2023-09-16 22:39:24
FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, says that the nutrition of the future requires not only sustainable development but a systemic vision of the social environment as a whole and an ethical commitment. In other words, he maintains that it is not only worth thinking about the planet but also about its human inhabitants. It reminds in its own way that the well-being of the weakest in the different rural social environments is part of the ecosystems to be protected.
In this column we have been defending for years that the urban environment must include the rural environment, not only visiting it on weekends as a theme park, and that cooking is culture, but also an activity that generates wealth and employment in the primary sector and in the of services – due to activities linked to tourism –, if not in the secondary if we look at the very powerful agro-industrial transformation, the largest generator of industrial employment in countries like Spain.
I start this week’s article with a serious tone, but very happy because more than forty chefs and producers from various countries linked to high-altitude rural environments have just signed the II Meeting Andorra Taste ‘the Andorra Manifesto for the future of mountain cuisine’. And they are only the first, because the text will be open to the support of colleagues who want to join in the future. In the document they claim that the mountain societies, to which they belong or in which they work, and their ways of life are guarantors of the biodiversity and sustainability of the natural ecosystems that urban environments insist on protecting.
The signatories, among them outstanding chefs such as the Peruvian Gastón Acurio, Joan Roca, the three Michelin stars Sven Wassmer, from Switzerland, Paolo Casagrande and others also recognized in the red tapas guide such as Nandu Jubany, Benito Gómez, Edorta Lamo, Joel Castañé, the Savoy Clement Bouvier, Ana Ros, Aníbal Criollo, Rodolfo Guzmán, Nacho Manzano, Oscar García, Albert Boronat, Francis Paniego, Jordi Grau and around twenty chefs or producers who work in Andorra, such as Carles Fynch, Albert Ventura or Pablo Urcelay, to name just a few, are committed to “working together to protect natural mountain environments anywhere in the world and guarantee their sustainability”.
The text, in addition to establishing an ethical position in general terms, proposes specific action measures for themselves and the institutions, such as the maximum protection of natural mountain environments to guarantee their sustainability or regulation with specific regulations for direct sales. from producers and collectors to restaurants to facilitate local marketing that helps establish population and distribute wealth.
Going deeper into the problems they experience in these natural environments, they demand the creation of support programs so that livestock and mountain agriculture achieve the necessary profitability that guarantees the sustainability of shepherds and farmers, an irreplaceable part of the ecosystem that guarantees in many spaces the cleaning of the mountains, their knowledge and management to avoid fires and the spread of pests or the development of unwanted species.
In the most social aspect, they ask for rural societies, not only for those of high mountain, the same rights in terms of health, education and digital connectivity that are offered in urban environments and also that programs be enabled to promote the return of the population to rural and mountain spaces with plans and aid for the recovery of houses and towns. Finally, they demand the implementation of training and educational awareness programs so that new generations assume the relevant role that the preservation of the natural environment must have, but with a realistic vision of it and the ways of life of its inhabitants.
In return, the mountain chefs who sign the Andorra manifesto undertake to respect in their kitchens the seasonality of the products from their environment, to value the work of local producers, “guardians of the roots and heirs of the knowledge of the nature” and to make mountain products visible on the menus of their restaurants.
Furthermore, they are committed to preserving the legacy received in the form of traditional recipe books and gastronomic corpus and assuming as part of their creative work the implementation of the same, an intangible legacy of great culinary value in many cases and cultural value in all. them, since there lies the knowledge of the different popular cuisines.
Finally, they commit to using all the social awareness capacity at their disposal to defend life in towns and make known in urban environments the reality and value of mountain societies.
Illustration Mr. García
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