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In the era of the algorithm, gastronomy runs the risk of replacing criteria with popularity. When that happens, we all lose
> I have always thought that gastronomy requires a virtue that is not compatible with the times we live in.: patience. Patience to learn about a product, to listen to a cook, to understand a territory, to discover the work behind a plate and, above all, to accept that the more you learn, the more aware you are of everything you still have to discover.
I have been going into restaurants for many years.. Enough to have learned a certainty that time has only confirmed: the more someone knows about gastronomy, there is less need to pretend. Those who really know this trade usually speak cautiously, They ask more than they affirm and listen much more than they pontificate. Maybe that's why it's hard for me to understand an increasingly common phenomenon.: the one of whom, after a few meals, a mobile phone and thousands of followers, They seem convinced that they are already in a position to teach.
Because gastronomy has never been just about eating. Eating is, probably, the simplest part of the whole story. The really interesting stuff happens long before the dish reaches the table and continues long after the last bite..
Behind good cuisine there are producers, artisans, chefs and front-of-house professionals. There is also territory, product, technique, culture, tradition and innovation. Hay, above all, a lot of work that rarely appears in a photograph or fits in a video of a few seconds.
Perhaps that is why I have always understood that communicating gastronomy consists of trying to tell everything that the diner does not see.. It is not enough to issue a verdict. The really important thing is to be able to explain it.
And it is precisely there where an increasingly evident gap begins to open between those who understand gastronomic communication as an exercise in curiosity., knowledge and independence and those who have reduced it to a succession of personal impressions.
We live in a time when it has never been so easy to talk about cooking.. It has never been so easy to be heard. And so, in himself, It's great news. New voices have emerged, new formats and excellent disseminators that have brought gastronomy closer to audiences that previously remained on the sidelines.
The problem begins when immediacy replaces learning. When the algorithm begins to outweigh knowledge. When popularity is confused with prestige and reach, it seems to grant an authority that has never passed through the filter of experience., study or curiosity.
The algorithm knows how to measure how many people see content. What he has never known how to measure is the criterion.
And it is precisely in that scenario where a phenomenon begins to appear that is difficult for me to understand..
More and more people confuse having eaten in a restaurant with knowing gastronomy. As if a personal impression were enough to make an informed judgment and convert it, besides, in a recommendation for thousands of people.
I think we have begun to normalize something that should make us reflect. Giving your opinion has never been so easy. Having judgment is still just as difficult. And there is a huge difference between one thing and another.: the criterion is not improvised. It is built over time, with curiosity, with study and, above all, with enough humility to continue learning even when one thinks they already know enough.
"Confusing an impression with a criterion is, probably, one of the most frequent mistakes of our time."
Maybe that's why I increasingly distrust those who have answers for everything and I admire more those who continue to ask questions.. Why, after all, Curiosity has always been the best starting point to understand gastronomy.
Added to all this is another reality that should not be ignored either.: the proliferation of profiles for which gastronomy has ceased to be an object of knowledge and has become, above all, in an opportunity for notoriety and personal promotion.
There is nothing reprehensible about a communicator maintaining a good relationship with restaurants or collaborating with them with transparency and independence.. The worrying thing is when that independence disappears. Why, at that same moment, the criterion stops occupying first place and credibility begins to deteriorate.
It is curious to see that some profiles seem to have an extraordinarily short vocabulary.. everything is “brutal”. everything is “spectacular”. everything is “essential”. everything is “the best”. Restaurants change. They change the dishes. The words, curiously, they almost never change. Y, what is most striking, nor the explanations.
It gives the impression that gastronomy has reached an unknown perfection. O, simply, that the critical spirit had ceased to be part of the profession.
And when that happens, Those who talk about gastronomy with rigor stop winning. Restaurants also stop earning. Because a reader's trust takes years to build and only a few seconds to lose..
It is not about determining who can talk about gastronomy and who cannot.. The diversity of voices has enriched the gastronomic conversation and has brought cooking closer to many people.
The question is another. An opinion should never be confused with knowledge, in the same way that popularity should never replace judgment. Because whoever decides to influence the opinion of others also assumes a responsibility: that of respecting the work of those who make it possible and that of being honest with those who place their trust in their words.
In the end, The true asset of any communicator is credibility. And that is not bought, It is not improvised and it is not decided by an algorithm.. It is built with curiosity, independently, honestly, with rigor and with the time required by any profession that aspires to be taken seriously.
Maybe that's why I still think that gastronomy needs less rush to give an opinion and more time to understand.. Less need to pretend and more desire to learn. Less notoriety and more judgment.
Why, in the end, anyone can talk about gastronomy. The really difficult thing is to do it judiciously.: with the knowledge, the rigor, the honesty and humility that gastronomy deserves.
Alfonso Lopez Torres
Member of the Academy of Gastronomy of Tenerife and former general director of the Canarian Institute of Agri-Food Quality (ICCA), of the Government of the Canary Islands.
