Will the Goya gala menu be 100% vegetable?

[Jultxxxyes]

The last Golden Globes gala set a precedent by offering guests a meat-free meal

Joaquin Phoenix in the latest edition of the Golden Globes, proud to attend, he said, after learning that a vegetarian menu was served. MIKE BLAKE REUTERS

 

First, cold beet cream decorated with citrus oil, pistachios and amaranth sprouts. As main course, a mushroom risotto with king oyster mushroom scallops. And, for dessert, opera cake with praline and caramelized hazelnuts. This menu, which seems taken from the menu of a Michelin star restaurant, was the one offered at the Golden Globes. One 100% vegetable that has dedicated this edition as the first to offer food free of animal products.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, organizer of the event, made the decision to feed its plant-based guests for environmental reasons. As they say on their website, this initiative aimed to "raise awareness about the need to adopt sustainable lifestyles." A determination that in no way compromised the quality of the food served. In fact, Matthew Morgan, the executive chef of the Beverly Hilton Hotel and responsible for creating the menu, looked forward to the challenge and claimed to be excited to be part of this "statement of intent."

During the press conference after the awards ceremony, the award-winning best actor, Joaquin Phoenix, said he was “very moved by the decision to have made a plant-based menu (with plant-based foods)” and, after pointing out that livestock is one of the main culprits of the climatic emergency, he said he had never felt "so proud to attend an awards ceremony."

This pride that Phoenix felt for attending some Golden Globes with a 100% vegetable menu could not be felt by the more than 20,000 people who participated in the COP25 last December in Madrid. Because at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change there was only one vegan food truck, which forced those who wanted to feed sustainably to always make a long line.

It is ironic that at a conference on the weather emergency the food is less sustainable than at a film awards ceremony

The rest of the food that circulated through COP25 was far from being 100% vegetable. In the cafeterias the free options of animal products varied in number, reaching 70% of the menu in the best of days. In the services of meals, the serrano ham and the cheeses were offered everywhere. Fast food chains did not include options of plant origin. Not even Burger King, who didn't offer his vegetable burger, the Rebel Whopper, until the second week of the event.

The previous year, at COP24 in Katowice (Poland) the gastronomic offer was even worse. In it, only 20% of the dishes were vegan. Because of this situation, the Food and Climate Alliance, a group of organizations that advocates a shift towards a more plant-based food system, and Vegetarians Today, a Chilean organization that promotes vegetarian food, struggled to reach an agreement with the COP25 organization in Chile to offer a 100% vegetable menu by default.

The agreement was reduced to a menu that was 75% but, with the change of headquarters of the COP25 from Chile to Spain and the characteristics of the site in Madrid, its implementation was impossible. However, it seems that there is a willingness to change and that the United Nations is increasingly aware that they must offer at their summits products that reflect what their reports preach: the need for a radical change of the food system.

It is still ironic that in a conference where solutions to curb the climatic emergency are discussed, less sustainable food is offered than in a movie awards ceremony. But, looking at it optimistically, it can be said that the Golden Globes have opened the way and set a precedent. Contacted by this environmental awareness, the Critic Choice Awards, held on January 13, also served a 100% vegetable menu.

In Spain, the Goya ceremony will be carbon neutral, but the question remains whether the food service will be 100% vegetable. Also what will happen at COP26 in Glasgow, United Kingdom, this 2020. Will a menu finally be adapted to the climatic emergency we are experiencing? They have in their hands to demonstrate how to revolutionize the food system, betting on one (more) plant. And, apparently, they have "movie" teachers.