A food manifesto by Curious Appetite

I love food. I live to eat. And I enjoy sharing stories. This blog is about all my food adventures and ironies between Seattle and Europe.

My food manifesto:

I think one of the greatest aspect of the human experience is the ritual of cooking and eating and how it is an art form, to say the very least. And this discourse has been a curiosity of mine even before my undergraduate studies. Gastronomy reflects the core of our social animal. Food has set us apart from the rest of the creatures that co-exist on  this planet. It is also a dying art, oversaturated by disproportionate subsidies and commercialization. So we must recognize food and its artistic capacity.

My life has been a gastronomic journey starting with culturally rich childhood memories including generous servings of rose scented bastani and observing my darling Persian grandmother in the kitchen concocting dried lemon saffron layered lamb stews beneath a backdrop of pomegranate trees. Not to mention warm blanketed, indulgent memories of my mother’s Sicilian (secret) family cannoli recipe and olive oil cake, to never-ending adventures as an adult living in various cities in Europe and observing food at its geopolitic/anthropological core.

My approach to food has been a very holistic one, and I completely subscribe to the food movement. We must preserve local food traditions in a way that demonstrates integrity towards our earth and our hardworking producers: farmers, fishermen, farm workers, bakers, cooks, BEES, goats, chickens, cows, soil, water, you name it.  We mustn’t let this precious gift be dissolved and forgotten to packaged and processed “products” that end up creating sick, stuffed and starved societies. We must never forget what “heirloom” means.

We can do this by mostly by choosing wisely where we put our food dollars and recognize the artists that toil endless hours in the kitchens whose end product, piled strategically on plates throughout the world, I hope to describe effectively.

In other words, I take food with a serious curiosity and so can you.