None of my grandmas were good cooks, so I never had that feeling of eating those amazing foods that only your grandma knows how to cook. The kind that taste like home, hugs and warmth. But the good thing about life is that you can borrow people and other people’s families and make them your own family. And that’s what I felt with this person.

Given that I was not able to learn how to cook from my grandmas (I was able to learn many other incredible things, though), and given how much I enjoyed asking her about food and cooking, I came up with the idea of making a cookbook with recipes from grandmas, and I wanted her to be the first person I “interviewed”. But the difficult thing about life is that you can’t do everything you want, at least not within the timeline you wish for. Even more so when a passion project like this involves people who are probably in the last years of their lives, a fact that is too painful for us to acknowledge, so we become oblivious to it.

So I wasn’t able to sit down with her and document her recipes. It makes me very, very sad. I’ve been fortunate not to experience much grief in my life, but when I have, the most painful thought is “How is it possible that I can no longer talk to this person? How is it possible that I can no longer say hello?” I always have plans to do more things, to ask more questions, and being suddenly deprived of that feels almost unfair. But then, you remember that death is also part of life.

Life is also kind, and sometimes knows when to hug you if you need it. A few days ago, I was craving asparagus, and I mentioned it to my partner during our evening walk. They’re in season now. Once we got home, I started making dinner, and there was a knock on the door. It was my neighbour, Juanita, an older woman who always seems to have a smile on her face. She handed me a pot of asparagus soup. She said her son had tried it and loved it, so she wanted to give us some too. It was, indeed, delightful. A pure taste of home, hugs and warmth.

I returned her container and told her how delicious it was. She gave me fresh asparagus her daughter had brought from Granada, and a bit of game meat her son had brought as well.

On another note, last month, a new baby entered the family. I’m an auntie! For the third time! This closeness between a birth and a loss made me think that, as difficult as it is, this is part of how life works. Some people leave so that new generations arrive.

I’ve started a tradition where, whenever someone close to me has a baby, I cook them a lasagna. I imagine that when you’re sleep-deprived and learning how to exist with a newborn, the least of your concerns is cooking wholesome meals. But I also imagine that a wholesome meal is exactly what the body and mind need at that moment. And is there a more comforting meal than a lasagna? Something you wouldn’t cook from scratch with a newborn, and once ready, only needs to be reheated or placed in the oven.

I cooked this lasagna on a day when I was sad because of loss, for the parents of a new baby. It’s heavy on the heart. Cooking is my way of feeling happy, and it’s also my way of giving love. So I decided to call it the lasagna of life.

I was going to share the recipe, but honestly, who needs another lasagna recipe? I just make sure I do a few things:

• As I usually make chicken lasagna, I boil the chicken in water with onion, celery, carrots and garlic, so I end up with a good chicken stock.

• I blend the remaining vegetables from the stock (neverrrrr throw them away, please!) and use them as a condiment in other recipes. It’s basically a vegetable stock cube but in pureé form.

• I use chicken breasts, but also whole chicken legs, bones included. They’re more tender, more flavourful, and the bones make the stock much better.

• I add A LOT of vegetables to the chicken filling. It’s usually more onion, celery and carrots, plus red bell pepper. I often add aubergine because it makes the filling incredibly creamy. The vegetables are not just for health, they are responsible for the flavour, so don’t skip them, please.

• I use canned tomatoes, but they need to be top quality. No tomato sauce, please, just tomatoes. The sauce will build itself as you cook.

• Maybe my personal touch, I add a good splash of Pedro Ximénez wine to the filling. It brings sweetness and depth that really makes a difference.

We also gave Juanita a piece of lasagna and a pot of homemade chicken stock. It was our turn now to give something back. She invited us into her home for a chat. She said that she was glad we had built a friendly relationship as neighbours. She said she felt like our grandmother since she has grandchildren our age. She didn’t know about our loss, but for me, it felt like life was hugging us for a moment.

This, too, is part of our quest for deliciousness 🥄

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

At the same time, I also believe people can change, evolve, and learn. Thankfully, we are not frozen versions of our past selves. Asking people to be held accountable for their past actions while not allowing space for them to show how they may have changed can end up being harmful for everyone. If we ask an industry to improve, we also have to allow the possibility of improvement.

That doesn’t mean past actions disappear, or that they stop being painful for the people who experienced them. Accountability matters. But people should still have the opportunity to grow and do better. What sometimes gets labelled as “cancel culture” feels strange to me for this reason: we ask people to take responsibility, yet even when they do, it can feel as though they are permanently anchored to who they once were.

Human beings are more complex than simply good or bad. When a situation is presented in a purely black-and-white way, I instinctively question it.

I think that when people refuse to even consider that someone might evolve, it often comes from a place of anger that makes it difficult to ask those questions. And when that happens, critical thinking starts to fade.

I don’t know what the reality at Noma is today. If anything, the people who work there should be the ones speaking about it, if they choose to. But sometimes I wonder whether this movement — which I believe began with a very important goal: starting a conversation and improving the industry — has taken an approach that demands change while leaving little space for that change to actually happen.

And in that process, I sometimes worry that the people who might be most affected are the current staff themselves — the very people this conversation is trying to protect.

This isn’t me taking sides. It feels like, today, saying anything that even slightly questions a small part of this movement is seen as supporting the abusive and toxic environment it’s trying to denounce. What I’m trying to say is that this reaction — being too blind to see shades of grey, too unwilling to listen to slightly different perspectives, even when they come from the same good intentions — is part of the problem.

Nothing is ever that simple, that black, that white. It’s just easier and more comfortable to believe that it is.

On that note, I would like to share some other pieces of content I’ve found interesting around this topic:

• Pot Luck Food Talks - Noma Under Fire: When Kitchen Culture Crosses the Line

• Christian F. B. Puglisi - Now what?

