The search for food has always been a deliberate act. It has never been innocent. It has resulted from nutritional needs, security, sustainability, pleasure, and well-being. This evolutionary adaptation in the selection and handling of food took place within a territory that conditioned and compelled a specific constructive path of food and gastronomic knowledge in the communities where it occurred.
It is in the umbilical relationship between human beings and the territory, in the intersection between what communities find available and how they transform these same resources, that food culture is born. The movement of gastronomic creation utilizes what the territory offers and makes the necessary alterations to the products in order to make them edible foods, beyond their physical, chemical and organoleptic characteristics or the duration predetermined by the life cycle.
In a way, gastronomy is a cultural interpretation of the set of resources provided by the natural environment. Through the transformation of products and the creation of recipes, a representative food lexicon was generated, reflecting not only the characteristics of the territory and climatic conditions, but also the interpretation that populations made of what they encountered. In this journey of constructing food language, the social and cultural symbolisms arising from the relationship between human beings and family, community, and divinity shaped the basis of food identity, promoting specific culinary methods and techniques.
A blend of the product's strength, simultaneously serving as food and a social and cultural symbol, this expression of identity has been affirmed as the root of many communities in the form of products and recipes with unique characteristics. The differentiation in the use of resources and culinary creativity has generated a differentiation in gastronomic expressions according to territory and culture, the latter understood as the set of social, political, economic, ethnic, and aesthetic values.
Because they are so closely linked to the social and cultural foundation of communities and are the basis of agricultural practices, know-how, culinary practices, ways of life, rituals, tastes, religious or pagan symbols, gastronomic products and recipes have been categorized as tradition. This translates into an interpretation of existing resources taking into account the set of prevailing cultural values. It is, therefore, not only a support for the identity of a community, but also an expression of it. A product or a recipe can communicate the political, economic, religious, and aesthetic choices of a community. It is, therefore, in tradition that the members of a community find support when they want to affirm their identity and who they are. It is in tradition that they find the comfort and security of what defines them and what they are accustomed to.
However, this tradition was not born closed and complete, but was built up in layers that include adjustments, alterations, and balances, reflecting the changes that societies have undergone. Migrations, climate change, biological evolution, innovation in knowledge and access to techniques and products were factors that conditioned the tradition and made it evolve in a constant readjustment between needs and resources.
Gastronomic tradition is not to be confused with myth. It has a history that expresses the evolutionary journey that products and recipes have undergone. In a constant dialogue between the set of rules commonly accepted over time and the transformations that the human condition demands, a balance is continually achieved between tradition and innovation, between the past and the future.
Gastronomic tradition is not immutable, but it is permeable to the changes that the present time demands in lifestyles. Over time, whether through additions or subtractions, the layers of gastronomic traditions are balanced between what makes sense or not for a given community. This goes unnoticed because the changes are slow and happen over time, preventing us from realizing that tradition only endures because, in some way, it renews itself, adapts, transforms, evolving to serve the purposes and needs of present-day communities.
The history and culture of gastronomy demonstrate the evolution that products and recipes have undergone, a fact not visible to the generations living in the present moment, as they cling to the certainty of what they have always known and what gives them comfort.
Respecting tradition must involve respecting the communities that underlie it. While it's important not to lose sight of what identifies and characterizes each group, it's also crucial to allow food practices to breathe so that they serve a human purpose, that is, to be an opportunity for energy, pleasure, health, and well-being.
In this evolutionary process and constant adaptation over thousands of years in the territory of the Atlantic-sloping Mediterranean basin, as is the case in Portugal, a food crossroads between Eastern cultures and westward and southward expansion, it is worthwhile to reflect on changes that have occurred in the last 75 years.
The first and most significant change is the dematerialization of the notion of territory associated with the place where "food" is produced and consumed. In recent decades, populations have aged or progressively reduced their presence in the territories where food is produced, and now mostly live in areas lacking food production. The evolution of consumption patterns, or the inherent gastronomic concept and its trends, takes place mostly in large urban centers, far from the knowledge once generated in the productive locations, something that is happening on this scale for the first time in our country.
