Gastroquinta: food from the yard to the table: Young people from the semiarid region promoting food and nutritional security through gastronomy

Abstract

The book “Gastroquinta: food from the backyard to the table”, produced by the Semear Internacional Program, promotes the principles of agroecology and ecogastronomy by stimulating debates about the importance of productive backyards for the food of rural families, of affective food made with ingredients semi-arid and habits essential to food and nutritional security. In addition, the publication presents 15 new and innovative recipes, including two preparations that use palm, a species of mineral-rich cactus: Palmashake and Detox Palm Juice. The term “Gastroquinta” came about after a group of young people realized that 90% of the inputs of the most executed recipes came from the productive backyards of women in the Piauí semi-arid. The idea was to find a concept that could represent this creation of innovative menus based on native foods and produced within communities. Young people also observed that this type of gastronomy has recovered an old custom in rural areas: the exchange of products between residents. What a family does not have, the neighboring family will possibly have. In the book “Gastroquinta: food from the backyard to the table”, only one product was needed to buy on the market: sugar. All the rest were in the backyards of rural communities.