From November 29 through December 2 the Flavors of Mexico and Cuba Gourmet Festival will be held in Old Havana: Investigation from the Audio-visual perspective, Literature and Tourism, a cultural project directed by Alicia García and Maria Eugenia del Rio, that is born with the goal of studying in depth the patrimonial values of the culinary art and to explore its presence and influence in the audio-visual world, literature, plastic arts, music and tourism, among other artistic and identity manifestations of Cuba and Mexico.
Although there are few similar experiences in Cuba, in the world proliferate at present the gastronomic festivals endorsed by scientific investigations and historicist studies that seek how to improve the forms of preparing food, to rescue traditional meals and to nourish them with others to the use or of foreign origin, to encourage the consumption of healthy ingredients and spices, to embellish dishes and to extend their variety, all this to enrich and to refine the food habits of the people. These festivals aim at integrating culinary culture with other social and artistic practices, trying to discover in it new tones and to grant it uses different from those that normally a person gives it.
Cuisine is not only an expression of the identity of the peoples, but one of the essential elements art uses to validate itself. A dish of meal placed in a cinematographic set, in outlined linen, in an unfinished song, grants the artistic fact a social breath, a historical sense, a creative energy capable of turning scenery into fragment of reality, in vital moment, into declaration of humanity.
Precisely this creative capacity of the culinary art is what it has made Alicia García and Maria Eugenia del Rio to create the Gourmet Festival, in a country — as Alicia assures—, where people question the existence of a culinary culture, its possibilities are undervalued and its knowledge is wasted. In Cuba — she continues — the culinary topics have become vulgarized, which has put at risk not only this essential stripe of our identity, but one of the irreplaceable contents of the artistic event, as well as the nature itself of the creative act.
Although she has specialized in audio-visual topics and of plastic arts, as researcher of the Film library of Cuba and curator of exhibitions for festivals of cinema, Alicia García has inherited the love for the cuisine of her family, of her grandmother, handmade creator of wonderful recipes, and of her dad and her uncle, founders of several of the most famous Cuban restaurants of the 1950s, like El Aljibe and Rancho Luna.
Captivated by her familiar history, she told it some years ago in a book where she rescued more than 200 Cuban recipes accompanied of a glossary of phrases and terms born to the heat of a stove, as “Calabaza, calabaza, cada uno pa’ su casa”, “Al pan, pan, y al vino, vino” or “Matando y salando”, that have turned into easy and opportune solutions to daily problems for the majority of the Cubans.
The Mexican cuisine, declared recently intangible patrimony of the humanity by UNESCO, it will share leading role with the Cuban in this event, and it will be represented by Maria Eugenia del Rio, audio-visual researcher, the president of the Casa Vieja de Campeche Foundation and agent in his country several audio-visual and gastronomic projects.
The Gourmet Festival, possible thanks to the support of the Office of the Historian of the City and of the Foundation Old House of Campeche, will be provided with the presence of chefs of Habaguanex, investigators, writers, specialists in tourism and cultural agents, who will prepare panels, workshops, talks and tastings of dishes. Also two exhibitions will be inaugurated and the Mexican full-lenght film Como agua para chocolate, by Alfonso Arau, and the documentary Conozca a Cuba by Humberto Solás.
Program of the Festival:
ON NOVEMBER 29 (THURSDAY)
Restaurant La Imprenta
–9:00 am: Theoretical – practical workshop: “The culinary art of Campeche, Mexico”. Speaker: Maria Eugenia del Rio, the president of the Casa Vieja de Campeche Foundation.
Making of typical dishes and tasting.
House of Benito Juárez (House of Mexico)
–2:00 pm: Exhibition of the Mexican movie Como agua para chocolate (105 ‘), by Alfonso Arau.
–4:00 pm: Talk “ Gourmet and cinema ”. Panel “The culinary Mexican culture in the novel of Laura Esquivel Como agua para chocolate and in her namesake cinematographic version. Panelists: Frank Padrón and Maria Eugenia del Rio.
–4:30 pm: It confers “Approach of the gastronomy in the contemporary audio-visual art”. Speaker: Maria Esther Abreu.
–5:30 pm: Opening of the exhibitions Flavor and art, curator: Víctor Manuel Quijano“Navegando sobre espuma del Chocolate”, La ruta del cacao, y “Como, luego existo”, La ruta de la cocina campechana, curator Maria Eugenia del Rio, with the collaboration of the National Institute of Anthropology of Campeche. Opening words by Miguel Barnet.
November 30 (Friday)
Restaurant La Imprenta
-9:00 am: Theoretical – practical workshop “The culinary art of the island of Cuba. Patrimony and memory”. Speakers: Veimar Loyola (chef of the restaurant La Imprenta), and other chefs of Habaguanex.
Making of typical dishes and tasting.
-9:00 am: Taller teórico-práctico “El arte culinario de la isla de Cuba. Patrimonio y memoria”. Ponentes: Veimar Loyola (chef del restaurante La Imprenta), y otros chefs de Habaguanex.
Elaboración de platos típicos y degustación.
House of Benito Juárez (House of Mexico)
–2:00 pm: Exhibition of the promotional Conozca a Cuba (24‘), directed by Humberto Solás (promotion of the tourism with dignity and artistic beauty). Exhibition of other tourist promotionals.
–3:00 p.m. Panel “ Tourism and audio-visual. Incidence of the audio-visual ones in the tourist sector ”. Panelistas: Sergio Benvenuto Solás, Yarmila Martínez, José Luis Perelló y Rosaura Muñoz.
December 1 (Saturday)
Restaurant La Imprenta
–9:00 am: Theoretical practical workshop “Close cooperation of the campeche and Cuban cuisines”. Speakers: Maria Eugenia del Rio and Veimar Loyola (chef of the restaurant La Imprenta).
Making and tasting of typical dishes of Campeche and Cuba.
House of Benito Juárez (House of Mexico)
–2:00 pm: Conference “ The culinary culture in the lyrics of the Cuban music (musical auditions of the lyrics) ”. Panelist: Reynaldo González, National Award of Literature.
–3:30 pm: Presentation of books dedicated to the culinary art.
–4:00 pm: The hour of the chocolate: from the manufacture to the industry.
–6:00 pm: Closing ceremony.
