Coffee and its Italian coffee maker, so typical, so necessary
a sentimental journey for so many objects related to gastronomy that inspire us for their beauty, utility and meaning; How difficult is so many times what is easy.
Beauty is a very short kingdom, but shorter is the kitchen kingdom (what a plate lasts) and there we go all the crazy foodies , in search of the next orgasm. They are very different realms. An object and a food : to the first we ask for functionality and beauty (or is it that you have never bought a dish simply because it is beautiful?) and to the second, taste and emotion. logos Y Pathos.
The relationship between the two is also, in some way, the history of gastronomy. The food is garden, ocean and meat but it is the objects that take it to our mouth ; those who build, dress and forge the hunted or gathered. Objects are what, so often, help us understand a food: we know what to do with salt as soon as we see a salt shaker (the work of wagenfeld ) . That is design.
This is not just any salt shaker
Objects that inspire us (that's also what beauty is about), that elevate us and connect us with gastronomy on a deeper, more intimate level: a moka pot (beautiful object) fulfills a primary function —to make coffee from ground beans— but it achieves more, much more: the aroma of boiling coffee, the clang of bubbling and metal , the texture of the ground under the spoon.
I don't know if it's corny, but those three simple stimuli ( smell, sound and touch ) comfort and reassure me; and it's easy to remember my mother's coffee pot on Saturday mornings. And the emotion is triggered.
I ask Javier Canada , design director of ** Tramontana ** and creator of that comic about the story of the creation of Moka Bialetti about this one, one of his favorite objects:
“His metallic appearance and his hard geometries, son of early 20th century futurism, sought to evoke strength, speed and power. Coffee as a stimulus, the fuel of a plane that was heading towards fascist victory , leaving behind the faint-hearted intelligentsia. This is how the Moka was designed. That was what Bialetti was looking for, influenced by a Marinetti on fire : ‘I am not the caffein of Europe’ , shouted the Italian between fuss.
Nevertheless, aluminum ages kindly. After years of infusing coffee, the Moka gains wabi-sabi and loses its coldness to become a friend of old books, Sunday afternoons and a quiet life. Therein lies the charm of the Mocha: designed for the restless force, over the years she ends up passing over to the side of the quiet beauty ”.
Bialetti Mocha Express
Functional and timeless objects like the Citromatic, designed by Dieter Rams and ours Gabriel Lluelles (Catalan who for eight years was director of the development and construction department of David Spain ) and that, and this data is overwhelming, continue to be sold more than forty years later. Items like the **anti-drip oil bottle by Rafael Marquina ** or the **kettle by Michael Graves **.
The oil can, by the way, is one of the gastronomic objects that he most admires Francesc Rife (Catalan designer awarded at the Contract World Awards or the Red Dot and guilty of wonderful spaces such as the Sucede restaurant or Ricard Camarena's gastronomy in Bombas Gens) : “This piece is a good example that good design, like art, it is timeless. It is wonderful to see how, due to its qualities, but above all due to its simplicity, Marquina has managed to reveal not only the essence of the moment in which it was created, but also It is a design that transcends its time ”.
Design objects for the kitchen by Michael Graves
Objects whose beauty is dismaying, such as the Zalto glass of white wine (my favorite glass in the world, whose idea is the work of the priest Hans Denk), the ** Cocotte from Le Creusset , the Normann whiskey glasses ** or the ** Assam teapot from Bodum **.
Objects that also speak of its geography, the history of a town and its artisans like the wonderful Martini of Sargadelos or the **Monyou de Kika** collection; Galicia and Japan, so far and so close.
He says Jep Gambardella in The Great Beauty , “occasionally a friend (or a place) has a duty to make you feel like when you were a child”, and why not also an object?
Dessert plate from Martiño tableware from Sargadelos