Envie or endive?

A lettuce issue, and Cabeza de Cabra

Diary of a Gastronomer is a reader-supported publication within The Other Gourmand. It is a more intimate journey into my personal experience as a gastronomist in training—as a growing human.

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When I started earnestly believing in my gastronomic journey, like many others, I bumped into a series of Instagram users who had seemingly incessant cash flow, unlimited time, and, especially, an infinite stomach.

There is at least one in every country.

They are often well above 40, male and female alike. They seem wealthy, although not always healthy. According to their pictures and videos, their restaurant bills could afford a small home at the end of any given month.

These people often like to write - more or less pedantically, more or less informative - about their gastronomic whereabouts.

At first sight, their world is dazzling.

They cruise among the best restaurants worldwide, in an endless journey of immaculate napkins and fine dining adventures that they call “experiences”. They have tons of followers who drool with comments below their pictures.

From the outside, they found the meaning of gastronomy.

Because we know it is hedonism, right?

Well, no.

Not only hedonism.

In some cases, there is no hedonism at all.

I owe it to my mentor and professor, an incredible gastronomic writer, my “Maya’s veil” destruction. With a straightforward masterclass, she completely reversed my understanding of these people and gastronomy and its meaning.

She asked me whether it was that interesting to focus on restaurants - and starred restaurants. She asked me whether there was another story to tell in this area.

To crush all doubts about her gastronomic amplitude, which transcends time and means but also transcends boundaries, she opened our series of classes together by reading gastronomically, a book that has nothing to do with gastronomy.

Apparently.

This fellow, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, explored the newly discovered world across the Atlantic. He writes his Naufragios when he is safely back home, and we can now read with some pity and delight the misadventures of an early expatriate.

For context, we are in 1528, and the Spanish explorer Álvaro Núñez Cabeza de Vaca is attempting to reach the land that would eventually become Texas.

However, his makeshift raft got stranded near Galveston Island due to an unfortunate tropical storm.

The raft was carrying survivors of an unsuccessful Spanish expedition that aimed to settle Florida, and his writings deal with his attempt to return home. His many encounters with native “Florida men” may resonate with what we read in newspapers today.

I am kidding, of course.

Regardless.

The main culinary ingredient of his chronicle is hunger.

He repeats it almost 50 times. It is much more than the few shrimp and seafood—and ants and spider’s eggs and other delicacies of the indigenous diet.

The main food for these unfortunate populations was some roots and shells, both of which were poor in nutrients and, when consumed in large amounts, could cause severe pain.

Reading the chronicles of a man who lived so many centuries ago allows us to sneak a peek into his diet and habits, and this, my reader, is what gastronomy is all about.

At that precise moment, while reading about poor Cabeza de Vaca being beaten unconscious by some Indigenous chief chap, is when I had my Eureka moment. Gastronomy can be just a lens through which to look at the world. It is a way to interpret our reality, which every human strives to do.

This is why I will always insist with anyone wanting to enter the realm of gastronomy, on finding an appropriate mentor and instructor to direct their first steps. I would not have been able to find easily my path, if not for Yanet, if not for letting Lakshmi Aguirre’s whimsical writing inspire me, and if not for musing over

Albert Molins Renter

’s comments and critics.

I will never tire of saying that gastronomy is like a large network encompassing many subjects and that by tapping into different subjects we

One of my primary interests in gastronomy is to study its evolution: how did we come to modern Portuguese gastronomy, if we take as assumption that we had a large Roman Empire influence, and then a series of superimposing cultures that left a mark on its food?

You see, much more interesting than telling how many stars gained yet another boring restaurant.

It does not pay well either, but at least it is real food for my brain. This is when I learned how (sadly) poorly were paid those seemingly happy journalists and how miserable the lives of those influencers were, shovelled left and right to create content that has no meaning, just a couple of shiny images to tickle our reptilian brain.

No, I was not envious of the shallow side of gastronomy.

I found new meaning, and it was through a tale about some old man's hunger.

But back to envy and endives.

I like the lulling alliteration that these two words hold.

Does it even have a meaning?

Does everything have a meaning?

I started with gastronomic envy and ended up with endive - or some vegetable that we can use to feel greener.