African tradition, the modern Italian vegetable garden or the challenges that haute cusine faces in the post-Covid era will be giving an international tone to the event that kicks off on Monday.

Its close links to the city of San Sebastián are unquestionable, but the doyen of culinary congresses has never rejecting the idea of providing a showcase for what is cooking in international gastronomy. Especially at a congress that, because of health requirements, will mainly take place online, which has made it possible to align schedules and bring some unexplored culinary traditions to San Sebastián Gastronomika – Euskadi Basque Country. Under the title, 'Caminos-Bideak-Pathways', the next congress of the event that starts on Monday will be devoted to covering the back roads of global cuisine, paths that run through East Africa, the Italian countryside, the Colombian coasts of the Pacific, the district of Harlem in New York or bustling Lima.

The first stop will be on the other side of the Mediterranean, to delve into the links with a sister cuisine like Italy’s. In a year when the sectors in both countries have been struck hard by the pandemic the fellowship among Spanish and Italian chefs makes more sense than ever. In both countries chefs are reestablishing contact with the land, are becoming farmers and are trying to find modernity in age-old wisdom. Among the speakers from Italy it is especially worth mentioning Carlo Cracco, who will explain how the 14-hectare farm that he has acquired with his wife Rosa is helping him to review how he understood traditional cooking, or the young chef, Caterina Ceraudo, who searches for purity in ingredients through direct contact with small farmers and an almost obsessive control of what comes into her larder.

“You can’t have a restaurant without a vegetable garden”, Pietro Zito from Piedmont declares, and he has added 1500 square metres of arable land to his 'ecotrattoria' in Montegrosso. His house bears the explanatory name of 'Antichi Sapori' (old flavours), a link to the past that also governs the cooking of the chef from Milan, Matías Perdomo, at the Contraste restaurant. This Uruguayan has revolutionised the culinary scene in Milan and considers a creative approach to tradition to be the best means of producing cutting-edge cuisine. Gennaro Esposito, for his part, practises a style of cooking that “never goes out of fashion” like Mediterranean cuisine, inspired by a sea that inundates the picture windows of his house in Vico Equense, on the outskirts of Naples.

Connection to the land

This very connection to the land will lead us to discover little-known culinary traditions like African cuisine and its offshoots in the USA or Latin America. Under the slogan, 'Black Cuisines Matter', San Sebastián Gastronomika intends to portray, perhaps for the first time, a socio-culinary movement that champions its racial origins and ancestors as its main ingredient. It will do this through some prominent figures from a style of cooking, African cuisine, which has been practically ignored in the West up to now.

From her restaurant in the capital of Ghana, Selassie Atadika advocates the local area, local produce, a larder full of vegetables, sustainability and flavour. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? After studying at the University of Columbia and working for a decade for the UN, Atadika returned to Africa to open the Midunu restaurant, where together with a team completely made up of women she delves into the history and diversity of African cuisine. Pierre Thiam from Senegal, who runs the Nok restaurant in Lagos (Nigeria) and Teranga on Fifth Avenue in New York, will be talking about the biodiversity of the continent as a tool to guarantee a healthy style of cooking in the future.

J.J. Johnson is also a New Yorker, and his presentation will deal with the migration of African rice from the Niger river delta to South Carolina through slaves, and from there to the North of the USA after the Civil War. Today he practises a style of cooking in Harlem that preserves traditions and defends human rights. But perhaps the major star of the 'Black Cuisines Matter' cycle is an 82-year-old woman who will be the oldest speaker to have ever taken part in Gastronomika. The Colombian, Maura de Caldas, is one of the great communicators of the black tradition in the culinary resurgence of her country and will link up with the congress in a virtual presentation in which music will play a leading role.

The congress won’t be missing out either on the opportunity to reflect on the challenges faced by the profession in the post-Covid era through presentations by two benchmark figures on both sides of the Atlantic. The British chef, Claire Smyth, the first woman to receive 3 Michelin stars in the UK, and the Colombian Miguel Warren, who won the prize for best breakthrough chef at the latest Madrid Fusion Bogotá congress, will be reflecting from opposing viewpoints on the challenges and opportunities that the worst pandemic of the century has opened up for the restaurant business. On top of that, Pedro Miguel Schiaffino from Lima will be talking about the riches of produce from Amazonia and the Filipino Chele González will take part in a presentation that evokes the journey by Juan Sebastián Elcano around the world.