Massimo’s spirit and philosophy of food can help us all get through COVID-19 times a little more satisfied.

Take a look:

Acclaimed Italian chef Massimo Bottura is cooking up a storm in his private kitchen for the entire world to see via Instagram.

Not only is he the creative force and energy master behind Osteria Francescana, he is also the leader of the non-profit Food for the Soul, which empowers communities to support sustainable food practices and advocates for ethical and healthy food systems through building culture.

In addition, he was featured on the insanely popular Netflix food series Chefs Table as the headliner of Season 1 Episode 1. If you haven’t seen this show, please please add it to your quarantine binge list:

Why am I glorifying a World’s Best chef at a time when some people are struggling to put a single, humble meal on their table?

Massimo’s fandom and success is because there is something deeply profound from his sharing of adventure and happiness through food with the world.

In a time where America is spending many more hours in their home kitchens than usual, the collective national spirit is being cultivated over sentiments shared in our kitchens and at our dining tables.

Trends are emerging from the stresses of these times:

Comfort food consumption is at an all time high, for better or worse for our waist lines, and we are indulging more than ever in nostalgia and experimentation.

Home made bread is everywhere to stamp out the gluten-free geeks and sourdough starter communities popping up all over.

A new social media app, Tik Tok, sparked a trend for a 3-ingredient DIY Korean artisan coffee recipe:

We can’t fill special food moments at the coffee shop or bakery because of quarantine. Therefore, we are broadening our horizons in our own kitchens.

Personally, I haven’t cooked homemade mac and cheese since I was a kid. Normally throwing that much cheese and butter into a pan and coating some carb-y noodles with the decadent sauce would go against my general health guidelines.

Yet, there’s nothing more comforting than returning to happy childhood times through mac right now.

Similarly, “Quarantine Kitchen” is reintroducing us to the joy of cooking great food from the comforts of our home without the frills of the Michelin chef’s usual high end accoutrements.

The pure joy that radiates from these videos while the Bottura family hangs out inspires the same joy in us while we cope with the stresses of the current situation.

Additionally, a favorite part of many of Massimo’s videos is the first 10-15 seconds, when he reminds us of the most simple, yet imperative, event before every meal:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Massimo Bottura (@massimobottura) on Mar 15, 2020 at 10:10am PDT

Wash your hands!

This fitting, but also seemingly out of place, order reminds us that things that we normally should do, we are now actually doing. It shouldn’t take a pandemic or celebrity to get us to practice good hygiene or appreciate our meals, but the best time to start is now.

Overall, I think “Kitchen Quarantine” inspires us to take pleasures in our mealtimes even in the hardest of times.

True happiness can be found in good bread, new coffee, and togetherness.

_________________________________________________________________________

More Italian food inspiration is to come with Pellegrino Artusi’s “Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well” (La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene)

__________________________________________________________________________

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs held a webinar this afternoon to discuss how COVID-19 will affect our global supply chains. Speakers Sanjeev Krishnan at Seed2Grow Ventures and Sara Menker, founder and CEO of Grow Intelligence, offered some great insights into current global food security topics.

Whether the COVID-19 crisis will tamper with markets in a structural or cyclical way has yet to be deciphered. COVID-19’s impact on our global food supply chain will be disruptive and offer opportunities for innovations that will drive more sustainable technologies and a better future of food.

Here are the main takeaways:

Disruptions:

• Shipping and labor are seeing the largest disruptions as the byproduct of COVID-19.
• Logistical bottlenecks in the food supply chain have cause shocks to the entire system.
• Commodity crops traded globally through shipping networks are seeing inventory draw downs.
• The effects of the ongoing oil price war and impacted currencies will have serious implications for global trade balance.

Innovations:

• The food and ag innovation sector will be extremely resilient to these times.
• The denominator effect is unfolding. When public markets go down, people loose wealth and liquidity becomes more important. Investors are shying away from risky investments and moving towards illiquid assets.
• Concurrently, the Fed is acting with unprecedented scale and volume to offset the shock on the markets. We will see funds dry up if the current markets continue. If this is a structural problem, it will take a while to rebound, if cyclical, recovery will be relatively quick.
• Indoor agriculture and decentralized protein sources from cell-based meat and plant based protein will continue to trend upwards as the journey between supply and demand becomes more compressed.

Closed borders and protecting trade:

• Decentralized production models will emerge from this crisis. Who will bear the burden of cost as the highly efficient globalized supply chain readjusts to the current landscape?
• Products coming out of hard-hit countries will see slowing velocity. Extra virgin olive oil is an example of how markets have been impacted from the point of view of one of the hardest hit countries, Italy.

Information matters:

• The ag industry has been built on poor quality data and the way information has been collected is localized and fragmented.
• This crisis could reveal where the choke points are in our food system, and information will become a catalyst for redesigning our supply chains.

Food insecure places will be hit the hardest:

• Pain will be felt in regions that are net importers from other countries. We could see hyper inflation driven by food in those areas, which could lead to significant social and political unrest.

In Closing:

In America, more consumers will start to question where their food comes from when they start seeing empty shelves or higher costs in the supermarket. Consumer demand will shift as a result.

Americans should understand that the people on the front lines of the food supply chain are taking risks to make sure we are all fed.

What’s consoling us right now?

The wind has been knocked out of us in so many ways.

Alongside the rest of the global communities entangled in this web unfortunate events, we are lost in a forest of unknowns and the coronavirus is a wildfire; it’ll keep consuming as long as there is fuel to burn. It’ll take our economies, social mobilities and freedoms away, if only temporarily.

I’ve navigated my way towards a better mental and emotional place with traditional carbonara as my guide…

• 

I was supposed to be in Italy, if you all remember. If you’ve followed this blog from the beginning, you have read as my path has unfolded throughout mia vita in Italia, weeks in London, and explorations of Korea.

I’ve been on a perpetual journey of seeking to share global philosophies of food rooted across cultures and practices. From Slow Food University in Pollenzo to the Buddhist temples in Bukhansan National Park in Korea, food pathways tell a story, and Il Caffè is here to share them.

COVID has changed it all. Yet, it’s not all at a loss.

Now, it’s time to stay and dig a little deeper.