English Version | Do go gentle into that clear kitchen

No point in tiptoeing around it… slow food is, above all, an antonym. Of fast food which, way before it was terribly detrimental to our health, is only insipid. And that is why it needs gravy and sauces. It is dressed of a gastronomical banality so much so that, for the most part, we eat it with our hands. Not by any means disregarding a few great shrimps at the bar with an ice-cold beer on the side. 

I presume, sadly, I don’t have a handle on my son, who is a teenager. In a blink of an eye, without me noticing, he went from being an adorable, sweet kid, to a vessel of revolt against authority, sure that only his will prevails above everything and everyone. He is lucky though, you know why? His dear papa (me, obviously) remembers the time he himself was 15 as clear as water. And just as an example, I deeply regret the way I used to treat my parents. Now, with some distance, I’m embarrassed by how much they suffered, at my expense, they who are two of the best people I have ever met. It was the exact same modus operandi. By drawing some sort of territory line through certain positions which, I believed, would guarantee me my “freedom”. When in the end, I had always had it. Amongst so many episodes, I remember how, time and time again, knowing perfectly well I had gone for drinks the night before at Captain Kirk, in Bairro Alto, my mom would wake me up with a breakfast composed of Fatias Paridas (what we call French Toasts in Alentejo, very common during Christmas time). You can imagine the exerted effect, on a teenager that wakes up to realize he has the most epic hangover of all time, of blinders going up, of the light piercing through and, to top it all off, the smell of fried food? And the worst is yet to come. Because all of this would happen in the most special of Sundays, those that would mark the return of my dad after long months at sea, or the anniversary of one of those dates. And me, ungrateful as a brat, nauseated from here to Mars, refusing to eat one of the utmost treasures of Portuguese Southern gastronomy… Beans with entrecote or Chickpea stew. This meant I was throwing in the dumpster at least six hours of hard work my dear mother had taken to cook that day. In the case of the beans, that had to be the first batch of the year (they still had the root in a pale white color) besides the time it takes to peel them, the confection starts at nine in the morning. The entrecote (marinated the day before with chili paste) is fried, with garlic, in fat and then reserved. Then the slices of pastrami and moira are fried too and equally reserved. The beans are cooked in the remaining fat, with a generous amount of coriander, salsa, spearmint, with two or three stalks, in the lowest possible heat, for at least three hours, until the outside is as soft as their interior. When it comes to the Chickpea Stew, the meats (pig ear, spark, bacon and snout, lamb breasts, chicken legs and a piece of veal) are salted the day before and then cooked in a pressure cooker with one piece of pastrami and one moira. It is in that broth that the chickpea (which has to have a viable origin – Castro Verde in Alentejo or any area from Trás-os-Montes is the best) is cooked, after soaking for 12 hours. Only after all this, in a clay pot, can the rest be added, one thing at a time, until after at least two hours, everything can be properly seasoned with lots, and I mean lots, of spearmint before serving. By this I mean to say that, due to my teenager nonsense, I wasted a lot of my parents’ precious time. And time, when the subject is food, is not money. It’s love. Behold, thus, what I have wasted. And believe me, when we grow old and things follow their natural order, time to enjoy the love of our parents is what we desire the most. Before it’s too late. 