• Billy Wagner (Nobelhart & Schmutzig) - The system behind the scandal

I found Wagner’s essay especially interesting because it highlights something I try to bring into these conversations: we also need to make the guest part of the system.

Particularly here in Spain, where going out for drinks and tapas is often treated as an essential expense rather than a luxury, people proudly point out how cheap it is to eat at restaurants. But since I started working in kitchens, I’ve tried to challenge this idea. Guests don’t really know how expensive it is to run a sustainable business.

The system that makes abusive environments easy to happen — the kind of thing even people outside of the culinary world are now denouncing — is precisely the same system that makes dining out accessible. It is well known that hospitality is a sector with very thin margins, if they exist at all. And those already tight margins are sustained by wages that pay for 40 hours of work a week (but cooks know they’ll end up working 60+), unpaid stages, and high levels of stress, because every service is high-stakes.

I guess my points are:

• Please, read a lot, listen to different perspectives, and question everything.

• And in that process, let’s not forget to bring the guest to the table (figuratively). Maybe changing the industry requires a broader perspective than only pointing at well-known chefs.

This, too, is part of our quest for deliciousness 🥄

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

As I write this, I miss the rush of service, the camaraderie, the cold beer while cleaning the kitchen before closing. Even the stinky hair and black, dirty nails. The act of missing makes us romanticise everything sometimes. In moments like this, I have to remind myself of the most cliché thing: my why. Why I’m on this path, what I want to build, what I want my day-to-day to look like, what I want to learn, what I want to offer to the world.

All these years of studying and not being in a kitchen, I’ve tried to lower the cost of not having chosen that path instead.

You know the concept, right? It’s something often used in economics. If you have 100 euros, you can buy a 100-euro bag or fifty 2-euro chocolate bars, but you can’t have both. The cost of choosing the bag is not being able to choose the chocolate.

Usually, and rationally, we try to choose the option with the lowest opportunity cost. With those 100 euros, I could buy a bag that I can later sell for 200 euros, whereas the chocolate bars I could only eat. By choosing the bag, I gain 100 euros. If I choose the chocolate, I enjoy it, but I’m left with nothing else.

The thing is, opportunity cost also applies to life. The value of each choice is something we assign ourselves. In my head, I imagined myself doing so many things. When I was younger, I thought I could do them all, as if I had infinite euros to buy both the bag and the bars. Then I grew up and understood I had to pick one of all those hundreds of scenarios I had envisioned for myself.

In my case, the choice I made was to satiate my hunger for knowledge on food and cooking. Worth 100. Among all other options, the most expensive one was continuing a conventional chef career. That was probably worth 80. Very high, but not the highest, hence my choice. But there are many other options related to food and cooking that also feel very costly. So yes, I chose the one worth 100, but the sum of all the others still feels expensive.

I’ve always known this, and felt it. That’s why the decision always felt obvious but hard. Over the years, I’ve tried to reduce the cost of all these other options by bringing them down. I’d think things like: in kitchens, I would have worked too many hours! Then I look at my calendar and realise I’m probably working more hours now than I was back then. Ok, but the work there was much harder, it was not only the hours. Then I notice how often I burn out, how cognitively demanding everything I do is, and how sometimes I wish my work were more physical, like it is in kitchens, because my brain can’t take it anymore.

So, if everything I think to try to bring the cost down is not entirely true, how can I back myself for choosing the path I’m on? Well, there’s also something I’m bringing from economics to understand life. It’s strange, but I think this is how my brain works, sorry.

When dealing with money, the goal is usually to increase margins and generate more profit. We can do this by lowering the cost, which is most people’s default. You want to save for a trip to the Maldives? You start spending less. But there’s another, often more powerful way, which is the one many established businesses go for: generate more.

To generate more, we usually need to spend invest more. But if done well, the growth can be exponential. So instead of cutting expenses, you might choose to earn more and reach your goal faster. I’m not here to promote hustle culture, productivity, blah blah blah. I’m just saying there are two approaches: reduce or generate. You choose.

Still with me?

When I thought about applying this to life the same way we do with opportunity cost, it just clicked. I don’t need to lower the cost of all the paths I didn’t take. I just need to make the path I chose worth a thousand instead of one hundred.

How? That’s something each of us has to figure out. That’s mainly what we are all trying to do in life. I have a sense of what that looks like for me, and I’m working really, really hard to make it happen.

I like to keep these posts very food-focused, and I went on a bit of a tangent there. I know. Maybe it’s the Argentinian in me, a bit too intense and philosophical. I wasn’t going to share this, but I know this difficulty of choice is something people in the food industry often deal with. So perhaps, if that’s you, this can help. The sacrifice of choice needs to be worth it, and it’s on us to create that worth. You decide how.

Let’s continue our quest for deliciousness 🥄

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Bourdain explains that he took on a role as a chef in an Italian restaurant, even though he didn’t know much about Italian gastronomy. He shares that once he started learning about it, he understood the power of simplicity. He describes how the most basic dish, such as plain spaghetti with tomato sauce, can be a magnificent experience with just a bit of care.

This happened to me a few years ago on a trip to Milan and Venice. Not to be dramatic, but that trip changed me as a cook. I used to be a more-is-more type of cook, and I was challenged by the simplest dishes, yet they were outstanding. So much so that I can still savour them in my mind to this day.

As an example, we did a one-day trip to Verona. We had lunch in a small, quiet place and ordered risotto all’Amarone. I knew it was a typical dish there, and I knew Amarone was a wine. But I knew nothing else. To my surprise, when the dish arrived, I discovered it was “just” rice. No protein, no vegetables, nothing.

The way I would usually create recipes was: what’s the protein? what are the vegetables? am I going to add any carbs? what condiments do I need?

