With few ingredients, but with love

There was a time in my country, Venezuela, when necessity forced us to reinvent our world, our customs, everything we had known before, if we wanted to survive. We learned, by force, to be creative, to have imagination: we had to learn to multiply the loaves and fishes like Jesus Christ did.

It was 2017, and in Venezuela there was widespread scarcity: there was no food, no personal hygiene products, nothing at all in the market. The little that arrived was so expensive that not everyone could afford it. And if something affordable did arrive, the demand was so high that we had to stand in long lines to buy it. So, in that precarious situation, I became a culinary expert, cooking only with whatever ingredients were available.

I discovered that anything seasoned with the same spices you use for meat will taste like meat. I remember dicing vegetables—zucchini, eggplant, carrots—into small cubes and adding onion, bell pepper, cilantro, and garlic. The stew would have the flavor and aroma of stewed meat.

Similarly, I would slice plantain peels into thin strips, then season them with salt, cumin, and pepper, and they tasted like shredded beef. In the same way, I would grate zucchini and carrots (they were the cheapest vegetables available), then add salt, oregano, garlic, and onion, and cook them in a pan, shaping them into meatballs. Not to mention that, since mangoes are abundant in Venezuela, we learned to make mango arepas, mango salad, mango dressings, and mango slices to eat with rice.

Of course, that diet made us lose a lot of weight, but we managed to survive. That's why I can say with certainty that in difficult and calamitous times, human beings will find a way to stay afloat with what little they have, be it clothes, food, or tools. In my case, when creating new dishes, I not only kept creativity and imagination in mind, but also the love I feel for my family. Love can make us do wonderful things.

I don't know if it was from that point onward, or perhaps with the maturity of the years, but I realized that you don't need many things to make something delicious, to create something beautiful, or to be happy. I'm not trying to romanticize scarcity, but I believe that sometimes, when we don't have all the resources at hand, creativity flows and great things are created. I feel that comfort doesn't produce change; it's through the search for something better or different that invention happens. Creativity is a valuable and vital quality for the survival and transformation of humankind.

All images are from my personal gallery and the text was translated with Google

Thank you for your support, for reading, and for your comments, friends. Until next time