Como agua para chocolate

Cuando volvimos del gran viaje nos mudamos a San Telmo porque por entonces el barrio donde había más chances de cruzarse con mochileros. Buscábamos una Buenos Aires cosmopolita, abierta a lo diferente, orgullosa en su condición de ensalada étnica pero también curiosa. Durante un tiempo fantaseamos con la idea de poner un restaurante para mochileros, en el que el hubiera platos de distintos países, artistas y mesas largas y rústicas de madera para incentivar el intercambio. A casi todo el mundo, al fin y al cabo, uno le entra por la comida. Por suerte o desgracia, la vida nos llevó para otro lado.

Ahora tropiezo con Conflict Kitchen gracias a WMMNA:

A few months ago artists John Peña, Jon Rubin, and Dawn Weleski opened Conflict Kitchen, a take-out restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries that the United States is in conflict with. Nowadays the Iranian food is served at the counter. More precisely, the kubideh, a dish made of grilled ground meat in freshly baked barbari bread with onion, mint, and basil. The food is wrapped in a paper covered with facts about Iran, its government, culture and the way the U.S. perceives it. Every four month, a new country takes center stage. For each iteration of Conflict Kitchen, events, performances, and discussion will explore further the culture, politics, and issues at stake.

¡Es una idea genial! Y tiene un montón de aristas que van más allá de la gastronomía:

There will be programming for each Conflict Kitchen iteration, hosted at the Waffle Shop. Yes, we just hosted a meal with Pittsburgh and Tehran via live video conferencing (Skype) on Sat., June 5. We invited people to join us for a virtual dinner party with Tehran. A menu was planned with a gallery owner in Tehran that reflected a breadth of traditional Iranian food. Folks in Tehran were invited to join in on the meal that happened concurrently here in Pittsburgh at the Waffle Shop. The event was two hours long and between 30-40 people attended on each end. The conversation ranged from food, to dating, to politics. Our next event will be another live video feed with Tehran in the form of a YouTube video essay, curated by Jon Rubin in Pittsburgh and Sohrab Kashani in Tehran, that highlights uploaded videos by residents of both cities, and will take place Saturday, July 10 at 11.30a. The videos will alternate between Pittsburgh and Tehran, comparing and contrasting the culture of each city. Connected through live video conferencing, the attendees of the event in both cities will then engage in discussion about the cultural and societal morays presented in the videos and YouTube as a resource of both cultural presentation and misrepresentation.

Additional events will include: traditional Persian instrumentalists v. popular Persian music videos and pop music; film screenings from Iranian directors; a forum and discussion on blogging and social media in Iran, and it's role in the Green Movement; and a culminating event in collaboration with local organizations on Pittsburgh's first-ever Persian Cultural Festival.

Buenos Aires tiene comedores de todos los colores y sabores pero todavía ejerce un cierto pudor provinciano a la hora de enterarse sobre otras culturas. Por otro lado, el "conflicto" no necesariamente tiene que encontrarse fuera de nuestras fronteras. Quizás muchos de nuestros problemas para dialogar podrían resolverse con un plato de comida y las ganas de entender al otro.