Eldorado Magazine
February 2017, Barcelona
Eldorado Magazine is devoted to adventures and to travel experiences. I was assigned, for the printed issues, to develop the food story on it. For the first issue I talked about the element Fire. The story came along with some photos we did about very primitive outdoor cooking structures.
"The Transforming Power of Fire"
We are animals that grew next to the fire. We huddle around it in search of warmth, we meet and dance around it, we cook with it, we used it for magic, spells and sacrifices, we jump over its embers, and we let ourselves be hypnotized by its moving flames. And we dream next to it, we let it shine on us with its orange flashes, and we remain silent to hear something as insignificant and yet, at the same time, powerful like its crackling. Fire captivates and invites us to let our minds wander, it helps us imagine. Not in vain the French philosopher, Gaston Bachelard, said about it that it was “where dreams replace thought” and conjured the image of the solitude of the primitive man, lost in thought in front of the fire, in an apparently absent-minded introspective task.
Fire attracts us hopelessly due to its destructive abilities, but also for its infinite transforming power. It contains within itself the opposing elements of both the beginning and the end of life, but also those of heaven and hell. Almost all cultures have placed fire in a position of honour in its mythologies due to its mysterious origin, the fascination it causes and also its direct relation to protection and food. On the other hand, alchemy, astrology and other esoteric sciences place fire in a key position in their belief system, either associating it with life, gold or with the victory of light over darkness.
Discovering and dominating fire was a key factor in human evolution. It not only helped the first humans to stay warm and have light to illuminate the darkness, it also provided them with protection from predators and, above all, it let them cook food, enabling our primitive stomachs to use less energy in the digestion process, and our anatomy and brain to develop thanks to the increased caloric intake. Meat and fish became more tender and easy to chew and many vegetables were edible for the first time. The risk of diseases was reduced considerably thanks to fire and its ability to kill the parasites in food. By discovering this alchemy able to transform food, we became the only animal species that needed to cook its food, giving way, with time, to more imaginative ways of transformation and to what we nowadays know as culinary arts. For Levi-Strauss, the distinction between raw and cooked works, like so many other opposites, as a conceptual tool for the formation of abstract notions. Cooking is synonymous with transformation of nature into culture and, for this reason, it is a part of what makes us human. It is also a language, which reflects many of the structures which shape each society.
The history of cooking itself has an intimate relationship with fire and also with the supports and techniques used to heat food. From the open fire and brick ovens to making fire in home spaces shielded by stones, to the wrought iron kitchens and, further on, to electricity and induction. From the rudimentary fire-roasting to using clay pots. From firewood and coal to gas and electricity.
Nowadays, dominating fire and cooking food in contact with fire continues to cause us incredible fascination. It happens with barbecues or when we cook on a bonfire, over embers
or on the ground, which is protected by the ashes. This way of cooking takes us back to something elemental and primitive, it connects us with an aspect of our humanity from which we live practically disconnected nowadays. Fire lets us connect with the most essential part of ourselves, and, for this reason, cooking which has a direct relation with fire is so attractive: it lets us play, it challenges us, it teaches us to keep a closer relationship with food and also with the devices we use to manage it, it forces us to follow a ritual with food which invites to calmness and contemplation. It ultimately takes us back to an ancestral way of cooking, which connects us with our deepest roots.
Concept and art direction: Pepi de Boissieu
Words: Pepi de Boissieu and Maria Arranz
Structures: Marc Morro
Photography: co*ke Bartrina
