Enter the barbarian gastronomist
Hello, world. This is the other gourmand: the gourmet
Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash
Why this, why now
I am launching this parallel space to my main blog.
Whilst Oltre il baccalá is written in Italian and for Italians, this community is more open and is aimed at whoever can chew a bit of English. I’m no mother tongue either so we are in good company here.
While Oltre il baccalá talks about Portugal through gastronomic eyes, here I talk about a gastronomic lifestyle through my eyes.
In Oltre il baccalá I am kind, good-tempered and respectful: I am a foreigner in a beautiful host country and I approach things and issues with curiosity and respect. Here I am brewing in my broth, brewing into gastronomy and sometimes I may come across as cruel and straightforward. Well, blame it on my acquired Dutch directness, but here I will be just plain honest.
While in Oltre il baccalá I mainly discuss food and its makers (chefs, kitchen staff, and the front of the house), here my inquisition and incineration are focused mainly on those who write about gastronomy, the plates, ingredients, fashions and more.
The other gourmand
You know, right, that the words we use matter, and that writers shape reality. If you hadn’t realised how important the correct articulation of thought is, ChatGPT and AI in general would wake you up a notch.
According to the Larousse Dictionary of the French Language, a gourmet is a "person who knows how to distinguish and appreciate good cuisine and good wines". A subject expert in gastronomic arts. A gourmand instead designates one "who loves to eat good things in quantity". A glutton.
Tongue in cheek, the title of this publication is exactly the other gourmand.
The gourmet.
About me
I have a very low tolerance for stupidity. Stay with me while I tear apart the fabric of (gastronomic) reality.
The Barbarian generation
How did this all start? In October I started my fourth Master's.
I felt I needed to perfect my knowledge and taste in gastronomy, and here I was in October 2022 embarking on a challenging journey with a bunch of other gastronomic dreamers from all over the Spanish-speaking world: Mexico, Ecuador, Germany, Morocco, Catalunya, the Basque Country, and Spain. And of course, the mixture of Italian and curious-about-Portuguese-cuisine I embody.
The mix of people revealed itself to be explosive.
We started like rockets and our conversations unveiled the spine of a trans-generational “generation” of culinary barbarians. This term has been given to the “generation” who entered gastronomy just before us, but I think it can be applicable to us too. It was crafted by Substack author and writer Albert Molins, probably the intellectual father of the name of this non-movement.
I spoke about it on Oltre il baccalá.
About the other barbarians, I read and appreciate
Lakshmi Aguirre is for me Spain’s most talented contemporary young gastronomic writer in its most complete sense. She is capable of intertwining narrative with chronicle with review and has a brilliant mind of her own.
My fantastic professor, Yanet Acosta, is a driving force that sets an example for us to think originally (and not bend to what is fashionable). Her knowledge is as vast as the ocean and she has the innate ability to tell compelling tales, like a gastronomic Sheherazade she keeps us glued to our chairs whenever she starts telling us a story. The nurturing force behind the barbarian generation, the one who will rewrite gastronomy in the coming years.
Jorge Guitián is a fellow Substack writer with an incredible talent for making me hungry for an empanada and for discovering Galicia. I decided to support his project because it is quite unique and because I strongly believe in the need for decentralising gastronomic writing:
Cris Silva is a soulmate in the wine industry. An extremely elegant woman with a passion for ancient vintages and exquisite taste in choosing the right words for everything. Like she is mastering the art of wine pairing, she is also doing it for word pairings. I am dying to read her next books.
I would like to highlight some of the other barbarians in my class, that are developing their own projects outside of Substack.
Jorge Díez is an avid explorer of every food, wine and gastronomy occasion in the Basque country. Beware, his Instagram page will make you terribly hungry.
Raquel del Castillo García is the editor of the Mexican outlet El Universal Menu, a gastronomic supplement to El Universal.
And of course, the involuntary muse of this movement is Maria Nicolau, the real barbarian cook. Her book is becoming a staple in Spain and was an incendiary success this past year.
The list would go on and on and on. Stay tuned, I’ll tell you surely more of them all in the future. I have yet to talk about our fellow barbarians of the Central and Southern American continent.
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If you answered no, you should, even more, click on the bottom button to subscribe: you’ll see a completely different world vision.
Thanks for your extremely kind words Sara! “Great minds think alike” ;) and I couldn't be happier to have found a gastronomical soul mate like you! Big gastronomic projects are coming very soon... I smell it!
Excited to see this! I love your first effort even if the need to translate it means I don't always read it right away. This one will go much more quickly for me! Thank you!