And while this is a good method to plan weekday meals for a more or less balanced diet, this is definitely not how those amazing meals were structured. In places where produce is of the highest quality, we can afford to be simplistic and honour the intrinsic magic of the ingredients. All the heavy lifting has already been done by the soil, the water, the farmer, the sun, the enzymes. Being a good cook here is about understanding that it’s not us who needs to shine. It’s the produce, and all the history it already carries.

My dad is a padel teacher. There are some shots where he tells me not to hit the ball, just to caress it. Those are the shots in which the ball already has speed and direction. If I hit it, I would change its trajectory. I just need to help it pass the net, nothing else.

That’s what I feel we should do as cooks when we have such good produce. There’s so much technology, research, labour and energy behind it. We just need to help pass it on to the final consumer so they can enjoy it. It wouldn’t hurt for us to get educated on why these ingredients are as good as they are. It wouldn’t hurt to put our egos aside and give credit to how they are produced. We cooks are just the last step of the path.

I think my cooking used to be more complex than necessary because I thought I had to imitate fine-dining techniques to be a good cook. Now, I have a very different view on this, which could lead to a whole other post. I’ve recently observed that, more often than not, fine dining transforms too much of the food matrix with intricate techniques, and we can’t appreciate the original qualities of the produce as much. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a sucker for new methods and techniques. I love knowing there’s no limit to how we can apply science and technology to create new textures, flavours, and aromas. But that’s just a very niche way of cooking.

With the rise of culinary schools and chef media, I feel young cooks see this way of cooking as the only way. The way that makes them chefs.

As a note to my future self, if I’m someday able to teach at a culinary school or somewhere similar, I’ll make sure to show my students the beauty of how these ingredients, the raw materials of our craft, are produced. Good-quality ingredients call for caressing recipes, not a smash padel shot. And yes, people who don’t know much about padel are probably more impressed by the player who smashes. But the real technique, at least for me, is knowing when to simply accompany the ball.

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

The ingenuity! Somewhere along the way, I lost that confidence. I suppose we hear “no” too many times and forget how to be that bold.

I also had a blog and uploaded recipe videos to YouTube. I remember doing my homework early in the afternoon so I could then cook, film, and write.

Since I was very young, I’ve known what I wanted to do for a living. I didn’t have a job title in mind. I just wanted a kitchen — a space where I could host pop-ups, develop recipes, write cookbooks, film shows, teach classes. A kitchen where I could build whatever I imagined.

When people would ask me what I wanted to do when I was older, I explained it happily, but they would say things like “and how would you get paid?”. It sounded very naïve of me to have that as a dream. I stopped sharing it, but still had something like that in mind. However, I completely lost that boldness to go ask for what I want and do what I want without caring about what others think or want out of me.

But to be honest, I’m growing tired of it. Not everyone has such a clear view of what they want to do. I’ve always known I’m lucky to be certain about that from such a young age. But this dream doesn’t have a clear career path. So the fear of being made fun of, of being misunderstood or not taken seriously has made me not pursue my goals. I made time, money and every other “logical” excuse to explain why I haven’t started working on that dream of mine yet.

Yesterday (writing this on February 28th, happy Andalucía day!), something clicked in my brain. I’m not exactly sure what it is. But from now on, I’m forcing myself out of the eggshell and building all the things I’ve always wanted. I think I’m publicly posting these words to hold me accountable.

After this rant, I feel bad for not sharing something valuable for you (if anyone’s reading). So, given the special day today, I’m sharing a meal idea honouring one of the best ingredients Andalucía has to offer: cured ham!

It’s the simplest thing ever:

1. Toast bread

2. Cut dates into small dice

3. Spread the dates over the bread

4. Shred cheese over the bread, covering the dates, grill it till melted

5. Layer cured ham on top

Notes:

• It’s structurally important to trap the dates with the cheese, that way, they won’t fall when biting into the toast.

• Best enjoyed with a side of salad to help digest all the fat 😅

• If like me, you don’t like cooked cured ham, then after grilling the cheese, wait 1 minute for it to cool down a bit. The remaining heat won’t cook the ham, but it will bring out all of its aromas, slightly melting the fat. It’s luxurious.

• The mix of sweet dates, salty ham and fatty cheese will make your taste buds dance, sing and party.

—

Another info bonus, just in case you’re not familiar with it, I’ll briefly explain how cured ham is labelled here in Spain. I see a lot of misunderstanding on the topic.

There are two key factors in Spanish cured ham: the breed and the feed.

Breed

• 100% Iberian = mummy pig and daddy pig are both Iberian (the ones with the black hoof)

• 75% Iberian = mummy pig is Iberian, daddy pig is 50% Iberian

• 50% Iberian = mummy pig is Iberian, daddy pig is another breed, usually Duroc.

Mummy pig is always Iberian (mothers rock 😎). There are also excellent non-Iberian cured hams; in that case, the label won’t say “Iberian,” and the hoof won’t be black. Breed simply refers to genetic lineage. Chihuahuas and labradors are both dogs; they’re just different breeds.

Feed

• Bellota = pigs roam freely in pastures and eat lots of acorns

• Cebo de campo = pigs eat regular feed until their last phase before slaughter, when they’re let to roam freely in a pasture full of acorns

• Cebo = pigs only eat regular feed

As with everything, this is more complex, and we could write many more pages about it, but think of it as an information starter.

Until next time, let’s continue our quest for deliciousness!

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

I’m 97% there from finishing my Food Science and Technology bachelor’s degree. What? I vividly remember being in a restaurant kitchen, talking to a fellow cook who was also interested in the science of food and cooking. I told him I wanted to continue studying after culinary school because I needed to satisfy my hunger for knowledge about food. He told me about this university degree he would love to do. I had never heard of it. What do you mean there is a specific degree all about food? How come I didn’t know about this? I’ve lost track of this colleague, but he made me aware of this lovely path I ended up taking.

