Enrique sat on the comfy sofa in his living room.
He was a world-renowned chef, he had reached his third Michelin star at his now worldwide restaurant at 40 years old and now he was 45… and bored.
There was no greater joy in life than to build yourself. Build something from scratch with your very own hands and nurture it right to the top. Family, children? No. Glory. But he was at the end of the line and he feared, as he softly sank into the comfortable 1000$ sofa, that the hole growing in his chest was there to stay.
Without thinking, he took the glass filled with Chateau Margaux 1787 and drank the whole thing in a single gulp. It didn’t taste the same when he paid 225,000 dollars for it.
What was it? What was making living a life that most people in the world envied so tedious? Leaving the glass above the mahogany table he stared at his reflection on the whirled wine.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Enrique?” He whispered.
And then he did what most of us do when we run out of answers urgent enough. We turn on the TV and binge-watch anything that helps us forget there was even a question. Of course, he would choose the cooking channel and keep a smile of superiority on his face, for he could pick on every single mistake the chefs there would make. It was a unique pleasure, the only fruit of years of study. Knowing secrets people don’t know and wouldn’t understand if you tried to teach them for a flavor can only take you to another one, and another one, ad infinitum. That’s how you discover certain combinations that can make the most boring dish worthy of a prize like he had done his entire life. You can only manage this by taking cooking seriously. Daring to taste whatever comes to your reach no matter how disgusting or stupid it seems. Once he even licked a Ming vase. It was purely professional.
So then it occurred to him. He needed that again. That sense of the unknown could fill him for another 50 years, or perhaps a little more if he managed to get some blood transfusions from teens like in Silicon Valley. The thing is he had watched many disappointed reviews from vegetarians who tasted fake bacon. The damn things couldn’t ever match the flavor, or the texture of the real thing, so for him it was like a quest right there. An excuse to travel the world.
He called the administrator of his restaurants.
“I am going on a quest to discover the holy grail. Take care of things while I am gone” He said. Enrique managed to hear an exclamation in French but he had already hung up. There was no time to waste, and he booked a busy schedule to find plant experts all over the world and speak to them in person.
He went to Asia, Africa, China, and Russia. Always to the outskirts. Whatever might be the answer hadn’t been found yet and he knew it. Every disappointment fed him, even while sore muscles in a tent in the middle of nowhere. Yes… he was feeling something again. The pain. The horrible taste of whatever plant someone would put in front of him. The disgust. Glorious. But even to an expert like him, it does seem that the question might be left unanswered. It did seem like the pork will remain forever untainted. Still, he had a last choice. South America.
Why is the last, you might wonder? Because there’s a thing with places where science hasn't completely taken a grip. People still resolve many things with magic in these places, and as such it’s easy to be taken to wonder after wonder to squeeze the money out of your pocket because, to a superstitious mind, EVERYTHING is magical. But still, he went.
A helicopter took him to the Amazon and then, the military of an unknown faction to the deep forest. Not an easy journey… but hey, he had sunscreen. And ambition. A Timotoquica shaman waited inside a tent made of palm leaves, calmly sitting across a bed of leaves. The painting on his body and the deep wrinkles on his face made even a world-renowned chef look at him seriously. Then, he started speaking solemnly. One of the armed men was translating.
“He says the spirits have followed your long journey around the world and have decided you are worthy of the price you seek, because of your LOVE”
“Love?... Love to what?” Enrique asked
The man translated the question to the shaman, who smiled and then answered a single word.
“Food”.
Enrique let out a heartfelt laugh. If this was a scam, it was a good one.
Following the “chief” instruction the party went further into the jungle to find a tree whose bark would give him the taste he was looking for. But there was something unusual. As they went deep the song of the birds will be fainter… and fainter, until total silence. In the end, they reached a meadow in a mysterious circular form in the middle of the Amazonas. Where only tree roots reigned suddenly, leaving the ground for grass in an unnatural shape and the middle a tree with colorful strangely big flowers. Hell, that had to be the one.
Enrique moistened his lips and took out a switchblade. The bark was rather soft, like crusty pizza and he drowned a rectangle that he later pulled leaving a viscous substance dripping from his prize. After a years-expert-long-sniff, he opened his eyes in wonder. It smelled like chicken. Almost suicidal, the chef licked the slimy substance in the bark. It did taste like raw chicken… but a weird one, perhaps an exotic kind.
All the people behind him frowned looking at the bizarre millionaire chef ritual, until a little bird came chirping, taking everyone’s attention in the deep silence. The bird dipped the beak drinking inside of the blossom fully flowered until, to their surprise, the meaty petals closed and then sucked it in.
“Sweet Mary” one of the men whispered, taking the grip of his rifle.
Enrique was in love. He pulled his arms to the sides as if praising the great meat-devouring tree.
“The grial…” he whispered, taking a knee ceremoniously
The ambitious chef took pieces of roots, leaves, and flowers back home and gave them to a botanist he trusted with the labels of “Top secret”. It took years of sacred expectation and multiple visits to a closed-down facility placed in a Mediterranean state that had similar temperatures and the rest was fulfilled artificially by the expert. Once the sapling had its flowers they fed it pork and then placed sliced bark on a grill. The smell of frying bacon was mouthwatering and so Enrique had the first meal. Bingo!
Of course, vegans will be out in the full disclosure BUT the rest will be very pleased, crunch included.
Five years of prizes, glory, and interviews went on.
Enrique sat on the comfy sofa in his living room.
He was a world-renowned chef, he had reached his third Michelin star at his now worldwide restaurant at 40 years old. found the perfect vegetarian alternative for bacon and now he was 50… and bored.