The speed of demographic change, coupled with the rapid disappearance of traditional culinary knowledge holders, is also associated with the rapid growth of technology in food production, selection, and preparation. Preservation methods thousands of years old, such as salting or smoking, now have more efficient and healthier equivalents like refrigeration or freezing. Speed, automation, and energy efficiency in preparation have become paramount in cooking, where technology has facilitated the widespread use of microwaves and food processors, for example.
The speed of demographic change must also be considered in relation to social changes, with substantial alterations in family size and the increased role of women in professional life. This reduces the time available for a close and prolonged relationship with food, from production to preparation, and also for the direct transmission of food knowledge and ancestral culinary practices, and even for in-person initiation into food consumption, common between parents and children.
The speed of climate change has also increased in recent decades. These changes are increasing uncertainties in the production (volume and price) of certain food products, particularly fresh produce and products that were traditionally affordable but are becoming less so. The speed of climate change has also reshaped consumer perception of certain foods whose production or transport has implications for greenhouse gas emissions or water use, for example.
Finally, health issues and the relationship between "eating behavior and health outcomes," which has been scientifically robustly established in the last century with the emergence of Nutritional Sciences, have forced us to look at food differently. The pursuit of longevity and more years without disease has made this determinant of health unavoidable, particularly when life expectancy increased from 50 to 85 years in just a few decades. We have learned that many of the most prevalent diseases in these later years of life are shaped by what we eat. This means that diseases that were rarely discussed or heard of at the beginning of the 20th century, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, or cancer, which are strongly influenced by diet, are now the leading causes of death in our aging society.
All these changes in society and on the planet are imposing changes on food patterns at an unprecedented speed. It is a matter of food and gastronomic evolution and adaptation as it has always existed, but now with somewhat different assumptions and, above all, at very different speeds. The slow evolution and adaptation that existed until the mid-20th century has been replaced by an increasingly accelerated evolution in the 21st century. Slow evolution was mostly carried out by those who possessed ancestral food knowledge, in many cases the inhabitants of the territories where the food grew and was prepared. Rapid evolution may (very likely) no longer be carried out by those who possess the basic popular gastronomic knowledge and geographical proximity, thus losing much of this value. In particular, if the processes and products resulting from a long tradition remain in a protective bubble, unable to be altered, and if they are not encouraged to adapt to a new model of consumption and relationship with society.
In this context, the need arises to understand how to deal with these accelerated changes and what impact they will have on our adaptive capacity, which is historically slower. What can we do to avoid losing the accumulated knowledge that values and protects us, but also to avoid losing sight of innovation, which can equally value and protect us? This requires a balance between what is considered tradition and what can be included in that evolving traditional practice. It is in this context that the challenge becomes greater, as it demands deliberation, knowledge, and common sense, never losing sight of the guiding principles of tradition and the potential added value of evolution.
In this sense, we have produced this Manifesto. Manifesto means “a text of a discursive and persuasive nature, a public declaration of principles and intentions, which aims to highlight a problem or publicly denounce a problem that is occurring. The manifesto is intended to declare a point of view, denounce a problem, or call upon a community for a specific action.” Thus, the Manifesto for Creativity in Gastronomic Tradition intends to call upon the community to value food culture as a central part of its identity and its relationship with nature (and from this point of view, as protective of its health and well-being); to map this knowledge and practices; to identify what constitutes the central and distinctive core of a food and gastronomic culture; to understand that, since this is an evolutionary process in constant and accelerated relation with society and technology, it is necessary to identify ways to preserve this cultural identity in permanent construction without closing the tradition in a bubble; and, at the same time, to allow the adaptation of tradition to its time, trying to incorporate new realities without losing what defines it.
What do we understand by food culture, gastronomy, and tradition?
Food culture results from how human groups have interpreted the resources available in a territory and how they have transformed them into food to obtain food and nutritional security, sustainability, pleasure, and well-being. Despite all the changes in our society and food system, human beings continue to seek these attributes in food.
