Editura GastroArt announces a new editorial available in Cărturesți bookstores: What's new in the New Romanian Gastronomy by Adriana Sohodoleanu. We invite you to read the foreword written by Marius Tudosiei. You can order the book here
In 2012, I raised condescending smiles in the conference room at the Romanian Peasant Museum when I loudly expressed my conviction that Romania, as a destination country, can save itself through its Kitchen, including here all the converging energies, from cooks to food producers. It was early, very early, but the dawn of the revitalization of local gastronomy was really dawning. In just a few years after the incident, the effervescence of the local gastronomic life seemed to take on significant proportions, so that more and more people seemed to become attentive and, moreover, actively concerned with food in general. The effect of the accumulation of external culinary experiences, translated by the "weighted average of vacation days per capita", made the touch in a discussion of a topic such as local gastronomy no longer seem out of place, but "interesting" and even more - "up to date".
As its current dynamics show, between 2020 and 2023, the New Romanian Kitchen confirms that it has started its own path, even if it has not yet managed to gather critical mass to matter in the large landscape of general consumption (probably a market share below 1%). However, this new direction, grafted onto the solid body of Romanian cuisine and yet so authentically local, is beginning to gain not only courage, but also "clot", as the elderly say, not exclusively referring to the capital, but equally to experience, reflexes and practices.
The new Romanian Kitchen does not come from nowhere, and Adriana Sohodoleanu perfectly captures and exemplifies this. Like everything related to gastronomy and food, it is the result of evolution and interactions with other cultures. And if in the past proximity was the main opportunity for the exchange of ideas, globalization makes us not only live, but also interact with distant gastronomy. The countless training courses of Romanian chefs in the kitchens of large restaurants in many countries, extremely different culturally, could not be left without immediate consequences, just as it would have had no way of producing long-term effects. The effervescence with which new ideas appear at the end of the world, in Lima, in New York or in Bangkok, now accessible to everyone at a click away, the appearance of the series Chef's Table on Netflix, the fabulous experiments in Europe (Croatia, Greece), the video democratization of the culinary heritage of all countries, the consolidation of gastronomic regions such as the Basque Country and the "on-the-go" maturation of a new generation of chefs have set us on a fascinating path , although still far from applying for a relevant position worldwide (or at least European).
The ideas gathered from the new cuisine of the North, from Mexico or from South America, the increasingly visible good practices from the Old Continent did not fall to us on sterile ground, but even in a consistent slurry, from where they fueled and developed incredibly fast: in just a few years, the New Romanian Cuisine really came to take a firm shape, taking advantage, of course, of the world current that shakes and refreshes all the gastronomy of the world.
However, the background of authentic cuisine is extremely important, and I think it would be useful to delimit the communist period as an unwanted and uncontrolled slippage, an exit in decorum that deformed Romanian cuisine to such an extent that we no longer recognize it. The restaurants of the time were just toeing the party line, shortening recipes, economizing and therefore selling surrogates – food that had no way of mattering (except, perhaps, through the enormous damage done to our gastronomic heritage). But before this torturous period we find some absolutely fabulous resources, great ideas, perfect techniques, and the New Kitchen there draws its sap visibly: from history, from old books and, more recently admitted and assumed as direction, from recipe books of our grandparents.
We are going back to our roots, but on a different path - I was telling a small group of chefs that I invited in 2016 to debate the possible ways to take this place, convinced that only within ourselves lie both the resources and the answers . This path proved to be full of creativity, marked by a sometimes hard-to-understand "fusion", shaken by all kinds of trials, marked by resounding appearances and disappearances, by events of a reassuring constancy, but it was certainly an effective beginning of road.
"Do we want #NouaBucătărieRomânească or not?" I asked myself at the time, and a few years later I would receive countless confirmations on all channels. New Wave restaurants kept popping up, chefs became more and more vocal, many of them lost the shame of cooking Romanian food, ours, the public, although still small in number, is more and more educated. The very appearance of the first in-depth research paper in the field of New Gastronomy - the one you are going to read - makes me feel that Romania has entered a new era of valorizing the Gastronomic Heritage and that it could "eat a good bread" from the exploitation of culinary heritage transposed into a current key, expressed in so many and delightfully varied ways. In fact, in the last few years, several enthusiasts of Romanian gastronomic history have started to shake the dust off something that seemed like it would never wake up. But the sleeping dragon seems to be reborn and spreading its wings, bringing a prolific revival movement to the foodie landscape.
As a food enthusiast, promoter and maker, I admit I felt a thrill of pleasure when I realized such a study was forthcoming. Knowing the author, in fact rather knowing her passion for Gastronomy, I could only be sure that the pages I went through in one breath would be full of everything we needed to understand each other better good direction And, to a certain extent, even the intention! The work captures the era of the genesis of a current that, in just a few years, will represent an important vein in this area of Europe, will attract specialized tourism and, even if it will not reach mainstream, has chances to represent the biggest, strongest and most impactful cultural movement since the Revolution.