I never wanted to go to university. I just wanted to cook. That is the most constant thing I’ve had in my life. That, and my love for RHCP. But once I became a cook, I felt like I was missing something. As if I had just cut a lemon in half, but didn’t know how to squeeze it. Life gave me lemons, but I couldn’t make lemonade, even if that’s an easy recipe. Funnily enough, once when I was a kid, I offered to make my dad a lemonade. I squeezed a lot of lemons to fill a glass, added a bit of sugar, and handed it to him. His face told me something wasn’t right. I didn’t know it also needed water. I promise I’ve honed my craft since then. Anyway, I digress.

I felt like cooking in a kitchen worked one part of my brain, but left others unattended. Does adding salt to pasta dough really dehydrate it? Why do I need more fat in cream to be able to whip it?

Also, when entering the kitchen world, I was impressed by how quickly someone could “climb the ladder,” as people in corporate say. Let me explain. Once you become a line cook, work for four years, and you can apply for chef de partie roles. Give it another five years, a few sous chef roles, and there you are, taking your first chef de cuisine position. Of course, this is an extremely simplified version of the culinary ladder. There are variables like the type of restaurants you work at, the skills you develop, and so on. But this structure is pretty common, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

The thing is, I saw a lot of people “getting to the top” at very young ages. And while that is impressive and something I truly admire, because it takes a huge amount of sacrifice and hard work, I wanted something that required a longer timeline. Or rather, a path that didn’t have a standard end role.

On top of that, I never wanted to be a chef per se. In the same way I’ve always known I wanted to cook, I’ve also always known I never wanted to run a restaurant. Chefs de cuisine do a lot more managerial work than actually practising the craft of cooking itself. So the road felt too hard for an end goal that didn’t fully appeal to me.

Cooks are more closely linked to the craft, while chefs manage the kitchen as a system. They require very different skills, and often, good chefs are not particularly good cooks, and great cooks can make terrible chefs. Maybe that’s why so many restaurants don’t work out. The ladder looks straight: line cook, chef de partie, sous chef, chef de cuisine. But in reality, these roles need very different types of people. Even if that is the hierarchy, I don’t believe it’s a ladder to climb.

And now that I think about it that way, I find it funny. I never wanted to become a chef, but I think I would make a better chef than a cook, as I have more managerial skills than cooking skills, even though what I’m passionate about is the sensorial experience of making delicious food.

So yes, I was certain I wanted to keep studying, and that’s how I entered the world of food science. But while studying this degree, I also felt a bit empty. As if the part of me that was alive when I was cooking in kitchens was now the unattended one. I listened to food podcasts, designed weekly meal plans just to make room for recipe development, and cooked delicious meals even when I was short on time, just because. But of course, that has never been enough. I could have worked in kitchens while studying, and I thought about it many times. But that would have involved many trade-offs, the most important ones being my health and my income (a girl needs to pay rent and bills).

I always introduce myself as a cook. Maybe that offends people who work in restaurants, and I get it. I know I don’t work in a restaurant at the moment. But I am professionally trained, my brain is constantly in “cook mode,” and that is what I see myself doing for the rest of my life. Just maybe in more untraditional ways than working in a restaurant kitchen. And to be honest, I want to embrace that. There isn’t just one right path for cooks, and I want to be my own example of that.

Studying food science actually reinforced this identity. I am nowhere near being a scientist. Not to brag, but I got very good grades throughout this degree. The kind of grades that made my professors think I might pursue an academic career. I’ve been encouraged many times to do a PhD (and I haven’t even finished my bachelor’s degree, let alone a master’s!). Never say never, of course. But I get good grades because I’m a food nerd. I still see food scientists as “them,” not “we,” and I’m glad I discovered this world because it has been humbling. We cooks think we know everything about food, but go talk to a food scientist. That’s actually one of my aims in life: to bridge the gap between them and us. We also have a lot to bring to the table.

I’m currently working in a food science lab because, fortunately, I was granted a scholarship to collaborate with the Food Science department at my university. Thanks to this, I realised and reinforced all of these thoughts I’m word-vomiting today. The precision, the concentration, the pace (the pace!!!!!), and the way food is handled are so foreign to me. What do you mean rushing everything and moving my arms and legs a hundred miles an hour isn’t good for the job? Fourteen grams of salmon is too much? You said we needed ten, four more grams shouldn’t be a problem, right? Why would I wear gloves and use tweezers to handle cod?

I often find the culinary world a bit overwhelming. There is a lot of ego in kitchens, and I never felt comfortable competing in that lane. And then there’s the external world. Even though chefs are now the new rockstars, being a cook is still not generally regarded as something to be proud of. When I say I’m a cook, I often see people quietly changing it to “chef”, as if that were the more impressive thing to say. Meanwhile, scientists and people with PhDs seem to have careers that are more easily validated by society.

To be honest, none of that feels true to me. Both paths can be equally hard, equally demanding, equally rewarding, and equally respectable. If we could let go of those egos and start working together as a multidisciplinary team, the things we could achieve would be incredible. Our skills are deeply complementary. It’s not about whose are better.

That might be the most important thing I’ve learned during these years of not knowing exactly what I am in the culinary world. I often felt like I was doing all these things, yet somehow none of them at the same time. Maybe this is just a different lens through which to see this world.

I started writing with no specific bottom-line idea. I just wanted to put some thoughts down. I needed a creative outlet, and that is precisely why I started Food for Thought. I’ll probably share more snippets of what I keep doing once I finish my degree. I have many ideas, a lot of uncertainty, and plenty of excitement for what’s to come. The most important thing is that I’m building my dream food brand. But until I launch, there are many steps ahead. Maybe I can document and talk about that too.

The quest for deliciousness continues — until next time!

