Pasta, the gastronomic queen of Italy
«We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and recklessness.»
If Marinetti knew about the hipster movement he'd probably crash a burning Mustang Fastback into one of your little cupcake shops; like a Tyler Durden up to the eyes of farlopa and gasoline, that is. Futurism sang of speed, energy, running, punching, ecstasy, courage, audacity and rebellion.
"We want to destroy museums, libraries, academies and fight moralism, feminism and all other opportunistic and utilitarian cowardice."
What is not so well known about Futurism —of which Unamuno and Cocteau also formed a tangential part— is that it also placed its electric tentacles over gastronomy. To blow it up, of course. To send all of the above to hell, too.
The Futuristic Kitchen Manifesto was published in Turin's Gazzetta del Popolo on December 28, 1930, after being advertised in the restaurant Goose feather from Milan a few weeks before . What is shouted (because futurism does not speak, it shouts) in that manifesto is so absurd, brilliant, modern and avant-garde that it is necessary to recover it today. Here. Because his lucidity frightens and because he leaves (almost) all those middling chefs who fill their mouths with the word "avant-garde" for copying three Modernist Cuisine dishes and removing the tablecloth from their tables.
I'm going to leave it here, bareback, without interpretation that dirty the speech. Boom. Just a couple of notes before the shrapnel: Nouvelle cuisine —the movement promoted by Bocuse and Troisgrois that gave rise to the avant-gardes in cooking—was born in the late 1970s in France. This movement arrived in Spain via the new Basque cuisine promoted by Juan Mari Arzack and exploded from the hand of Adria until monopolizing the covers of the whole world. The kitchen, reinvented. This manifesto is 85 years old:
the futuristic man
- We ignore the example and the warning of tradition in order to invent something new at all costs, judged by all as madness. We affirm this truth: we think, dream and act according to what we drink and eat.
- The abolition of pasta, absurd religion Italian gastronomy. Pastas, although they are pleasant to the palate, are a "pastista" food because they make you fat, because they stultify, because their nutritional power is illusory, because they make you skeptical, slow, pessimistic.
- invitation to chemistry . Introduction of scientific instruments in the kitchen such as ozonizers, ultraviolet lamps or ordinary pressure and vacuum distillation apparatus.
- The absolute originality of the food . The invention of tasty plastic ensembles, whose original harmony of shape and color feeds the eyes and excites fantasy before tempting the lips.
- Abolition of the fork and the knife.
- Originality of the dishes, and of the dish names . Like the Alaskan Salmon in sunbeams with Mars sauce or the Mountain Partridge with Venus sauce.
- sensory kitchen . Use of perfumes before each meal. Use of music and poetry as unforeseen ingredients to ignite the flavors of a given food with their sensual intensity. Presentation of dishes that will not be eaten to encourage curiosity, surprise and fantasy.
- Crockery . An original harmony of the table (glassware, crockery and decoration) according to the flavors and colors of the food.
- Snacks containing many flavors in a few moments . Simultaneous and changing bites that contain ten, twenty flavors to taste in a few moments. These morsels will have the same uplifting function that images have in literature. A certain bite will be able to concentrate a time of life, the development of a love passion or a complete trip in the Far East.
- The quick presentation between plate and plate , under the noses and eyes of the guests, of some food that they will eat and others that they will not eat, to encourage curiosity, surprise and fantasy.
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This manifesto is 85 years old