Gastronomy with Tanya Gervasi
by Tanya Gervasi
What is local? What is in season? These might be straightforward questions, yet the answer is not obvious. Proof is: wherever you are now in the world reading this, do you know what food is grown locally to your area and what is in season at the moment?
I am currently living in London and despite having a BA in Gastronomic Sciences, and being attentive to my food, I find it really hard (at times tricky) to understand where the food that I buy comes from. Most times it just carries the “organic” label, but how organic is it when it’s shipped from the other side of the world?
Globalisation changed everything, for example I can’t imagine living life without bananas. Or, can you still make your healthy avocado and egg toast for brunch without the avocado? Yes it’s tough to imagine eating local foods solely, and while I am an advocate for local seasonal food I am also very grateful for the exotic fruits we get shipped to this part of the world.
When thinking about the past we should not get too lost in romanticisms, as foods, seeds, plants, beverages, and of course spices traveled throughout the countries and continents thanks to merchants.
Today, Europe can say thank you to America for corn, potatoes and tomatoes among other vegetables; whereas spices arrived to us primarily from India and the Middle East. Wonderful isn’t it? I am always fascinated! Moreover what I love is to research how these foods become enrooted so much into a culture that it’s almost impossible to imagine it without it - for example, think of Italy and it’s pasta al pomodoro: well the tomato comes from the Americas, and was first used in Spain who did the first tomato sauce called salsa alla spagnola; the pasta was actually invented by the chinese and it was fresh at first. However it was the Italians who made of the tomato and the pasta a myth!
Who am I?
My name is Tanya Gervasi, I’ve been a professional model for twenty years, during which time I got my BA in Gastronomic Sciences becoming a gastronome. A little over two months ago I started a podcast called Green World In A Pod where I share interviews and talks revolving around fashion and food culture. These two worlds are big and complex, fascinating yet at times boring due to unnecessary repetitions and/or lack of inventiveness. Just like fashion goes beyond Haute Couture, food goes deeper than Michelin Star restaurants.
My goal with my podcast, besides that to learn and have fun, is bring fashion and food closer to you: we all wear clothes and we all eat, so we should all be a little bit educated about what goes both on and inside of us.
I am aware that many people don’t understand what gastronomic science is, let alone the profession of the gastronome. The imagery we are presented is that of a middle aged man, a little overweight, possibly French, who goes from restaurant to restaurant eating food and sits in bars talking about food, a gourmand, a food lover. And while it is not entirely correct, it is also not entirely wrong.
The new wave of gastronomes are young people who love food yes, but also care for the environment and the culture and the history. After I graduated from the university I moved to New York to model and for a bit said goodbye to food culture, I also couldn’t think of a profession because I had the basic knowledge of everything concerning food and everything fascinated me …. but most importantly I had no clue of what to do with such a degree. 8 years later I have an epiphany, hence my podcast: where I can put all my knowledge and discoveries and love for food and share it with a public.
Also one thing I learned is that a gastronome is not a food expert, a gastronome is someone knowledgeable about food and whose quest never ends. He is indeed always hungry. And indeed always curious.
Being half Italian and half Belorussian, and generally nomadic by nature, when I live abroad I try to make myself feel at home by cooking. I mix recipes from my childhood using local ingredients, or adapting recipes to the country where I am living in at a precise moment, and recipes I discover experimenting with new ingredients.
So for my Be Well Collective Instagram takeover (Sunday 31st of May) I will prepare a dish that tastes of my Russian childhood and also a recipe I learned while living here in the UK, plus a little history of the foods we’ll be using! I cannot wait to hear about your culture and what do you cook when you are away from home.
Tanya Gervasi x