ChefBNE is a proposal for reusing BNE digital collections in the culinary sphere. It offers a tour of the history of our cuisine with 12 audiovisual pieces which offer context and recreate recipes found in the BNE collections.
A multidisciplinary project in which chefs, researchers, historians and librarians have collaborated to explain and reinterpret our culinary past using the BNE collections. They include recipe books and books on cuisine, as well as newspaper articles, music, advertising, etc. which highlight social uses and many of our cultural roots.
The webspace chefbne.bne.es includes 12 audiovisual pieces together with the original documentary source and information on it, plus an adaptation by collaborating chefs with the steps to follow to recreate the dish.
The project also entailed new means of dissemination and digital narrative for the BNE: over four months (in 2017-2018), from its presentation at the 2nd Culinary Interaction Seminar organised by the Basque Culinary Center, these videos were published on @chefBNE accounts on Youtube, Twitter and Instagram, together with more contextual information related to the historic period, and the social or cultural context of the original recipe. This project involves not only reusing and recreating our historic documents, but also finding new ways to narrate them, adapting them to how we enjoy and consume culture in today’s world.
Using the narrative force of Twitter and the visual power of Instagram, and with the participation of experts in digital narrative, we have not only told stories on food and culinary techniques, but also on social, cultural and aesthetic uses. What garum was and how was it prepared in Ancient Rome; how aubergines and quince were cooked in Jewish Spain; the first written testimony of a chocolate recipe or tomato sauce in Spain… and many other “histories within History”.