We are certainly subjective when we talk about the kitchen: it is the area closest to our souls and we can easily seem too passionate (and passionate). I really think we are. But all Adriana Sohodoleanu's writings about what is happening in our country and on other meridians - easy to find and follow on all the channels she has been shepherding for several years - show us that we have not only the right, but also the moral duty to talk incessantly about The new Romanian Kitchen! Something is happening and this "something" is delightful! This is how it looks in the present research, it is how it looks in all the field research that the author has carried out in almost the entire world with a consistency that everyone recognizes (and follows). The experience accumulated by Adriana in all these years guarantees us two important things in relation to this work: the acquisition and refinement of all the tools that allow her a deep understanding of the local phenomenon and a wide practical experience, so that the comparison and evaluation of "local vs global" to be just made.
With this work we are put at a crossroads. To us, everyone, the following pages will not directly give us a direction to follow, nor do they propose, but something much more important: just like in the old days of postmen, crossroads were points of waiting, of regaining breath, gathering and exchanging words or ideas. It is expected that Adriana Sohodoleanu's analysis will have this effect on everyone, and once we understand where we come from, let's each restart our way richer and, inevitably, more motivated to move forward!
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What's new in the New Romanian Kitchen is Adriana Sohodoleanu's PhD work in sociology. The thesis analyzes the main directions of modernization of the local cuisine and presents the conclusions of a research of about 5 years in which the author interviewed all the chefs who contributed to the face change of the culinary landscape in our country and participated and analyzed all the local gastronomic experiences of interest to the theme. The book also benefits from some recipes proposed by some of the best-known chefs from us.
The New Romanian Cuisine is the local form of an international phenomenon that gravitates to the orbit of the New Nordic Cuisine, which has accelerated nationalistic or just regional culinary trends all over the world. In Romania, the term "new cuisine" began to be used first in Bucharest with relative frequency in 2018, but its impact is still low. The twelve restaurants identified were the subject of extensive empirical research over four years. The paper shows that restaurants appear as author's projects opposed to culinary practices standardized in the communist decades and still persisting today. Their initiators claim that they have assumed the responsibility of performing an alternative Romanian cuisine, which shows the richness, tradition and potential of Romanian food. The data collected lead to the conclusion that new restaurants create their field by performing the local and re-specifying authenticity. The mechanisms employed are the identity discourse and the local recipe. The chefs pay attention exclusively to local ingredients and practices that express the tangible and intangible cultural heritage, recovering and promoting those of them that represent, suggest, signify the place, the terroir, the community. If necessary, they create a positive identity imaginary associated with Romanian cuisine by exploiting ingredients and recipes that have associated memories, stories, traditions and historical references with the potential to activate feelings of national pride and nostalgia. The restaurants under review explore the relationship between heritage and food, seeing in this duty and opportunity and thus addressing sets of conflicting parameters. (Marius Tudosei)
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"I believe that the New Romanian Kitchen is both a historical continuity and a break with the past. The movement, although relatively Brownian, constructs its field by calling upon material resources such as local seasonal ingredients, micro-local recipes, and symbolic resources such as traditions, histories, and memories through which it patronizes the concept of local. Noua Bucătărie Românească narrates the performative and theatrical locale, offering an experience at an affordable price to a class with surplus economic and cultural capital. She makes a positive contribution to the development of the local gastronomic community and, although she is influential, she does not (yet) break through the boundaries of the foodie community. Part of disparate efforts aimed at improving the country's services and image both domestically and, or especially, externally, it remains to be seen to what extent these restaurants can create change among the targeted middle class. This aspect as well as the ways in which the consumer perceives the new culinary offer remain as future research topics that will contribute to deepening the knowledge of the New Romanian Cuisine." (Adriana Sohodoleanu)
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Adriana Sohodoleanu, PhD in sociology from 2021, is a gastronomist. Her doctoral thesis, which analyzed the phenomenon of the New Romanian Cuisine, validates her as a researcher, and her experience as the owner of an artisan confectionery ensures her practical anchoring in laboratory work and in industry. Adriana has contributed articles to publications such as Oxford Food Symposium's Proceedings, Dilema Veche, Iscoada, Zile si Nopti and others. Her essays explore the connections between food and society, drawing attention to the complex ways in which food culture intertwines with broader socio-political contexts. Adriana is the co-author of a book of historical dessert recipes, together with Cosmin Dragomir, and has weekly interventions at Radio Romania Cultural under the umbrella of her Cultura la farfuru project, which also includes lectures at the Calea Victoriei Foundation, cultural dinners in collaboration with chefs and sommeliers, tastings, etc.
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