MARIA CANABAL THE PASIONARIA FOR WOMEN, WINE AND FOOD
Who is Maria Canabal. She defines herself as a full-time feminist but in reality, she is a “passionarian” determined to give more opportunities to women in food and wine all over the world
The winner of the 2024 Casato Prime Donne Award was born in Spain to a family of diplomats but is French by adoption. Maria Canabal speaks 5 languages, a lawyer, has a past as a political, cultural and then gastronomic journalist.
Her first attempt to support women was very difficult, when she tried to write about discrimination in the kitchen she found enormous difficulties.
FROM POLITICAL AND GASTRONOMICAL JOURNALIST TO FOUNDER OF THE PARABERE FORUM
In 2014 the UN launched “He for she”, a solidarity campaign in favour of male-female equality. This is what gave Maria Canabal the urge to create the Parabere Forum the following year. It is a non-profit association aimed at empowering women in hospitality, that is, it seeks to enhance and promote women in the hospitality sector with three tools: education, tutoring and role models. Even the name of the Forum is emblematic: the Marquess of Parabere is a sort of Spanish Artusi who was called Maria Mestayer de Echagüe, was the mother of eight children and owner of two restaurants between Bilbao and Madrid. To write books she had to use a pseudonym because at the time it was difficult for ordinary people to be writers.
WHAT IS THE PARABERE FORUM
Parabere Forum becomes an annual and itinerant event for four hundred women who come from around fifty countries: cooks and scientists, engineers and farmers, anthropologists, wine producers and agronomists who exchange ideas and projects on the future of food. The goal is to convey courage and increase opportunities through mutual help. <<The first step was the network. They understood that they were not alone. It was very important: you can’t imagine the number of projects, friendships and collaborations that arose from that first Parabere>>.
Then Maria Canabal understood that Parabere must give opportunities to women through communication. In 2015 the Parabere database was created which today includes around 8000 women from 60 countries (sommeliers, chefs, scientists, anthropologists, farmers, producers, etc.) and constitutes a resource for those who write and organize events and want to raise awareness in their articles. and in their programs some significant women’s stories. Women from the Parabere network were sent everywhere in the world: conferences, universities, competitions, etc. Italians in Korea, Brazilians in Denmark, Indians in Spain, French in Mauritius. In the wake of this database, the Parabere APP was born in 2019 and was awarded as the “best food APP” in the world. The Parabere Gourmet City Guide APP is a sort of interactive gastronomic guide. All the businesses in the APP are either run by a woman or owned by a woman. So, this is an APP to promote female talent, that of managers and female entrepreneurship. It can be downloaded for free on the APPLE STORE and GOOGLE PLAY and contains addresses and descriptions of gastronomic activities run by women. The venues and businesses are divided into sections: restaurants, food shops, street food and bars, casual restaurants. There are currently 11 cities on the APP and all companies can be found in the map of each city.
HOW THE PARABERE FORUM CONCRETELY HELPS WOMEN IN HOSPITALITY
Parebere Forum wants to promote women in hospitality. How?
With the following tools: an annual forum, a database, an APP, a prize, a collection of books, and funding. The Parabere Care Award recognizes the importance of work-life balance in creating a sustainable hospitality industry and seeks to promote individuals and organizations that excel in managing the boundaries between work and private life.
In 2015 Maria Canabal was named “Most Influential Woman in Gastronomy” by Foundation Women’s Week. She has written 10 books, two of which “Coquilles Saint-Jacques” and “Cocinando un Tributo por El Celler de Can Roca” received the recognition of «Best Chef Book» from the Gourmand Cookbooks Awards in 2016
In the midst of many difficulties, even in the search for sponsors, Maria Canabal moves forward <<after the time of green washing, now is the time of pink washing>> because often support for gender equality is very much appearance and little substance.
Parabere has been to: Bilbao, Bari, Barcelona, Malmö, Oslo, Istanbul, Paris, Palma.
The ninth edition of the Parabere Forum took place at Luiss in Rome on March 3rd and 4th 2024 and brought together hundreds of women from 42 countries around the world and from 5 continents. The theme chosen was “The politics of food” and the slogan “Vote with your fork”
MARIA CANABAL AND HER DREAMS
Changing the rules of the game, renewing, creating community. These are the key words of the individual initiatives which, as a whole, aim at very high objectives: to combat the privatization of seeds, pollution of the land and sea, food waste and food ignorance which are directly responsible for obesity, degenerative and cardiovascular diseases and an increase in global poverty. In other words, returning to ethical and joyful cuisine, which is good for those who taste it, for those who produce it and even for the environment. To those who ask her <<When you think of Parabere in 10 years’ time, what do you dream of?>> she replies <<That there will no longer be a need for Forum Parabere. Because diversity will have ceased to exist>>.