Subscribe now

Leave a comment

Then, everything needs to be washed — the cutting board, the knife, the pan, and the bowl in which you prepared the sauce. Plus, all the splashes of sauce and oil on your counter, and the few bits you dropped when trying to be cool by tossing the pan.

I spend quite a lot of time cooking, mainly because I enjoy it, and I also enjoy eating good food on a daily basis. When I lived by myself, I survived on sandwiches and wraps, which are practically the same thing. I LOVE sandwiches, but I also like having a hearty home-cooked meal to eat with a spoon. So now that I cook for two, I make a bit more of an effort.

But still, unless you’re just shoving a slice of ham and cheese between two loaves of bread, a truly good sandwich takes quite some time to make.

So, what’s quick and easy? Does it count the prep time and the washing-everything-after time?

To be honest, I’ve accepted that for the type of foods I want to be eating daily, I need some time to prepare them. If you know me, I’m not one to have so much time in my week that I can make sourdough from scratch every day (I study full time, work three jobs, plus I’m trying to start a side project I hope to share someday). And probably, your life is full on too. I have my tricks and ways around it. For example, I never cook for just one meal. If I’m making a lentil stew, I double the quantities and eat lentils at least twice that week. Or I even triple them so I can freeze one portion for future me. I also rely quite a lot on food technology, which is getting better and better every time. Cooked beans, ready-made vegetable stock… they’re such great options (yes, they’re products from food technology).

I expect many people not to agree with me. Nowadays, it’s common to try to spend less and less time cooking. But for me, it’s OK that my recipes are not under 5 minutes. The reward of having a delicious meal every day is worth it. I’m not saying you can’t have any yum food in just a few minutes — from time to time, I enjoy a zhuzed-up instant ramen. But good technique and the proper way to treat produce usually require more time.

I’m curious, what’s your view?

👋🏻 Hey! If you prefer the video format of this content, click here to watch.

You’re feeling peckish, so you head to the kitchen to grab an orange for a snack. But as you pick it up, you notice a cloud of dust coming off it. Oh no—another rotten orange! Is it too early for a glass of wine? After all, it’s made from fruit too. That might do the trick…

The orange is rotten. The wine is fermented. Both processes involve the growth of tiny living things in food. So, what’s the difference between fermentation and rotting?

It’s basically down to the intention, or lack thereof, of the result. When crafting wine we need some microbes to come and transform grape juice into wine. That’s a fermentation because we wanted that to happen. In contrast, I guess you were not looking to grow mould on that orange you were going to snack on. It smells bad and you’re not too sure if it’s safe to eat, so you throw it away. That’s a rotting process.

Then, what about the first fermentation?

I see the million-dollar question coming… Then, what about the first fermentation? The one no one expected because no one knew the growth of microbes in food could yield delicious and beneficial foods. There was no intention there, so it must have been a rotting process, right?

Well, I guess it’s not a matter of science, but rather a matter of definitions. Even if we, as humans, had never paid attention to fermentation and rotting, those processes would still exist, because, in essence, they are the same: microorganisms feeding from substances they find in food and metabolising them into other resulting substances. So first the microbes eat, then we see the result and finally, depending on what we think about the result, we give it different names.

What are microorganisms?

My dog is a beautiful living organism. He can reproduce, he can grow (although he’s already quite big - he weighs 40 kg) and he responds to stimuli (he moves his tail when I say “park”). I don’t know what other characteristics make him a living organism (#NotABiologist), but you get the point.

The one in the picture is not my dog. It’s Saccharomyces cerevisiae. He’s like a friend to me because he’s always there when I drink a beer. He’s very tiny, so I don’t get to see him very often, only when I’m in the lab. He can reproduce, he can grow (although he always stays small) and he responds to stimuli. I don’t know what other characteristics make him a living organism, but you get the point.

They’re both living organisms, it’s just that my dog is huge and “Sacch beer” is tiny. In science, tiny is usually referred to as “micro-”. Microorganisms.

My dog is an animal, but microorganisms can correspond to other living kingdoms. They can be bacteria, fungi, algae, and so on. Regarding food, when talking about microorganisms we refer specifically to different species of bacteria and fungi.

And what about moulds and yeasts? Well, those are different types of fungi. Moulds are multicellular (formed by more than one cell), whereas yeasts are unicellular (formed by just one cell).

What types of microorganisms are present in fermentation and rotting processes?

From the conversations I’ve had, I get the feeling that people generally believe that yeasts and moulds are responsible for fermentation, whereas it’s bacteria that rot our food. However, many fermentation processes involve bacteria, and many moulds and yeast can rot food.

Maybe you’ve heard about “lacto-fermentation”. It’s a type of fermentation done by a specific type of bacteria that produce lactic acid, hence the name. They are called Lactic Acid Bacteria. Another example you might be familiar with is kombucha, for which you need SCOBY to ferment tea. SCOBY stands for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast.

Is rotten food unsafe and fermented food safe?

I think that the belief that yeasts and moulds are the only microorganisms responsible for fermentation is due to the fact that bacteria are typically the ones that cause illness. But as it goes with people, there are also good and bad bacteria.

Does that mean that fermentation can be risky?

Well, for starters, there’s always a risk when eating food. But don’t panic, if you follow good hygiene practices when cooking, the risk is almost non-existent. And if you’re looking to start fermenting, just follow the general safety measures. By doing so, you’ll be making it very difficult for the bad microbes to grow and survive. (I’ll leave some resources down below).

So rotten food is extremely dangerous, right? Well, not exactly. Rotten food is food where some microorganisms have grown in a way that wasn’t desirable. This can happen because of two different things: 1, because the microbes that have grown are harmful; or 2, because they have transformed the food into something that we find disgusting.

Often, pathogens are very difficult if not impossible to detect by simply observing the food, and it requires some lab tests to confirm if and what has grown in the food.