Yes, slow food is, mostly, love. Such a huge love that it fits into the whole process, from production to consumption at the table, going through confection. You know that feeling of going back to your hometown in the countryside and everything tastes better? It’s because the cabbage was planted that month during that one moon phase. As well as the turnips, carrots and, of course, potatoes, which taste so good they stop being a mere side, often frivolous and boring. And the garlic and onions, stored in strings (that characteristic braid, which helps in their conservation). And the beans, which were dried and carefully stored to ensure the protein source for the year. But that the day before that Sunday, had been soaked. Then cooked. And all those aforementioned vegetables were added, in order, throughout that morning, until, below the latada (a cupule formed by vines, designed to offer shade, with rich grapes hanging during the summer, with an unbelievable scent) the entire family tastes this incomparable soup, this aperitive so Portuguese that nobody can believe, contrary to what happens in the rest of the World, a menu at a restaurant without the Daily Soup fronting all other options. Of course, there are sausages, which can’t be “bought” (meaning, on a supermarket), since they won’t be from a pig raised by someone for a year, they must be from a neighbor’s root cellar. There’s more to come with the Lamb with Pingo Rice, perhaps some home-made Rotisserie Chicken fed by bickering the ground, with giblet rice. These are hypotheses. There’s only one certainty: lunch will take hours and, with the exception of children who are in a rush to get out and run around, everyone else will lay on their chairs, chattering about, sipping on strawberry wine, perhaps some home-made liquor after, then a go at domino or a hand of cards, and when you realize it, it’s the end of the day and there will be more cheese and sausages and bread. Yes, this is all slow food. It’s about taste, but also the way one savors it. It’s that pinch of a random spice that can only be added at a given X time. It’s a light rice that comes to table still boiling in the pan. But it’s also that Christmas morning during which every task is distributed by all family members, revealing secrets kept through generations, from rolling out dough, to the little cup of liquor added to coscorões so they don’t absorb the frying oil. Even a porkchop can be slow food. Because that sauce in the frying pan has been developing since I don’t even know when. And that is why it can’t be accompanied by beer, like a steak. But with a Glass 3 of red wine instead. 

When Carlo Petrini, an Italian journalist in love with his culture and, very particularly, by Italian cuisine as a reflection of it, saw McDonald’s trying to open a restaurant in Piazza di Spagna, in the historical center of Rome, he decided to do something about it. And so, he did! It was the year 1986 and, a short three years after, he had founded the International Slow Food Movement. In the following years, he opened delegations in Germany, Switzerland, USA, Japan, United Kingdom, Holland and, today, it is one of the most active ONG’s, with actions and determinant initiatives so that we can all continue to have access to good food for those eating it, for those producing it, and, of course, for the planet. It was because of him that the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity was born, the University of Gastronomical Sciences and countless events that caught the eye of the governments of the world regarding the need to protect small producers, sustainability and the preservation of biodiversity as the ultimate way of being able to have good, clean and fair (I’ll explain in a minute), such as the Indigenous Terra Madre, the project Gardens in Africa, Eurogusto or Mercados da Terra. In 2008, The Guardian integrated Carlo Petrini in the list of the “50 People Who Could Save The Planet” and, in 2016, he was appointed by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization, in the UN) as the Zero Hunger Special Ambassador for the whole of Europe. All this by following a philosophy that tries, in fact, to save the world from the scourge of the standardization of taste that only comes to show the limitless power of multinational corporations in the food industry. His proposal is set on three essential pillars in food production: GOOD (a seasonal, fresh and tasty diet, capable of satisfying the senses and that is part of the culture it takes part in), CLEAN (food that is produced and consumed respecting the environment, animal welfare and human health) and FAIR (accessible prices to consumers because the conditions and wages to producers are, thus, fair), resulting in an unmatched food reeducation of those who have parted ways with the authenticity of their culture, awakening and training the senses. Personally, and since I greatly appreciate the huge, major details of things, I am obsessed with Osterie d’Italia, a guide that gave birth to Slow Food Editore and that is, basically, just like the Michelin Guide, edited every year, but Very Good. The osterias are the oldest type of establishment in Italy. They preserved, in all their simplicity, the true essence of gastronomical culture (and, therefore, the rest of it). Locally produced wine, no label, home-cooked food that goes way beyond the definition of comfort food and the service, for those who get excited to the point of not being able to leave said establishment, which is usually located in the rural countryside, when they’re no on the historical center of millenary cities. The osteria puts the trattoria, already fascinating, in a tiny corner. It’s all the prime of the refinement of Italian cuisine, consumed for centuries in long tables shared with strangers. Many years ago, out of luck due to my profession, I had the privilege of sitting at the Osteria del Sole, in the neighborhood of Santo Stefano, in Bologna, which dates back to 1465. Where you have to drink wine to be able to get in. Food, which only option is the “Daily Dish”, is “delivered outside” and taken inside the establishment where you sit where there is an empty spot. I got a plate of spinach cannelloni, which had been collected that same dawn, cooked and incorporated into the pasta, made by hand mere hours before lunchtime and that was left to rest until dinner time. 

Originally published in the Time issue of Vogue Portugal, from December/January 2021/2022. Full credits and story on the print version.