What makes couples special?

Creepily cute carrots

What’s exclusive about couples? Many may argue that couples work, in general, because the two elements are complementary. Well in that case I would rather speak of a symbiosis, which is often based on vulnerability, inadequacy and need. My idea of couple is instead rooted in the concept of specular beings. As a mirror does not add anything to the image it captures, so should be a couple. In a couple there are two people and two mirrors, of course: a couple is never one being, in that case is called widowhood. Each person has to be, in fact, always independent, absolute, unique, and autonomous, self-sufficient if you wish: what seriously matters is that his or her better qualities have to enrich the metaphorical lake of sharing with open minds and hearts.

Tim Burton will like this one!

Obviously there has to be mutual support and help, yet when only one partner is – in the sacred name of Love – receiving while the other constantly giving, then we are facing a form of spiritual slavery: in this case, unfortunately, the narcissistic element polarizes the attention on his continuous urge for external care and forces the other person to keep a subordinate position. A partner is not a parent (hopefully): educating and correcting are manifestations of reciprocal weakness and misunderstanding. The secret hope to re-write one’s traumas by sliding on your partner childish frustrations is inconsequential and leads to sorrow. Food and cinema work almost the same way: only good couples are positive examples of how it is possible to be together, without being suffocating. Everyone - on his own - should be perfect and self-reliant, the couple offers the chance to built up something new, unreachable alone!

Struggling couples

Fidel Castro and Ernesto Guevara achieved together something big: Cuba is not anymore a cultural colony of anyone. Cuba and Brazil, more than other South-American nations, freed their souls from the terrible yoke of being an economical dependence of disturbing pasts and overshadowing neighbours. Which food-blend may portray them?

Fighting heroes

Fighting against a whim: chocolaty bread with lightly salted organic butter

Indiana Jones and his father are a fantastic duo, who can deny this? Spielberg inverted the roles: the son is very concrete and rational, while the father is a dreamer, who seeks for absolute quests. Only together though they make fun of the Third Reich and they are able to size the Holy Grail, becoming the new Percival of fiction. A cup has to describe this union!

The Jones

Apricot in Moscato Grappa

Bonnie and Clyde or Travolta and Jackson in Pulp Fiction are terrible example of couples. Funny and ruthless they uneventfully lose ground, so that the pulp fiction of life overcomes them. A terrible example of awful food then! Or not?

Controversial robbers and assassins Bonnie and Clyde	Fish fingers on a hill of salad
John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, a must and a cult.	Torciglioni tomato sauce and ricotta: pulp isn't it?

Spartan yearns for freedom and Persian demand for submission never worked well together. There is a phenomenal moment in 300 when a Spartan warrior Stelios (MICHAEL FASSBENDER) leaps over several guards to counter the attack of the Persian emissary (TYRONE BENSKIN): the Spartan sward meets the Persian whip and a hand falls. Bad guys. Which sharp dish can mirror this example? Maybe, yet it is just a hypothesis, this dish would not work as flowers and snow.

300 adopted the graphic novel of Franck Miller

Meadows in Edinburgh (in March, unfortunately)

The Beauty and the Beast is possibly my favourite Disney cartoon. Perhaps this B&B idea deals implicitly a lot with catering, perhaps not. Their story is particularly involving, the contamination between a pure being who comes from an enclosed world of fascinations as Belle and a ruder character who belongs to his castle. It would have been easier to compare them with French crêpes. I wish to be more audacious this time and call in aid one of Scotland’s national dishes.

The ball scene

Porridge with bananas

A famous Italian duo of comedians is that of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill. Often seen in hilarious spaghetti westerns, they always had that light touch, so to be amusing for children and entertaining for adults. Baked beans and bread would have been the perfect dish reflecting the spirit of their movies, yet it is a too cheesy dish, hence I opted for something still rough but more stylish.

Terence Hill (Mario Girotti) & Bud Spencer (Carlo Pedersoli)

Red chicory and two Frankfurters

Finally, two thinking athletes, two people that shaped the lovely France we now have the pleasure to adore. I am speaking about Louis Antoine de Saint-Just and Maximilien de Robespierre, two of the main protagonists of the French revolution and strange enough they were both aristocrats. They were Machiavellian and incorruptible, sacred and holy in their own sense. They were executed the same day, the 28^th July 1794, by that same Terror they had fuelled! He tried to defend his friend in front of the Convention (an executive assembly), once Robespierre was arrested. Then Saint-Just tried to free him out form jail with the use of force. They were caught and were guillottinés along with other twenty-two Jacobins. I thought for them of a preparation that combines sobriety and effect. Vive la France (et les Fraçaises)!

Saint-Just et Robespierre

Delighting fennel with a brie hat

I would like to dedicate these reflexions to the person who allowed me to find myself without taking my burdens onto her back. Thank you, Michelle, my sweet macaron! 

Macarons as bags