Native and Transgenic Cuisine

On social media, the exordium of sustainability, traditions, popular culture, and the preservation of the indigenous are abundant. The allegations against consumerism, transgenic investigation, and modernity, in general, are applauded without looking twice. Stewpots are gasped upon and the Pacojet is cursed upon. What matters, apparently, is the means and not the depth. This academic Marcusianism forgets, however, that the value of the autochthonous has its foundation in the modernity that created it and that what is presently modern will become autochthonous when the future becomes present. It forgets as well that cooking really resides in feeding before delighting oneself, and that if the means matters to be frivolous, then welcome be however many new joys modernity can procure us. The native, in many cases, is suffering from Malta fever from consuming natural lactose products or getting sick from legionella because conservatives weren’t added.

In any case, the hotel industry distracts itself in the subjunctive fantasy of spikes, threshing board tables, or medieval armors — the form — without worrying about the truly important things like sleeping, dreaming, getting excited or living a unique experience — the depth — . Because the autochthonous in architecture could easily be the floor, the nothing before the homo was habilis and chose the modernity of a cave. Or, what tradition are we speaking of?

Once, chef Ferran Adrià was asked about the meaning of the word airplane — an invention older than scullery maid, and hence, traditional — . «Flying apparatus that, when referred to food, changes the concept of the area products and everything that this entails», the illustrious chef answered disrupting the radical arguments in favor of the native. «For example, some cherries from Chile can arrive in less time to Barcelona by airplane than those from Extremadura by truck. That doesn’t take away that the cherries from Extremadura are the best in the world. What’s clear is that the airplane has revolutionized the concept of what if from here or there. Ah! Cherries aren’t native to Chile or Extremadura, but very possibly from Anatolia.»

Fernando Gallardo |