The use of knowledge and creativity to adapt to what the territory offered and conditioned (including from a social and economic point of view) encouraged the chemical, physical, and organoleptic modification of resources so that they would be useful to humans over time. This adaptive knowledge continues to evolve and needs to continue to play its role.
Gastronomy is understood as a cultural interpretation of the set of resources provided by the natural environment in various locations, expressing itself through gastronomic products and recipes. The repetition of these practices gives rise to what we can call tradition – ultimately representing the symbolic values of the groups that inhabit a territory.
Creativity and innovation in the face of scarcity have fostered a food model throughout the Mediterranean, and in Portugal as well, that is biodiverse, seasonal, and plant-based, including a diversity of unique ingredients, knowledge, and culinary practices that should be preserved.
In Portuguese culinary practice (as in other food cultures), tradition reflects the existence of circular economies, preventing inequality, promoting resource optimization, and avoiding waste.
Much of the culinary tradition was a product of creativity and innovation in the face of scarcity, within a logic of survival and sustainability, and within a historical framework that, from an environmental and technological point of view, may be difficult to sustain today due to the depletion or overexploitation of resources and technological, scientific, and social changes.
Tradition as evolution and coexistence with innovation
Gastronomic tradition is not immutable, but it is permeable to the changes that the present time demands in lifestyles. Tradition only endures because, in some way, it renews itself, adapts, transforms, evolving to serve the purposes and needs of present-day communities.
// As a practice that serves the biological and cultural needs of human groups, tradition may need to be adapted according to health objectives in order to provide sustainable well-being to
communities.
Preserving culinary traditions has heritage and historical value in itself, but this value may not guarantee or allow for the survival of that same tradition.
Under certain circumstances, it may be worthwhile to maintain tradition alongside innovation and coexist with new products, because without knowledge of what tradition is, it is difficult to create or innovate, that is, to adapt what is recognized as close to the communities, updating and legitimizing its food and gastronomic function.
The introduction of innovation justified by technological, social, health, environmental, or cultural needs can be promoted through popular experience and knowledge or through the development of the most up-to-date scientific knowledge.
Innovation can safeguard tradition by using scientific and technological knowledge to improve existing resources and increase their quality and quantity, promoting environmental, social, and economic sustainability.
What guidelines are available for agents in the field? How can they act to maintain tradition without inhibiting necessary evolution and creativity?
// The preservation of products and recipes through the recognition of their intangible character can prevent the fragmentation or even loss of knowledge; hence the importance of recognizing and documenting this aspect of popular culture.
The preservation of a food culture requires that its core be maintained, as human communities respond to what is familiar to them. Thus, the introduction of changes must always be preceded by a mapping, in time and space, of the characteristics of that core, understanding the guiding principles that support it.
The language of a tradition, or the set of core characteristics (products, techniques) that can be known, mastered, and used to evolve in continuity, is an important exercise that can vary from product to product or from territory to territory and should be discussed and recorded.
Innovation is not about creating something new. It's about knowing and repeatedly doing the same thing, and then doing it in a different way.
The introduction of new elements, now as in the past, should always be legitimized by the communities and by their use of food culture.
The dissemination of knowledge associated with gastronomic products and recipes was based on the certainty that tradition does not obey a logic of ownership; it is collective heritage, and can follow derivations of various kinds in time and space.
The authenticity and genuineness of products and recipes stem from the unique contexts of their production and their cultural integration, which also evolve. The imposition of fixed rules can have a perverse effect on limiting creativity.
Maintaining culinary traditions or innovating them (when they allow for the achievement of health, environmental or economic sustainability goals) should provide accessibility for all, inclusion, and combat social inequality.
The food culture of a region is like the air we breathe; it must be learned from a very young age, essentially through the mouth, through contact with the products, and continue throughout life through the existence of an environment that allows and facilitates this action, and at the same time through knowledge that values this interaction.
Respect for the context of tradition (ingredients, production and preservation methods, geographical environment) will ensure that food practices (products and recipes) do not lose their connection to their place and time of origin, allowing them to fulfill the purposes of their existence.
Santa Maria da Feira, April 4, 2025
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Written by
Pedro Graça, Director of the Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Porto
