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In early September, we launched the website for this editorial project we've been working on since last year. So, welcome and thank you for being part of Tabletimes! What initially began as a family book has transformed into a treasure trove of publications: titles, projects, voices, and a diverse array of names that we've collected along the way and are eager to share.
As you may know, we started this journey with the idea of creating a gift book filled with Grandma Fina's memories and recipes, not knowing that it would lead us to creating a tiny publishing house. And here we are, learning and savoring each step.
To break it down I’d like to restate Dan Saladino’s words—author of Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them—, «Food is a sharp and powerful lens that helps us understand the inner workings of the world we inhabit. Food reveals where power resides; it is a showcase of human ingenuity and creativity; it can explain conflicts and wars, account for the rise and fall of empires, and expose the causes and consequences of natural disasters. The stories that food tells may be the most essential», now more than ever.
Roberto Calasso says that «the book, like the spoon, belongs to that class of objects that are invented once and for all.» The details of one object or the other make a difference and allow for a more or less optimal result depending on how they've been designed. We love books and we believe that beyond their content, the series of small decisions that constitute them have the potential to contribute to the message one wishes to convey, elevating its intention.
We've come to realize that Tabletimes, in addition to being an independent publisher that creates, edits, and produces content, is also a collection of publications with diverse perspectives and voices. These books are essential to us when it comes to understanding ourselves as individuals and as a society, to try to imagine distant pasts and sketch near futures. Art, politics, science, humor, anthropology, economics, philosophy, architecture... everything ends and begins on the plate, simply because we all share the need to nourish ourselves.
In each letter, we'll open a book and share details, contexts, additional resources; maybe we read an excerpt or complement it with a conversation with the author, with someone deeply immersed in research, with the photographer who has immortalized the scenes, selected and organized them. This will be the medium through which we carefully introduce this collection that is slowly but surely growing.
We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
Many, many thanks for joining us and for reading!
Atte.
Isabel & Andrés