On the other hand, disgusting food is not inherently unsafe. As I’ve just said, pathogens are usually indetectable to us, so risky food is usually not disgusting, hence why we get food poisoning more often than we’d like. In these types of cases, we find the foods repulsive because microorganisms have changed the colour, texture, smell or flavour of the food, so we no longer want to eat them. But usually, the microorganisms that cause this type of rot are not pathogens, that is, they’re not harmful to us. But be careful, I’m not telling you to start eating all those rotten tomatoes you have in the bottom of your fridge. The thing is that the microbes that make the food disgusting can grow in similar environments to the ones pathogens do. So yes, the mould in the tomato may not be harmful, but some pathogens might have also grown, and unless we go to the lab to test it, we won’t know.

The microorganisms that ferment our food usually tolerate other types of environments, that’s why, if you follow safe hygiene practices, fermented food should not be risky, while rotten food is. If the microbes that ferment our food have grown, it’s likely that the harmful ones haven’t.

Why would I want microorganisms to grow in my food?

Maybe you’re wondering why we would want to grow microbes in our food in the first place. That sounds disgusting, right? The truth is, microorganisms have helped us preserve our food while also giving us some new amazing flavours. But this is a whole other topic for another day.

Subscribe now

When I talk about her, I use the past tense. She’s still here, but she’s no longer herself. We’d been losing her for a few years, and I can’t even recall when I began using the past tense. You see, as long as you can talk about what you’ll do with someone you love, you know they’re alive. Otherwise, you start talking about what you did together and how much you miss it. When that starts to happen, you begin to wonder: are they alive, or is their body just holding on?

She was such a beautiful woman. From the outside, she radiated elegance and sophistication, always exuding confidence and looking effortlessly impeccable. Every detail was carefully curated, from her flawless makeup to her tasteful style. My grandpa always says he fell in love with her legs, accentuated by flattering heels. But when she was around us, she would loosen up. She’d make witty jokes, sometimes funnily indecent, which might’ve seemed so out of character to others. But that was her. That secret, surprisingly unpolished side she reserved just for her family was one of the most delightful parts of her.

She never cooked. Once, when I was very young, she offered to make me a chicken sandwich. When I tasted it, I thought chicken in Argentina was just bad. Later, I realised that wasn’t the problem. Maybe the lack of cooking skills in my family is why I grew to love it so much.

I knew she was no longer herself. My family had warned me. But it’s different, you know? It’s one thing to know something; it’s another to feel it for the first time. It had probably been three or four years since I’d last been there. Avenida Belgrano. And she no longer recognized me. I hadn’t lived through the gradual change—just returned to find it all at once.

I could hug her, kiss her, say “I love you.” And I did, of course. But that was just for me. Those ways of showing love didn’t reach her. We think physical touch and words are easy to understand, but for a mind that’s slowly fading, they’re not. Her mind couldn’t make sense of someone resting their lips on her forehead or saying “I love you.”

What do you feed someone who no longer has cravings, or so you think? Food isn’t pleasure; it’s just nutrition, or so you think. She no longer savours food; she just eats, or so you think.

I asked my grandpa if I could make her lunch today. That’s the least I can do, I thought. Pasta, chicken, and light cream—there wasn’t much else. I looked around a bit more. “Lolo, do you have any herbs or spices?” he told me to check the cupboards. Oregano and thyme. Okay, that’ll do. And fresh garlic—yes!

I boiled water for the pasta. Meanwhile, I cooked garlic with oil in a pan. Mmm, that scent. I bloomed the herbs with the oily garlic, then added light cream and salt. Tossed in the pasta, and lunch was ready.

“She loves it when I play some tango in the background.” Por una cabeza, de un noble potrillo… She started mumbling the lyrics. I sat beside her and began feeding her the pasta I’d just made. Her eyebrows lifted, her eyes widened. “Qué rico”, she said it was tasty, and her expression showed joy. I got teary. Maybe it meant nothing. Maybe it was just a coincidence. But I felt as if I’d connected with her through food. I’ll never know. I can ask her, but she won’t answer.

Have you ever had that feeling when you’re living a moment you know you’ll cherish forever? That was one of those moments for me. It was the last time I said “I love you” to her without words, and I think, somehow, the message got through.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

Today, I’m sharing three things that have sparked my curiosity—all related to food, while not being food themselves.

1. Neurospora intermedia

In one of my uni courses, I was asked to create a scientific poster about new technologies in food research. Being the science freak I am, I immediately thought of Spora, the research centre from Alchemist restaurant in Copenhagen. They’ve been working with Neurospora intermedia, a microorganism used in Indonesia to transform byproducts into a food called oncom, which forms a bright orange film that supposedly makes the food more appetising. Recently, chef Dan Barber’s Blue Hill Farm restaurant mentioned on Instagram that they’re also experimenting with N. intermedia to transform kitchen waste. What do you think?

2. Le Frigorifique

Originally this Substack was going to focus entirely on Le Frigorifique, the first ship with refrigeration chambers, used in 1876 to import frozen meat from South America to Europe. I’m currently researching the topic (here's the book I’m reading, in case you’re interested) and plan to share a post on it soon, but it’s taking a bit of time. I find it truly fascinating—people were importing frozen produce across continents as early as the 19th century! This marked the beginning of international trade in fresh, highly perishable food. Justus von Liebig, who pops up often in this story, helped connect a lot of dots for me. In my video about the “seal in the juices” myth, I talked about Liebig and how he was experimenting with meat stock cubes as a way to feed nutritious food to people. And how did he get so much meat for his experiments? Well, now we know.

3. The Paris Novel

I’ve known of Ruth Reichl for a while—whenever I see her name online, it’s always followed by “no one writes about food like she does!!!” Yet, somehow, I’d never read any of her books. Hungry for a good novel, I dove head-first into her latest. I’m not even halfway through, but now I get it. It’s such a delightful way to experience food without actually eating it—does that even make sense?

