A disruptive congress where apparently madness runs amok, but sanity ends up prevailing to explain the world and its interaction with the kitchen, that is Kitchen Dialogues. It is one of those encounters that provoke an infinite number of questions, encourage reflection, an exchange of points of view between chefs and the different disciplines called: literature, journalism, science, sociology, art.
This 2023 edition, divided into two phases, was presented by Pepa Charro, an actress named Terremoto de Alcorcón, who comments with Debate on her close relationship with Mexico. She has made a movie ‘La Novia de América’, with Maribel Guardia, and describes the experience as endearing. She prefers to be called ‘La Terre’, “to avoid misunderstandings with telluric movements and such things”, she says with self-confidence like the one who shines on stage clad in multicolored dresses, designs of other orbits, a lot of shine, varied wigs, high heels and heart-stopping platforms. .
The ideologue of this groundbreaking proposal, biannual for sixteen years in San Sebastián, is Andoni Luis Aduriz, owner and lord of the Mugaritz restaurant. His accomplices are the Basque Culinary Center (BCC), the gastronomic faculty and the first in the world, and Euro-Toques; an international organization made up of more than three thousand kitchen professionals from eighteen countries. In Spain there are eight hundred members and it was founded almost three decades ago by Paul Bocuse, Juan Mari Arzak and Pedro Subijana from the Akelarre restaurant, who, by the way, received an emotional tribute dotted with improvised verses, part of Basque culture, from the bertsolari, Maialen Lujambio, that if the language is not spoken or understood, they do feel through the pores of emotions.
The guiding thread was Gulliver’s Travels, an 18th-century work by Irishman Jonathan Swift, where the adventures of the protagonist are told in four parts, each one the opposite of the other. In the first, Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon turned navigator, is a giant on an island of little men or Lilliputians, in the second he appears in the land of giants. In the third he is wise and in the fourth he is ignorant. And it was just the moods awakened in this ninth edition. At times the assistant felt tiny before the overwhelming quantity and quality of information spilled, then giant, with his ego swollen for having had the unique opportunity to attend, it was for two hundred people. And ignorant because there were such specialized topics that you had to listen to them a second time or ask questions and wise, because you enjoyed each of the experiences provided to the fullest. “May you live every day of your life,” Swift says in his caption.
The roundness of the tortilla
The presentation ‘Metaphysics for gluttons: gastronomy and culture’, by Juan Villoro, the Mexican writer, who confesses to being a “good tooth” and “witness and not an expert in cooking”, left his mouth open, appetite and thirst for knowledge before the prodigious display of literary and historical references and related personal experiences. The phrase, “The world is round, also a melon, lemon and tortilla”, was the prelude to refer to the importance of Mexican cuisine for the planetary gastronomic culture. He talked about chili, corn, Ítalo Calvino’s passion for sauces, mole, the mark left by the 1985 earthquake, in terms of solidarity and the comforting of a simple soup in the midst of misfortune,
After Villoro exposed, Ander Izagirre, a Basque journalist, who recounted his world tour in the Basque Country, his home. He began with Getaria, the birthplace of Juan Sebastián Elcano who embarked with Magellan 500 years ago to circumnavigate the globe. His nine-day, 750 km bicycle journey allowed him to delve into Basque nautical history and understand how everything revolved around the sea. There was an important shipping industry, the hamlets that made cider were large factories that supplied the ships that set sail for America, northern Europe, Africa. Likewise, there was an important industry of salt, iron, wood. It was a globalized society and since the Romans two thousand years ago. “Everything that is believed to be from here has come from outside,” he stressed, “the time has come to break myths.”
Dan Saladino, presenter of the BBC’s The Food Programme, and author of the book Eating to Extinction, expressed his concern about the disappearance of food and biodiversity. He encouraged the kitchen professionals to tell diners stories to raise awareness. It is necessary to spread the word that food is becoming homogeneous, coffee, for example, has more than a hundred species and only two are used: arabica and robusta. Everything, says Saladino, is in the hands of a handful of corporations. “Half of the cheeses are made with bacteria or enzymes from a single company. In China and the United States, pig production is based on the genetics of a breed.” His approaches lead us to think that if native foods disappear, they will cause a chain reaction because the way of cooking them will also vanish.
Dabiz Muñoz, another international reference for his DiverXo, and Andoni Luis Aduriz discussed his definition of haute cuisine and concluded that there must always be an intention: to seek excellence in raw materials, to inspire, to make people happier. Something as simple as a croquette can be, but also quite the opposite.
Vicky Sevilla, from Arrels, the youngest to get a Michelin star, said that haute cuisine is made by those who combine creativity and innovation. And that is not the case with her because she focuses on tradition.
Likewise, there was a discussion on kombuchas and fermented products, chemical reactions, spirituality, quantum physics and poetry. An urbanite and a farmer talked, the details of the Galician project ‘Amas da Terra’, by chef Lucía Freitas, were revealed to make fishermen and shellfish women visible. The question of tokenism in the kitchen, the practice of only superficially including minority groups, came to the fore. The project, Lacrème, from an advertising agency called Dimension, was unveiled, in which there is an App with 500 most representative dishes of Spanish chefs. And even, there was an exhibition on soccer, there was dance and the violin was played.
The intervention of DJ Brava, Sara Delgado, who has played at music festivals of international importance such as Coachella, was also part of the ripping of schemes. Not only did he exude ingenuity and sympathy and make the attendees dance hours before the closing, but also provoked questions on which paths and where the new generations connected to the virtual universe with thousands of followers and unplugged from other realities are going; She did not know a large part of the speakers as famous chefs, and it was taken naturally because they did not know who Brava was either.
The closure was a coven where the spirits of the night were invoked, in fact, Gulliver spoke with beings who communicated with the afterlife. The pintxos came and went, they danced to the rhythm of salsa, sung in Basque/Euskera and they practiced the quemaida ceremony -a traditional Galician drink with pomace brandy and coffee beans that is performed between spells to ward off bad vibes. -. Towards the end of the festival there was cartomancy and the arcana predicted continuity forever and ever of the Dialogues.
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