'Homo philtrum' or how men have always applied filters to reality

There have always been filters.

It seems like a contemporary fixation that emerged under the shelter of social networks, but the deceptions, like the makeup, have always been there.

They are something artificially natural.

Since we were children, the harshness of events has been cooked for us so that digestion is more friendly.

And since we never stop being children, I imagine that in those ancestral bonfires the stories transmitted orally were whitewashed and cleared of uncomfortable details... Away with branches and debris that compromise the splendor of the narrative!

Perhaps for this reason, the first additive in the field of communication was epic.

Without preservatives that inhibit disbelief, that extend the useful life of the deed and keep the heroic properties stable for as long as possible, there would be no saints, no books of chivalry, or gastronomic Larousse.

Without grandiose filters to transform the horror of wars into a succession of extraordinary events, the world would be different.

And since one thing leads to another, the charolistas with the title of aedo, bard or troubadour extended the epics until the books took over.

We have lived by lining and improving things for so long that we take the idealized fantasy for real.

All, or almost all, of the films about battle-hardened Athenians, crusaders, medieval knights, and intrepid settlers show oral health unlike the general lack of teeth of the past.

It must be remembered that dental public health was not disseminated until the sixties of the 20th century, which portrays a toothless yesterday at 40 years of age.

But, of course, where would the glamor and solemnity be if the generals of Alexander the Great, the Roman legions or the armies of Napoleon were plagued with baldness with facial muscles and speech altered by missing teeth?

The children of my generation grew up without knowing that a real battle brings a harvest of dying wretches and offal indifferent to the epic.

There were filters, until the films and series began to show us the crudeness of a skirmish in which the victim with three ax blows and two shots regained consciousness in the trunk, opening a melon of dilemmas inaccessible to ordinary mortals.

Too much responsibility.

And if the diamond covered the imaginary of relevant events turning them into amazing adventures, what wouldn't the banquets that have gone down in history really be, peppered as they were by the seasoning of hardship?

Because if something has a varnish, it's food, and I'm not referring to the filters that highlight tones and shadows, saturate colors, reduce light intensity or add warmth to images.

Nor the desire to appear on the internet by sending messages about how well you eat and the restaurants you visit.

Nor to the arbitration filters of experts or

that relaunch or weaken a product or project.

Rather, I am referring to the use of procedures to make the rigorous reality in which all of the above and what is to come more practicable.

We forget that vinegars, dressings, herbs and spices are echoes of a past stuffed with cereals and legumes with weevils, scarce and poorly processed meat, parasites, cross contamination.

The description of the prosecutor and writer Eugenio de Salazar about those voyages in the ships bound for America in the 16th century is exemplary: “Everything that is eaten is corrupted and stinking, like the mabonto of the black zapes.

And even with water it is necessary to lose the senses of taste and smell and sight by drinking it and not feeling it”.

During the journeys it was customary to eat at nightfall, sheltered from darkness, so as not to see what entered the mouth.

We like filters, make up reality with concealers and bronzers that shade dark circles, eliminate wrinkles and give light to the face, events, gossip, excuses and lies;

to smiles, events and dishes.

An interpretation of reality is better supported than a reflection of it.

Quite possibly because it is one thing to accept what we are and quite another to give up what we would like to be.

Aduriz's recipe

Fish and fig tiradito Óscar Oliva

Fish and fig tiradito

The fig has a symbiotic relationship with wasps.

Without them they could not survive, since their pollination depends on these insects.

Ingredients:

→

460 grams (g) of white fish.

8 figs.

60 g of hot vinaigrette.

Salt.

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100 g of celery.

80 g of carrot.

4 garlic roasted on a griddle without oil.

15 g of parsley branches.

400 g of water.

White fish bones.

150 g of buckwheat.

70 g of apple cider vinegar.

Elaboration:

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Toast the fish bones in the oven at 150 ̊C for 30 minutes.

In a pot, serve the celery, carrot, garlic and fish bones;

bring to a boil, lower the heat, and cook for 20 minutes.

Remove from heat, cover and infuse for another 20 minutes.

Strain through a microsieve and reduce over low heat until obtaining about 200 grams of reduced broth.

In this reduced broth, cook the buckwheat and cold mix together with the vinegar.

Finish and presentation:

→ Cut the fish into not very thin slices.

In a bowl, serve the fish and season.

Rest 2 minutes.

Add the hot vinaigrette and let sit for 7 minutes.

Cut the figs and add to the bowl, gently integrate.

Arrange carefully on a plate.

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