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

In contrast, when I was in culinary school, it felt like the general mindset was that chefs were the rockstars of the show, the ones who knew everything about food and ingredients. I know this might be a personal experience, but from conversations I’ve had, I believe I’m not the only one who felt this way.

As cooks, we know how to mix and process ingredients to create tasty dishes. If we’re curious, we might learn a thing or two about some cultures because their foods fascinate us, and we’ll throw around fancy terms and facts as if we’re the know-it-alls. But we sometimes forget the main point: food is not just food (which, by the way, is the title of my first post—shameless plug—and the main idea behind this newsletter). There are so many layers (historical, political, social, economic, biological) that come into play long before a cook even begins to dice an onion into brunoise.

This is why I enjoyed this show so much. If you haven’t seen it, it consists of 8 episodes, each one telling the story of a single ingredient. You’ll see bananas, coffee, tuna, just to name a few. But the episodes aren’t centred on how delicious these foods are; they go much deeper. They explore how these foods became what they are today, the people who made it possible for us to enjoy them, and the challenges they’ve faced or continue to face.

One recurring theme throughout many of the episodes is the loss of species due to mass production. Take the episode on corn, for instance, which won’t be much of a spoiler given it’s a topic widely discussed in recent years. Most of us only ever eat sweet corn. Many people probably aren’t even aware that there are many other varieties of corn—they might assume the corn they eat is just how corn is. And it’s not their fault; why would they know, if sweet corn is the only kind available in shops?

The show does an excellent job of making viewers think differently about the foods they eat, especially from an understanding and respectful standpoint. Hopefully, it helps people realise that what they thought was “expensive coffee” might actually be the price that ensures everyone involved in getting that coffee to your cup is paid fairly.

We’re fortunate because we can go to the supermarket and have so much food available to us, every day in easier ways for us to consume. But how often do we sit and wonder: how exactly is salt made? How does a cow become a T-bone steak? We might have a vague idea, but do we really know?

Despite loving this show and hoping for more seasons, I’d like to add one more reflection to the thoughts these episodes spark: there are a lot of us on this planet, and we all need to eat.

Of course, I can’t deny there are economic interests in mass production. Sweet corn is cheaper to grow than other types of corn, and its yield is much greater, so is the profit to be made. But even with that in mind, we have to understand that sweet corn is cheaper to grow than other types of corn, and its yield is much greater, so is the food available to be fed. It’s not all black and white. We couldn’t grow as much food as we do if every farm were cultivating a thousand different crops. We’d need different types of machinery (as each species grows at different heights, requiring different equipment), more labour, various kinds of soil, fertilisers… it would be nearly impossible to sustain on a large scale. But that doesn’t mean we should forget about the wonderful biodiversity we have, which not only offers us a variety of flavours, aromas, and textures but also enriches our cultures and countries. So no, it’s not black, and neither is white. While we strive for biodiversity and deliciousness, we can’t forget that we also need to produce enough food for everyone, and it’s not as simple as it seems.

I suppose the challenge is finding the right balance. For many years, we’ve tipped the scale in one direction, and I feel this show has sparked the conversation needed to start tipping it back.

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

In the course of this job, I had a conversation with my colleague that sparked an interesting thought. He was telling me how he and the chef were discussing some flavours after the first few trials. After all, he had the best qualification regarding the approval of the dishes with a “yes, that tastes like Mexico.” To make a long story short, he found the flavours very balanced. There was a bit of sourness that cut through the fattiness, a slight sweetness to mask the bitterness, and salt and umami working in tandem to round out the dish. And what’s the problem with that, you may wonder?

Generally speaking, Mexican food is not balanced, and that’s great. Actually, Latin American and Spanish gastronomy, which are the ones I’m most familiar with, aren’t usually balanced. A quesadilla is fatty, as is Spanish chorizo. Cajeta or dulce de leche are extremely sweet. Mate, the typical Latin American infusion, is very bitter. And they’re all so delicious.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe balance in flavour is usually more typical of Asian cuisines. Soy sauce is salty and umami and is often paired with honey to bring some sweetness. The tangy and sweet tamarind used in pad Thai goes great with the savouriness of the shrimp. Asian cuisine is very broad, but many of its countries have crossed borders and spread internationally in the last few years. We’re lucky we can experience their way of cooking, as at least for me, it’s so different from the ways I’ve been brought up eating.

I strongly believe that these cultural exchanges in food are so enriching. As I see it, the more ideas and experiences we treasure with food, the more tools we have to find new sources of deliciousness. But it should always be an addition, not a swap. Discovering the amazing power a well-balanced dish has over our senses when eating doesn’t mean it’s the only way from now on. Let Peruvian ceviche be sour and coriander-y, and Korean bibimbap be the right amount of salty-spicy-sweet-sour that it is.

I guess that, like many other cooks, at least in my generation, I’ll always have that tendency to try and achieve balance. For me, the most obvious habits I have regarding this are having to add acid to a fatty meal and trying to bring sweetness to every dish with some fruit. But I won’t try to change a good salty and fatty Iberian ham for anything in the world; it’s great as it is.

The more I think about this, the more I discover other examples, not only with flavour but also with texture. The first one I came across was a sandwich we eat a lot in Argentina called sándwich de miga, which literally means “crumb sandwich.” It’s basically crustless sandwich bread filled with different things, such as an egg and mayonnaise salad, for example. It’s served cold, without toasting. Bring that recipe to 2024 and I bet 90% of the comments would be, “omg that really needs a bit of Maillard, get that bread a brown crust.” But the thing we all love about our sándwiches de miga is the fluffiness and easy-on-the-palate experience when eating it with our family and friends over our afternoon snack.

