Latin America’s . However, unemployment in the region still hovers at 8 per cent, .
Youth joblessness is even higher – almost 15 per cent among Latin Americans under the age of 18. Sixty per cent of young people between the ages of 16 and 24 , without a contract, benefits or social security.
The region also has , a problem some scholars have connected to high joblessness. In Brazil, for example, studies show that a .
Some Latin American restaurateurs think they can help.
These pioneering chefs , going beyond feeding customers to creating jobs, boosting economies and preventing violence.
This movement – dubbed “social gastronomy” by – is the focus of my .
Here are five Latin American culinary ventures you should know about.
1. Brazil: Cooking to prevent violence
Hertz first realized that food could help alleviate the poverty and violence of São Paulo’s poorest neighborhoods over a decade ago.
In 2006, he launched a project called , urging local gang members to come train with him and start their lives anew as chefs.
“By interacting with other people through cooking, you learn confidence, discipline, collaboration,” he told me recently. “So why not use gastronomy to empower people?”
So far, Hertz’s social gastronomy program has trained 1850 young men and women, .
Working with the , chef Hertz urges leaders across Latin America to use culinary training as a violence prevention tactic. Gastromotiva has expanded to Rio de Janeiro, Mexico and El Salvador.
During the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, Hertz worked with Italian chef to launch a Brazilian version of Bottura’s pop-up soup kitchen in Milan called .
So far, Hertz’s social gastronomy program has trained 1850 young men and women, 80 per cent of whom have gone on to get jobs in the restaurant industry.
The Brazilian venture turned food waste from Olympic Village food stands into .
The project continues today, staffed by volunteer chefs and supplied, for free, by Rio food companies.
2. Venezuela: Feeding the hungry
At night, Venezuelan runs , a swanky restaurant in the capital of Caracas. But by day he directs – “Full Belly, Full Heart” – a foundation that delivers daily meals to schools in Caracas’ poorest neighborhood.
Venezuela’s has led to widespread food shortages. Venezuelans . Childhood malnutrition has .
Against this backdrop, “each day we prepare meals for 260 children and 100 of their grandparents”, chef García told me. The Venezuelan government won’t let the group serve inside schools, so kids line up for food in a nearby building.
The foundation also serves 160 people at the , where parents often cannot afford to feed their children while they receive treatment for cancer. García feeds 30 doctors as well.
More than an act of charity, García says, he sees feeding starving people as the professional obligation of a chef.
García won’t disclose how he gets ingredients every day in a country and an . But his project’s crowdfunding campaign, seven co-chefs and a wide circle of allies surely help.
3. The Amazon: Creating a rainforest-to-table movement
Perhaps the most innovative social gastronomy project in Latin America is , a collaboration of several non-profit environmental organisations based in the Amazon rainforest of Peru and Brazil.
With , and 3000 different fruits, the Amazon is bursting with ingredients. But traditional food production is threatened by and .
Cumari’s founders hope that demand for local ingredients will rise as more people get to know Amazonian cuisine. A bigger market for rainforest foods should, in turn, protect this biodiverse environment.
Working together to attract influential Latin American chefs into the jungle, the Cumari collaborative places them in kitchens across the region. There, the chefs prepare meals spotlighting traditional Amazonian flavors – from super healthy fruits like and to fleshy river fish – in Indigenous village lunch spots and big city restaurants.
This is rainforest-to-table dining.
4. Peru: Fighting inequality with gastronomy
Chef put Peru on the map as a , opening outposts of his award-winning Lima restaurant in London, Bogota and beyond.
Now, he’s using global interest in Peruvian food to help young people back home. Acurio’s , which opened in Lima in 2007, offers scholarships to budding chefs from marginalised communities in Peru and pays them a living wage while they train.
“Peru is a developing country. Many who dream of being a chef don’t have the opportunity,” Acurio says.
Though its economy is growing quickly, . Acurio believes that education is Peru’s most powerful weapon against inequality, which .
Today, the institute’s more than 300 graduates showcase their Peruvian cooking skills in many of the world’s most celebrated restaurants, including in Spain and Acurio’s own Astrid y Gastón.
5. Bolivia: Reclaiming Indigenous cuisine
Latin American cooks aren’t alone in seeing the social power of the region’s food.
In 2013, , the Danish founder of Copenhagen’s , wanted to open a great restaurant abroad that .
Bolivia is the Western Hemisphere’s second poorest country, after Haiti. Over half the population .
The Andean country of 11 million also has a large Indigenous population. An estimated Bolivia’s .
Meyer launched , Bolivia’s capital, in 2013. The restaurant’s menu highlights the “unreleased potential” of Indigenous Bolivian cuisine.
“Bolivia may have the most interesting and unexplored biodiversity in the world,” he . All ingredients are locally sourced.
Gustu also runs a culinary training program that recruits students from La Paz’s poorest neighborhoods. Meyer pays them well above the , pulling them out of the informal economy and, hopefully, keeping them there for the long term.
