#409 Erkenningsnummer P708816
DECEMBER 9, 2015 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.eu current affairs \ p2
politics \ p4
Climate crunch
BUSiNESS \ p6
Ivy of the Amazon
Belgium’s regional and federal governments agreed to a collective climate change policy during the UN conference in Paris
UGent scientists climbed the Amazon rainforest’s tallest trees to measure the growth of lianas, thick vines that are thriving under deforestation
\4
\7
innovation \ p7
education \ p11
art & living \ p13
Gift, gift, hooray!
Flanders Today’s annual holiday gift guide points you in the direction of the hottest presents at the coolest shops \8
The world on our plates
New book gathers the stories of expat chefs, bakers and bartenders from far and wide Alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu
Expat chefs, barkeeps, bakers and food truck vendors talk about the cuisine they’ve brought to Flanders in the new book Melting Pot.
F
ood and eating can be among the most intimate of human activities, and at the same time the most social. When you eat in a restaurant, you’re asking the chef, usually a stranger, to prepare something with his or her hands for you to eat. It requires the utmost trust, yet we do it without thinking. For some cooks, the relationship is even wider: they have become, by the nature of their enterprise, representatives of a whole other country, of a culture, of a history. They present to you not only their own skills and tastes but also those of the place and the people they come from and have left behind. Karin De Bruyn and Guido Everaert have gathered together the stories of 20 such food ambassadors in the new book Melting Pot: De wereld kookt in België (The World Cooks in Belgium). It’s not only restaurant chefs: there are the Sudanese owners of a food shop, a Portuguese pastry baker, a Turkish olive oil trader, a Bolivian barman and the proprietor of an Indian food truck. “About 10 years ago, I met a Belgian guy who was living in Portugal,” De Bruyn explains. “He’d left everything behind and was living a much simpler life. And he was much happier than he’d been here. That was something that stuck in my mind, and it occurred to me that if we found people like him abroad, there must be similar stories the other way around.” So they went looking for people who came to Belgium for whatever reason – “sometimes well thought-out and sometimes by pure chance”. They weren’t interested in telling everyday stories of people who come from another country and open a restaurant. Instead, they wanted people with outspoken opinions on cuisine, or, indeed, on life. De Bruyn: “The people we ended up selecting all have things in common: They have a lot of talent, but they also question themselves. Even the Michelin-starred chef doesn’t think he’s at the top. These people are always doubting themselves, looking for new ways to be innovative.” One of the expats is a chef from Iceland, Vilhjalmur Sigurdarson of Souvenir in Ypres, who illustrates that trait perfectly. He trained in his homeland but decided to strike out in the wider world. “Compare it with mountain climbing,” he says. “The preparation is immense, and the excitement you feel when you reach the first summit is unimaginable. Of course you’re proud of yourself, but then the real drama unfolds in front of your eyes: all those other summits that have to be conquered. Every chef is a hopeless romantic: We wreck our bodies, our lives, our relationships, all in the quest for the ultimate. The ultimate, which then is ultimately eaten up.” “I think it’s part of their characters,” says De Bruyn. “They want to out-perform themselves. Nothing in life is a given, and the moment you think you’ve achieved what you wanted to achieve … they all told us that’s the moment where you start going downhill.” But innovating doesn’t always mean more or bigger, she notes. “Sometimes it’s the other way round, going back to the very essence of food, something smaller that gives you space to be playful.” The food and drinks service industry offers new arrivals particu-
© Karin De Bruyn
continued on page 5