What’s your favourite unbalanced meal?

Leave a comment

Subscribe now

But is it?

Imagine living a life like that. You would have to buy almost nothing, and you could even share the extra beer you brewed with your neighbour. Maybe your beer is even better than the one your neighbour makes, so he starts asking you to give him your beer in exchange for some other goods. Now all your town knows about your beer, and you become the master beer brewer. No one ever brews beer again because, why bother, if they know yours is the best?

I believe, to some extent, store-bought foods have been demonised, as if it’s always better if you make it yourself. I understand that many times, industries have lowered the quality of certain products to achieve better profit margins. But that’s definitely not the case for everything. If you, the master brewer, were to open a beer shop, would your neighbours need to start making their beers from scratch once again?

What I’m trying to say here is that I feel there’s a trend now to try and avoid buying ingredients and do more at home, and while that is a great habit to have, I believe we’re going to the other extreme. I get it, you don’t need to buy pre-cooked food for every meal of your week. It’s probably beneficial for you to cook some of those meals with fresh produce. But that’s not what I’m talking about. The good thing about having industries that specialise in certain foods and beverages is that, in one meal, if you’re willing to spend the money for quality, you can have the best wine, the best bread, the best butter, and the best meat, all at once. You wouldn’t be able to do that if you had to do all that from scratch. Jack of all trades, master of none.

Industries have people who study how to get the best products with the resources they have. And obviously, industries have much better resources than you do at home. Yes, it might be really fun to make your own cured sausages at home as a weekend project, and you might get really good results. But really, there are such great artisanal cured sausages out there. There’s no need for you to do that unless it’s just for fun!

There really is so much technology and science behind the food you buy that you would be surprised. It’s not only about the sanitary controls, which I feel is what people usually think about when talking about food technology. It’s about achieving the best aromas, the best texture, the best juiciness, the best colour—you name it. Knowing the precision an industry has over the quality of their products (measuring pH, humidity, time, temperature, the surface tension of the emulsion of a meat mixture for sausages, the type and number of microorganisms in the yoghurt…), am I really aiming to beat them all at my house with just a fridge and some pH strips if I’m feeling fancy?

Trust the experts and enjoy their products. You go cook whatever you want with them. And if you want to make your own sourdough bread, have fun with it. Just remember, you can get some really good store-bought cultured butter to go with it.

But what to do with the butter? Well, I thought about another Argentinian dish: pastel de papa, which is essentially our version of what the British call shepherd’s pie, or what the French call hachis Parmentier. I guess many other countries have their versions as well. So, I added quite a bit of Café de Buenos Aires butter to the mashed potatoes that go on top of the meat. The herby and lemony notes from the chimichurri delightfully enhanced the plain mashed potatoes. I also added whipped cream to the mashed potatoes, which helped make it more airy and rich at the same time.

Ingredients (for 6, approximately):

Fridge:

• Minced meat: 1 kg ≈ 2.2 pounds

• Whipping cream: 500 g ≈ 2 cups

• Café de Buenos Aires butter: 100 g ≈ 7 tablespoons

• Grated parmesan cheese: 100 g ≈ 1 cup

Pantry:

• Sundried tomatoes in oil: 120 g ≈ 4.2 ounces (about ½ cup, including oil)

• Canned tomato purée: 390 g ≈ 14 ounces (about 2 cups)

• Potatoes: 1.5 kg ≈ 3.3 pounds (about 6-7 medium potatoes)

Method:

1. Wash the potatoes (we’ll be keeping the skin—less work and more texture!) and put them in a large pot filled with water. Add salt until the water tastes like seawater—it really needs to be super salty. Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-high. You’ll know the potatoes are done when they fall off a knife if you poke them.

2. Remove the potatoes from the water and mash them while they’re still hot (yep, skin and all). Taste for salt. Need more? Adjust to your liking. See? It wasn’t that much salt in the beginning.

3. Add the Café de Buenos Aires butter and mix it in thoroughly. Set aside for now.

4. Cover the bottom of a pot with the oil from the sundried tomatoes and place it over high heat. Once hot (be careful not to let it smoke), add the minced meat and don’t move it around for a few minutes, or until it develops a deep brown crust on the bottom. Season the meat generously with salt.

5. Meanwhile, cut the sundried tomatoes into cubes. Add them to the pot with the meat and mix everything, breaking up any clumps of meat that may have formed. Pour in the canned tomato purée and let it cook for around 20 minutes over medium-low heat, or until the tomato purée has reduced to half its initial volume. The mixture should be more meaty than saucy. If it needs more time to reduce, go ahead and let it cook longer.

6. Whip the cream with a pinch of salt until it forms stiff peaks. Gently fold the whipped cream into the mashed potatoes. I don’t aim for a completely homogeneous mixture—I like having pockets of fat from the whipped cream throughout the mashed potatoes.

7. In a rectangular baking dish (you can adjust the size depending on whether you prefer a thicker or thinner pie), cover the bottom with the meat mixture, then spread the mashed potato mixture over the top. Sprinkle with the parmesan cheese and bake at 250°C (480ºF) for 15 minutes, or until the cheese forms a brown crust.

8. Before eating, let it rest for about 30 minutes. It doesn’t happen often, but I hope you have leftovers because it tastes even better the next day.
   

Do you eat this type of dish in your country? If so, are there any tweaks or variations you like to add?

Subscribe now

Food connects too many things in our lives for it just to be food. Food is pleasure, food is health, food is leisure, food is socialising, food is a way some of us show love. But food is also politics, ethical discussions, abundance and scarcity, culture, history and psychology.

By learning about food we learn about many other things, and that’s why it’s so fascinating.

Expect to receive mini essays from me (I guess I don’t have to explain the topic at this point), plus any other random discoveries, thoughts or the odd recipe I develope here and there.

Subscribe now

Share