There is something that I fear more than an increase in electricity and gas bills, multimedia creativity Harry and Megan (their hyperbolic documentary on Netflix is ​​more soporific than the delayed egg-laying of caretta caretta turtles) or the return of 80s shoulder pads (which my mom stocked up with a contraption takeaway system).

Nothing compares to Christmas dinner. This is the only moment in the year when I experience fits of healthy envy for patriarchal families – or even better for matriarchal ones – in which one decides, and peace and good to everyone else, this happens once a year, or to those bobo-chics who they go to Goa or to the Lapps and then storm their relatives up to the fourth degree with stories.

My problem, even our problem – this guilt will be inexorably transferred from fathers to children, Aeschylus docket – is that the menu must be democratically elected, which is already a social success, given that the anarchist component of the family (read Carrara) could at any moment encroach on the greatness of the baked potato side dish. Every year since All Saints Day and the first roasted chestnuts, vintage knives and forks are sharpened against fast fashion, local against global, ecumenical omnivores against orthodox vegetables.

Convert to calories and flow rate, whether it’s always on with spicy injera (Ethiopian bread) or sticking to the Superintendent’s restrictions with baked pasta and lamb or the Académie française with a sweet breeze for a savory topping. Not to mention regional autonomy with rice cake, chestnuts and ricotta, which can voraciously do without panettone centralist.

I know every year it seems impossible to reach an agreement and I am determined to fast a demonstration or a coup d’état with sans-serviettes, but then I think of Minister Talleyrand and how he was able to save the head and the party. during monarchies, revolutions, empires and restorations. “Leave the old and cook the new,” he preached, even though he wasn’t even a cook.

Well, then it couldn’t get any better: The Food and Drug Administration just gave the green light “synthetic” meat which, despite the adjective brutal, is natural meat made from animal molecules – a recipe that d’emblée combines a cruelty-free fraction (does not require slaughter) and fried sovereigns. And then there’s the seafood flakes, seaweedwhich the three-star Spaniard Angel Leon grows in a garden on the seabed in the bay of Cadiz with an area of ​​​​3000 square meters – apart from a historical compromise, with this I make the world of Yalta: this superfoods (gluten-free, rich in omega-6s and 9s, higher in protein and carbohydrates and lower in fat than its terrestrial counterparts), it is native to the Mediterranean but migrates spontaneously and colonizes peacefully due to its ability to absorb large amounts of carbon. and to protect coastal erosion. I’ll make chocolate truffles, actually delicious pastiera. And that someone is trying to prevent me from dulcis in fundo.

PS The next issue of Elle is waiting for you in newsstands from January 12th. Elle Gourmet is on sale until the end of January. Write opinions, comments, tips to: [email protected]