4 Nov 2019

Gastronomy is Commitment

On Saturday October 19th, , I post this at Instagram and Twitter:


Translation: I see many gastrobloggers and gastroinfluencers keep on doing at their profiles without conciousness of what happens outside. Plese, unfollow me. I will apreciate it very much. Gastronomy is commitment.

I felt outraged, yes, because of the way how gastrobloggers, gastroinfluencers... were facing the situation in Catalonia. Someone with serious shortcomings in reading competence might think that I asked for or demanded support for independence... But it was not true. I criticize the lack of positioning for serious situations we are experiencing. One is the problem of independence or not of Catalonia, but others have emerged as a sentence that penalizes any protest (the great perversion of the text condemned by Catalan political prisoners); the impunity of fascism (the comfort with which the concentrates at Pl. Artós moved trhough the city); the disproportionate actions of the police with demonstrators and journalists... Too many...

And in the gastronomic sector there has been an alarming silence. As far as chefs are concerned, must talk the colleagues, but for my part, I have to criticize the omission of people from the sector to which I belong.

Do not mix cuisine and politics? A mistake. Gastronomy is a commitment. And this implies having a political position. If you defend Slow Food, you are defending proximity, a specific landscape, specific flavors, an specific way to make everything... It is to defend the approach to a socio-economic model based on the human measure of it, where people matter: the producing projects are known, the prices must contemplate the work done, the food cycles must be taken into account ... This has an ideological burden that is very different from that of wanting to find a food regardless of its seasonality, wanting the piece as cheap as possible... Politics... Cristal clear! The predominant ideology will determine our reality.
And if reality demands critical voices, these must be there.
All those with whom I am critical do not stop being part of the social alienation gear: "Hey! Look that good food... See what a good place to go to have lunch... See what fair where go to buy... You see, this allows you to free yourself from problems, because with all this there is no space for problems. Do you see? I have a good time and my social networks so there is no enough space for problem". Those who show a reality of perpetual gastronomic hedonism do not let them see the misery of society in which their reality is contextualized. They are part of the system described in "A happy world" by Aldous Huxley.

Forgetting the political side of a social fact is a mistake, as it will prevent them from explaining gastronomic facts correctly. Is not it about communicating?
How can these communicators explain what is a co-ops? A co-ops!!! The political dimension is essential in this case, since it is a business figure that allows to realize an economic activity with a high degree of social sustainability. An expansion of the social economy (where the co-ops is placed) would allow a change in the economic-productive paradigm from one where labor exploitation and social inequality are generated to another where social sustainability (of people who is in the company and the environment where it develops its activity) and the distribution of wealth are present. Pure political positioning and hard.

The one who refuses the presence of politics in the social aspects of the person is contributing to leave the power in the wrong hands, because politicians do not have the power, but they are the momentary representatives of who has the true power: people. Now, it depends on us.

Gastronomy is a commitment. The memories and feelings associated with eating and drinking are related to someone who cared of us, with someone who loved us, with someone who made us happy... Not with someone who cheated us or made us believe we lived in an unreal world... Think about it.
Do not want to show your positioning because you do not want to lose followers? Are you afraid of losing some sponsor? Do you think people will stop inviting you at places? That's fine ... But do not count on me. Your trip is different from mine.

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