I lived in New York at the end of the eighties and returned in June 2019 with the desire to find the city where I had lived for 23 years as an NYU student. As expected, the old buildings that sought to take to the skies were still there alongside some new architectural towers that competed in opulence. In a 30-year interlude, New York still boasted of economic exuberance, but it had lost one of its key characteristics: its rogue profile.
The famous song New York, New York says that the city of skyscrapers never sleeps, but the New York of the 21st century stays overnight for eight hours like all eco friendly cities in the world. In this symbol of urban capitalism, the dark circles of the insomniacs have given way to the chlorophyll-green teeth of some citizens who have embraced healthy food and have abandoned the bars of the bars that served the typical American breakfast, considering them symbols of a society sickly
During the days that I was walking around the city, I found myself trying to find a bar in which to have two fried eggs with bacon and toast for breakfast accompanied by an American coffee. I found it on 47th Street, but I had to enjoy it at a table with a tablecloth and at the price of eggs from chickens raised in the very Garden of Eden.
If it weren’t for the hundred-story buildings and the yellow taxis, I would have concluded that I was in any of the cosmopolitan cities scattered around the world. And as for gastronomy, the offer was the same that I could taste in my city, Barcelona, ​​walking through the Borne or 22@ neighborhoods. A tragedy for those who seek to disconnect from their daily lives when they cross the border.
The success of a restaurant chain that has green honesty as its motto is very indicative of where the new culinary winds are headed. In Barcelona they have opened an endless number of premises whose clients are workers – executives and non-executives – who live two or three years in the city waiting to be sent to a new destination. The sum of these passing inhabitants has been noted in the proliferation of places that are distinguished by their healthy menus, very colorful and highly photographable.
A characteristic of the menus of these restaurants is the language used to name their dishes. English, the language of the educated people, is essential to add cosmopolitanism to an offer aimed at clients who consider themselves citizens of the world and who have environmentalism, with less and more posturing, as an ideology.
The kitchen has a homeland and that is what makes it indispensable for the idiosyncrasies of a community. Unfortunately, a kitchen whose dishes are the same here, in Paris or in Washington and whose only motto is to eat healthy, will end up relocating the recipe book with memory and turning the culinary offer into boring, predictable and without mischief, which is the secret of the success of all plate.
These restaurants with cuisine that is as healthy as it is relocated ensure that the origin of the products used for the dishes on their menus is safe from the slavery of unscrupulous trade. And while they grow and grow as a result of a thirsty demand for cosmopolitanism, native cuisine establishments are disappearing.
Another thing is the cuisine of Xavier Pellicer, a master who has made biodynamic gastronomy a healthy kitchen without deception and a pleasure, also, for the most demanding palates. In his restaurant menu, his biodynamic food is close and an example of creativity at the service of vegans, vegetarians and other mortals.
But Xavier Pellicer is a rare bird. At the rate we are going, we will have to thank the Chinese community for having bought half of the old bars outright and, with more or less expertise, continue to offer La Bomba de la Barceloneta on their menus.
