Post by account_disabled on Feb 28, 2024 3:43:23 GMT -5
Patriarchal house, of slave lords, orchard in decay, ducks and chickens hanging around the huts that had been slave homes, Tranquility, peace, leisure. We felt stranded in time, in the days of yesterday, a sweet weekend washed down by an Andean wine from the best vintages.” Thus begins the description of an anecdote that Jorge Amado relates in his neo-memoir book “Cabotage Navigation”, which he calls “Le connaisseur”, in which he relates an anecdote with Pablo Neruda as the protagonist. The poet, accompanied by his partner and other Brazilian intellectuals, had been invited by the owners of that place to spend a weekend tasting various gastronomic delights, among which were the best Chilean wines. When these were sold out, Neruda unilaterally decided to extend the stay, to the enthusiasm of the group and great desolation for its owner who saw how his reserves of quality wine had been exhausted without remission, without the possibility of replacing it or the financial resources to do so. Jorge Amado, a Brazilian from Bahia, a communist intellectual and a man of resources, saved the situation. Between him and the owner, they collected all the empty bottles of white and red wines of the noblest and most expensive Chilean wines, and placing them in a sack they went to the grocery store in the city closest to the hacienda.
They painstakingly filled all the bottles with Brazilian wines from Rio Grande do Sul (not exactly appreciated for their quality), they corked them carefully and upon returning to the farm the whites were cooled in the refrigerator and the reds in their bottles. Bottle after bottle the wine was then drunk amidst patriotic exclamations from the poet Neruda upon tasting Malta Phone Number them and acclaimed by the rest “There is no wine comparable to Chilean wine; The Frenchman has more fame, but he is not the best” Don Pablo spoke in praise of the Andean vineyards. Very typical of a “connaisseur,” Amado says sarcastically. Things that happen a lot to the priests of quality. There are more current examples of gastronomic snobbery to bore. When there is a debate today about the “quality” of Spanish food products, this anecdote that I read many years ago and recovered the text came to mind. So, define what “quality” is for the respectable: the gustatory quality? the olfactory quality? the visual quality? Or… the economic one? the environmental one? or healthcare? Because only the latter are measurable without subjectivity and of the first three only the taste, smell and particular sight of the consumer are responsible.
Be it Pablo Neruda or his swineherd. A product may be perfectly healthy for the consumer but may generate negative or unhealthy elements for its production environment. From a drawer. The roast pork will be great but the slurry smells like shit for miles and pollutes. Like so many other food wastes since ancient times. From the Roman “garum” to the olive oil pechin. And the chickens are as crowded or more crowded than the pigs. The examples can be endless. The fact is that if we talk about the quality of the product itself, it is not possible to confuse it with the waste they generate and which are necessarily appreciable from a different perspective. The Nobel Prize winner in Economics Paul Samuelson already wrote it to us, when many decades ago he distinguished GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and BEN (Net Economic Wellbeing), when differentiating between a model of wealth and its consequences. Some of them disastrous. So discovering the obvious at this point does not seem like a very new mission, no matter how young a government minister may be. On the other hand, the fact that a minister of one branch gets angry with another over a question of competence has only political and media interest.
They painstakingly filled all the bottles with Brazilian wines from Rio Grande do Sul (not exactly appreciated for their quality), they corked them carefully and upon returning to the farm the whites were cooled in the refrigerator and the reds in their bottles. Bottle after bottle the wine was then drunk amidst patriotic exclamations from the poet Neruda upon tasting Malta Phone Number them and acclaimed by the rest “There is no wine comparable to Chilean wine; The Frenchman has more fame, but he is not the best” Don Pablo spoke in praise of the Andean vineyards. Very typical of a “connaisseur,” Amado says sarcastically. Things that happen a lot to the priests of quality. There are more current examples of gastronomic snobbery to bore. When there is a debate today about the “quality” of Spanish food products, this anecdote that I read many years ago and recovered the text came to mind. So, define what “quality” is for the respectable: the gustatory quality? the olfactory quality? the visual quality? Or… the economic one? the environmental one? or healthcare? Because only the latter are measurable without subjectivity and of the first three only the taste, smell and particular sight of the consumer are responsible.
Be it Pablo Neruda or his swineherd. A product may be perfectly healthy for the consumer but may generate negative or unhealthy elements for its production environment. From a drawer. The roast pork will be great but the slurry smells like shit for miles and pollutes. Like so many other food wastes since ancient times. From the Roman “garum” to the olive oil pechin. And the chickens are as crowded or more crowded than the pigs. The examples can be endless. The fact is that if we talk about the quality of the product itself, it is not possible to confuse it with the waste they generate and which are necessarily appreciable from a different perspective. The Nobel Prize winner in Economics Paul Samuelson already wrote it to us, when many decades ago he distinguished GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and BEN (Net Economic Wellbeing), when differentiating between a model of wealth and its consequences. Some of them disastrous. So discovering the obvious at this point does not seem like a very new mission, no matter how young a government minister may be. On the other hand, the fact that a minister of one branch gets angry with another over a question of competence has only political and media interest.