According to the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) in its dictionary, the culinary term derives from the Latin word culinarius. The concept is used as an adjective to refer to that which is linked to cooking.
For example: “The culinary universe has always been fascinating to me”, “The municipal government announced the holding of a culinary festival in the main square”, “Culinary knowledge is essential to work in this place”.
The notion of culinary art (also simply called culinary ) refers to the application of creativity when preparing food. This ability is related to the cultural practices of each community and to the social rites tied to food.
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Culinary art is part of the identity of a people. Recipes are usually passed down from generation to generation, renewing and updating over the course of history. Globalization, however, has contributed to culinary knowledge transcending borders: today it is possible to enjoy Chinese food in Germany and Turkish dishes in Brazil, to name two possibilities.
It is important to keep in mind that food is essential for life: all people need food to satisfy, through vitamins, proteins and other elements, the needs of their body. Culinary art goes beyond these organic needs and focuses on the way food is prepared and presented with the aim of transmitting ideas and emotions.
Precisely, the culinary art also appeals to the knowledge of food and its properties, something that each community has been discovering over the centuries and that has led to the creation of very different recipes throughout the planet. It is important not to confuse this concept with gastronomy, which can be defined as the study of the relationship between our species and its diet, as well as its environment.
Although globalization and commercial interests have led to thousands of recipes traveling around the world, it is important to highlight that the foreign dishes that we taste in food houses do not always respect the lists of ingredients and the original preparation steps, but they are adapted to the materials and resources available in each region, as well as to other issues that make the tastes of potential consumers (for example: certain dishes become less spicy because the original recipe would be impossible to tolerate abroad ).
Another aspect of culinary art and traditional cuisine in general that modern society has modified is access to raw materials abroad. Although the preparation of food began as a practice that took advantage of only the natural ingredients found by each community, today it is very common to buy certain products from companies that are located in other parts of the world, either for economic convenience, for reasons of of quality or due to scarcity at certain times of the year.
And this leads us to the relationship that exists between culinary art and the seasons of the year, something that in countries like Japan is still valid today: certain fruits and vegetables cannot be grown throughout the year, and that impacted the traditional cuisine; Today, however, thanks to imports, this barrier is no longer a determining condition.
One can speak of culinary heritage to refer to those elaborations and presentations that are typical of a certain region. The locro, in this context, belongs to the culinary heritage of the Andean peoples.
