Editura GastroArt announces the launch of the volume What's new in the New Romanian Kitchen by Adriana Sohodoleanu, Tuesday, January 16, from 6:30 p.m. at Cărturești Verona bookstore (13-15 Str. Pictor Arthur Verona).
Along with the authors, personalities from the academic area and the HoReCa industry will speak, and the evening will be continued with an autograph session and wine tasting from Prince Matei Domains. The volume, which benefits from a preface signed by Marius Tudosiei and an afterword by the publisher Cosmin Dragomir, is available in the network of Cărturești bookstores in the country.
What's new in the New Romanian Kitchen is Adriana Sohodoleanu's PhD work in sociology. The thesis analyzes the main directions for the modernization of local restaurant cuisine and presents the conclusions of a research of approximately 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 in and analyzed gastronomic experiences local topics of interest. The book also includes some recipes proposed by some of the best-known chefs from us - Mihai Toader, Radu CM Ionescu, Alex Petricean, Mădălina Roman, etc.
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 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, showing the richness, tradition and potential of Romanian restaurant 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. Chefs pay attention exclusively to local ingredients and practices as an expression of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, recovering and promoting those of them that represent, suggest, signify the place, terroirthe 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 analyzed explore the relationship between heritage and food, seeing in it both duty and opportunity and thus addressing sets of conflicting parameters.
"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. It makes a positive contribution to the development of the local gastronomic community and, although influential, it does not (yet) break through the boundaries of the community foodie. 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)
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 working in the kitchen and in the 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 "Culture on a plate" project, which also includes lectures at the Calea Victoriei Foundation, cultural dinners in collaboration with chefs and sommeliers , tastings, etc.
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The GastroArt publishing house, specialized in the valorization of gastronomic heritage, has recently launched two other culinary titles: Zămuri, supe, zupe si năcreli - Transylvanian recipes from elders by Mircea Groza (the grand prize in the book category from Eastern Europe at the Gourmand Awards 2023 - Saudi Feast Food Festival) and the Sarmale Collection and other gastronomic stories by Cosmin Dragomir.
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