2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-06-06 02:02
“The figure is important, for sure. But everyone spends their money as they see fit. For example, I don't conceive of spending hundreds of euros for a bag, I don't even dream of buying an expensive car, I just don't care. I would run to Massimo Bottura, the problem is that no one I know is interested in investing in such an experience .
This is just one of the many comments on the post in which we talked about the things to know before booking at the Osteria Francescana in Massimo Bottura, just proclaimed the best restaurant in the world at the 50 Best Restaurants 2016, highlighting various aspects, including also the price to pay to enjoy a pleasant starred meal.
For a comment like this there are at least ten of opposite tenor, things like "I will be antiquated and reactionary but I just need a plate of spaghetti with sauce, half a kilo of Florentine and two beans and I'm fine".
Or, put in a less brutal way, “if the final price is not ethically justified, you may have enjoyed like a hedgehog but you ate by a thief”.
That is, if it is a question of going to spend money - a lot, it is true, but certainly not as much as a latest generation smartphone costs - we also bother ethics and morals.
Let's say that the concept "everyone spends their money as they see fit" seems to apply to everything, except for food.
No one comes to discuss your last trip to Patagonia or the Big Apple, indeed, traveling is seen as a cultural and spiritual enrichment, and it doesn't matter if in New York we visited the same supermarkets and the same shops that we can find in Milan or in New York. Rome and Patagonia we are bored to death.
Furthermore, no one comes to review the fact that the mobile phone is changed with each new version that the Cupertino house takes care to launch on the market - when our old smartphone was still fine - on the contrary, it was immediately framed as lovers of technology, modern, à la page, dynamic.
But if we like to eat, and are willing to pay for it in the most reputable places, then no.
If you even spend your money in an Osteria that has very little of a Franciscan, if not the name, then the digs will come in rain.
And if you also say that, not being exactly a scrooge, you are saving up what you need to take a plane and go all the way to Lapland to eat some moss, you are immediately mistaken, if it's okay with you, for an idiot, if it's bad for you. a fat creep who only thinks about eating.
So, let's say it as it is: the food, the food tasted I mean, in reality it has no dignity of its own normal individuals with us. Or rather, it only has it if you are on the other side of the fence, that is, of the kitchen table. That is, if you are a cook, a chef, someone with a pan in one hand and an iPhone to take selfies while cooking in the other.
But if you are on the other side, that is, if you are a simple customer, then spend hundreds of euros for a meal comme il faut, where you are sure to have food cooked with excellent raw materials, with an impeccable technique and in a refined place, well, then the charm disappears, you will always be the victim of giggles and sarcastic comments.
Let's face it, then: food is the ultimate taboo to break down.
Although inflated in all respects, the ultimate act of grueling and very popular competitions between amateurs and non-amateurs, of many talk shows, of national honors and compliments, namely the simple eating, tasting, savoring of food, drawing from it, if possible, of wholesome enjoyment is still seen as a fourth-rate pleasure.
In short, talking about a fair price, a fair price, a markup margin, an "ethical" price or other beautiful concepts with which to fill our mouths is useless: we are the price.
We who queue for months to go to the starred restaurant, we who take the trouble to board a plane just to go and eat moss in Lapland, we make our price.
Because the price is the value we place on things. How much of our work, monetized in rustling bucks, are we willing to sacrifice for the purchase of what we like best: the latest iPhone, an evening at the nightclub, a trip, and yes, even a meal in a gastronomic temple like that of Massimo Bottura.
With all due respect to politically correct moralists and serial iPhone consumers.