which is portrayed in the documentary 'Otíñar, a Village with a Master'. It's possible that the process rekindled his need to reclaim the memory of his people. Perhaps it was the dignified pride of the humble that motivated him to delve deeper into his interest in wild plants and their uses. “My parents and grandparents used many of them as food, in times of famine, or simply because they liked them. They used them for medicine and to make things like baskets or tools” he explains.

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Most of those plant species, including fungi and ferns, herbaceous plants, aromatic plants, rock-dwelling plants, trees and shrubs, were introduced by humans to take advantage of their roots and bulbs, stems, leaves, berries, fruits, seeds, flowers, bark, sap and resins.

“We have many archaeophytes, plants introduced in the past as crops that ended up naturalizing and growing wild. Today, most people see them along roadsides and ditches and don't stop to look at them, but they are important, and in addition to biodiversity and variety, they provide us with information about the past. Plants hold the memory of the peoples and cultures that used them” he explains.

One of these archaeophytes is the wild mustard, introduced from Asia Minor during Neolithic migrations. Yes, you know it too. Its yellow flowers are ubiquitous in spring throughout the Mediterranean region. “It’s in the cabbage family” says the druid, as he delicately plucks a stem during an hour-long walk in which he ends up identifying and letting his companions taste up to 60 plants.

During the walk, he reveals to the group that the tender pods where the wild mustard seeds will form have a flavor reminiscent of mustard and wasabi. He offers them the still-curled leaves of a small rock fern, which taste like tender hazelnuts. He points out the early figs whose bright green buds are beginning to appear on the local fig trees. “These green figs, when pickled, are delicious when you put them in vinegar with water, salt, and a chili pepper.”

She also gazes with delight at the borage, so abundant and ready for harvest, and the asparagus shoots of different varieties, along with the occasional mushroom. “In the past, these plants were a resource for the inhabitants. Today, they are a delicacy that allows us to expand our rather meager vegetable supply” she remarks.

Juan Carlos Roldán says he acquired that immense knowledge thanks to his shyness. “I spent my life looking at the ground” he recalls. “People who don’t look at the ground don’t know all they’re missing” he smiles.

His wife, Eva Espinosa, sweetly admits that Juan Carlos has “lots of jars” of liquids and plants floating around the house, but she doesn't mind. “I benefit from it, because I love herbs, vegetables, and the things he makes” she smiles. And what does he make? “Well, everything from ash salt from shepherd's satchels to rock tea liqueur, green walnut vermouth, blueberry or pistachio resin gin, pine bark cinnamon…” (His Instagram profile, @juancarlosotinar, is a veritable showcase of ideas).

In recent years, Roldán has found the perfect partner for R&D: chef and aroma specialist Marcos Reguera. “Our meeting was quite curious, because we're practically neighbors, and yet we didn't know each other” Reguera explains. “I was very interested in learning about wild plants and I signed up for a seminar at the Basque Culinary Center. The day begins with the screening of a documentary, and the first person to appear is Juan Carlos” he laughs.

Reguera decided to contact him and reached out to a mutual friend. “He invited me to a talk he was giving about aromatic plants” Roldán explains. “I sat in the back, and they came to get me and tell me to sit in the seats reserved for dignitaries. I thought, ‘How thoughtful,’ and I sat down. Marcos started speaking and announced that one of Europe’s leading experts on wild plants was in the room. I was thinking, ‘Great, I’m going to meet him,’ when he pointed at me and said my name.” Marcos Reguera’s mastery of the chemical components of aromas, he advises companies like the spice distributor Verstegen, Castillo de Canena Oils, and Melgarejo Extra Virgin, is the perfect complement to Roldán’s knowledge.

Since that meeting, they have been collaborating to find new culinary uses for these plants, and, together with Vicente Barba, an archaeologist from the University of Jaén, they are preparing a book about the history of the Otíñar Valley and its inhabitants through the plants introduced and cultivated at different times. The book will include culinary suggestions and will discuss plants used for other purposes, such as basket weaving, a hobby that Juan Carlos Roldán, a man who looks at the landscape with a hunger and who ultimately aspires to change how others see the environment, also finds time for.