This photo, for example, is a topicazo
Popular wisdom (so wise so many times) says that "We all have a coach inside." Popular wisdom falls short, of course. And it is that We all have a coach, a referee, a Pedro Jota, a criminal judge, a fashion blogger and an emergency doctor, but also a Quique Dacosta in the making . A kitchen genius whose talent is there at boiling point. A cook who walks around the house (in slippers) who may not know how to fry an egg (“but why don't I wear it, eh?”) but he does have plenty of sense of smell, humor and criteria to decide what is good and what is not .
"What food critics or what dead child?" I see it well, huh. That in this life it is not a bad plan to hit the bite and then (if that) eat the slap. "Let them take away my dance," my grandfather used to say, curling his mustache. And my grandfather knew a taco of these things; of these and of all, of course, that for something he was (gentleman) Andalusian and president of the farmhouse.
He knew, without going any further, that that gastro-protocol custom that says that it is polite to leave some food on the plate was a "mamonada" -sic- and that he ate every last crumb of what they planted on the table, point ball. And herding, if he intervenes, despite what the stiff of good manners say.
In short, gastronomic topics. In other words, clichés, those that only serve to bore the hands of the clock and sweep silence under the rug at family gatherings. There are so many and so varied that we could write three Travelers, but somewhere we have to start dismantling them. For these, without going any further:
"MY MOTHER MAKES THE BEST CROQUETTES IN THE WORLD"
I go beyond (Let me go, I tell you!) the cliché of clichés: mothers cook well. Well, let's go by parts, dear reader: your mother does not cook well. Your mother survives in the kitchen (and she is already an achievement) she fries potatoes, prepares lasagna, bakes biscuits and on Sundays cooks a paella for six. And the croquettes, anyway: Francis Paniego's mother makes good croquettes; not yours.
"THE BEST FISH IN SPAIN IS IN MADRID"
Dear Madrid reader, do me a favor. Get your foodie ass off the seat and look out the window. What do you see there? An immense ocean with minnows inside? A marina? Salt, sand and beach? Nope? Why not? So add two and two. The thing about Madrid eating the best fish in Spain is older than the tana, so much so that even Monocle has arrived: "The city may be in the center of Spain, but the seafood is one of the best in the country", they say. well look, no . Let them tell the fishermen of the fish markets of Puerto de Santa María or Getaria and they will see what a laugh.
"THE BEST WHITE IS A RED"
We crazy wine lovers (yes, a bunch of weirdos) are a bit of a singular type, but in reality we are innocent little puppies of habit. And there is no oenophile who does not end up praying this creed with five basic commandments: 1) Pitu Roca is God. 2) Champagne and Sherry are a must. 3) Red is expendable. 4) Burgundy is the end of the road. 5) Marion Cotillard is very hot. And this is so.
Annette Bening drinking ONE glass of wine a day
"CHAMPAGNE WAS INVENTED BY DOM PERIGNON"
Take a test. Ask the nearest sommelier who invented champagne. He will tell you that it was the work of a monk from the diocese of Reims named Pierre Pérignon, but no. His was the creation of the method called assemblage -assembly- of different vineyards for the creation of a Cuvée, and also his was the idea of using for the first time in France the English glass and the cork stopper with its wire (we praise you, Pierre ) . But the origin of sparkling wine goes back much further, so far back that it even appears in the oldest bestseller in history: “wine bubbles in the glass…”.
"A COUPLE OF GLASSES OF RED WINE A DAY IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH"
Resveratrol is to blame for the mess , a polyphenol found in grapes and other foods such as oysters and walnuts. Resveratrol has antioxidant and anticancer properties that prolong the life of cells (as you hear it) and the magic nuance was born from the hand of researchers David Sinclair and Leonard Guarentee, Nobel Prize candidates for their discoveries on the origin of aging, when found that resveratrol can activate the Sirt1 (or sirtuin) gene, known as the longevity gene.
Now comes the bad news. And it is that the rabbit and the top hat still need to be taught: to receive the dose of resveratrol necessary to increase the activity of skin cells a human being should drink between 750 to 1500 bottles of red wine per day . Yes, he is very rich, but a thousand bottles?
"AS IN SPAIN YOU DO NOT EAT ANYWHERE"
My favorite topic. And more than a topic, the perfect lout and blockhead detector . I don't understand who doesn't travel and who shelters in the "like at home anywhere" or the much more detestable "yes, it's good, but as in Spain you don't eat anywhere". Nationalisms, what am I going to tell you.
And now (if you like) let's continue with the topics. I'll wait for you down there, in the comments...