New Worlder

Today we are speaking with Mariana Poo, the commercial director of Traspatio Maya and its counterpart Taller Maya, and Luciely Cahum Mejía, a beekeeper, vegetable producer and promoter from the Mayan community of Granada, Maxcanú, who also works with Traspatio Maya.

Traspatio Maya, which is part of the larger Haciendas del Mundo Maya Foundation, is an organization based in Mexico’s Yucatán that works with 32 rural indigenous communities and is dedicated to supporting the production of sustainable culinary products harvested in artisanal ways under fair conditions while rescuing ancestral Mayan techniques and improving global production practices. It’s an incredible group that has really changed the gastronomic conversation in the Yucatán and you can see how these women are now driving the conversation around food in the region.

I first heard of Traspatio Maya while I was in Merida last year. There was a panel that Mariana was a part of during the regional food festival Sabores de Yucatan, which was partnering with the Best Chef Awards. Everyone else on the panel was a chef, fairly famous ones, that were talking about their stories of working with rural and indigenous producers. At one point, Ferran Adrià, the famous chef of El Bulli and one of the most influential culinary figures in the world without question, who happened to be in the audience, asked to speak and was given the microphone. For the next 20 minutes he rambled on about technology and the future of the global food supply, mostly dismissing the work everyone on the stage was doing. The famous chefs on the stage just nodded, not wanting to debate this iconic figure, but Mariana pushed back. I was moved by it. In my mind it was like the statue of the Fearless Girl standing in front of the statue of the Charging Bull on Wall Street (note: I’m just referring to this instance. I’ve met Ferran Adrià prior to this and he seems like a decent guy). She stood up for herself and the women she works with, and she did it with love and respect. It was such a perfect example how to move a conversation forward. It’s something I need to remind myself sometimes. You’ll hear Mariana’s response to what she was thinking during this, and also why what she was saying was important.

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Mariana also tells us about how important working with the restaurant community has been. She explains how Noma Mexico, Noma’s 2017 pop-up in Tulum, allowed them to broaden their focus and how sending surplus produce to restaurants has been an important source of revenue.

This is the first bilingual podcast we have had. Traspatio Maya always tries to include the women they work with in everything they do. I saw Luciely on stage with Jordi Roca at the Best Chef Awards, which you will hear about. In the interview you will hear some Spanish, though it is followed by an English translation so please be patient.

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Juan Luis Martínez was born in Venezuela but has been living abroad and working in restaurants in Spain and Peru for many years. He opened Mérito in 2018 after working at Central for several years. It’s this narrow, two-level space in the Barranco neighborhood, with lots of minimalist wood and adobe walls. You see the kitchen right upon entering and there are a few seats there, plus more upstairs. The food is colorful, creative and really, really delicious. Is it Venezuelan? Is it Peruvian? It’s kind of both but also neither at the same time. It’s a restaurant cannot easily be boxed in, and I think that’s the beauty of it. More recently he opened DeMo, a café and bakery, which recently moved into a larger location a few blocks from Mérito, which has an attached pizzeria called Indio. And late last year he opened another restaurant, called Clon, which is an even more relaxed version of Mérito.

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I was recently a voter in Food & Wine’s Global Tastemakers awards and when the results were in I was a bit surprised that of all of the restaurants in the world, Mérito in Lima was the one more of these voters ate better at in the last year than any other. For these awards, Mérito was named the best restaurant in the world. I was surprised, to be honest. Not because they didn’t deserve it, but because the restaurant is so unpretentious. I think some people had the impression I had something to do with Mérito getting that ranking because I wrote an accompanying story about it for Food & Wine, but other than being a voter I really didn’t. I don’t have that kind of pull. Thanks for thinking I do though. Juan Luis, and his wife Michelle, who is a designer and whose work has left its own stamp on the restaurants as well, have managed to get a lot of attention, both locally and internationally, for these restaurants. 50 Best. Best Chef Awards. Whatever it is they are probably on it. Yet, they have done it by almost doing the total opposite of what most other restaurants that have received similar amounts of attention have done. They aren’t loud or flashy. The investments in the restaurants have never been lavish or in high profile locations. They aren’t on social media non-stop or flying around to conferences every week. They have just focused on creating good, creative food, in comfortable spaces at reasonable prices with great service. And everyone loves them. I send people there all the time and I cannot say I’ve ever heard someone disliking their experience at Mérito. They just happened to have created a really great restaurant. It’s really that straightforward.

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So, what is Mérito? Is it a prototype of Venezuelan food fusing with Peruvian food? There are a lot of overlap of ingredients in the two countries, at least overlap in kinds of ingredients if not the exact ingredients, especially in the Amazon and parts of the Andes. Plus, Lima has a history of absorbing whatever culture comes into town. There are more than a million Venezuelans that have moved to the city over the past decade, a phenomenon that’s happening throughout the region because of the instability in Venezuela. There’s no doubt that Venezuelan diaspora is having a major impact on food in the region, and that’s a story I have been watching closely for years. I’m not entirely sure where Mérito fits into all of that. I think it’s just one kitchen’s evolving understanding of flavor, memory, place and art. It’s not forced or trying to define itself. It just is. And it’s wonderful.

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Pietra Possamai is the winemaker at Bodega Murga in the Pisco Valley of Peru. Born in Brazil, she has led the winemaking operations at Bodega Murga, which also distills pisco, since the beginning, in 2019. Her 32 different labels of natural wines using only six of the eight grapes that are used in pisco production. These criolla varieties are mostly unexplored in winemaking, so the possible combinations of what they can be coerced from them is full of potential. Pietra experiments with skin contact, early harvests, co-fermentations, and aging in amphora. She makes Pét-nat, blends and single varietal wines using these grapes. The results have been pretty incredible. She is making wines that could only be made in Peru. They are appearing at all of the best restaurants in Lima and a few of her wines, like the orange Sophia L’Orange, are appearing on some wine lists in the U.S., Europe and Dubai. She is helping change the wine culture in Lima, which had been quite stale in my opinion.

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I wrote a story a year ago about Peru’s wine awakening. It’s quite exciting for me to watch. Even though Peru has the deepest history of viticulture in the Americas, the wine has only become something to write about in the last five years or so. Pepe Moquillaza kind of kicked off the movement, making natural wines from Quebranta and Albilla grapes, and now all sorts of wines are coming out of the woodwork, and most are utilizing criolla grapes. I went to visit Murga’s vineyards last year and they are quite special. In the interview we talk a little about the Joyas de Murga vineyard, it’s short trek from the bodega, but it’s completely encircled by towering sand dunes. It got its nickname from the hoyas of the Canary Islands, vines circled by stone walls. If you have a chance, check Pietra’s wines from Bodega Murga, and just Peruvian wine in general. It’s entered into a new era and it can finally co-exist alongside Peruvian food, which, let’s face it, is a high bar.

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Niklas Ekstedt is the owner of the Michelin starred restaurant Ekstedt in Stockholm, Sweden. It’s a restaurant that was designed around live fire cooking, but it started doing this when it opened in late 2011, well before this was a trend. He had spent years working in modern kitchens, everything from Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago to El Bulli in Spain, and he opened a very successful restaurant focused on molecular food when he was just 21. When New Nordic cuisine started to take off and he began to think about how he could be a part of it in a way that made sense to him, he started to think about Nordic techniques. The older ones. He started to research 18th century cookbooks to understand the way Swedes used to eat. It was closer to the way he grew up in the northern part of Sweden, where foraging was a way of life and his parents would buy meat from Sami herders. I was at Ekstedt more than a decade ago and what I assumed would be something of a gimmick – a modern restaurant with just a wood stove, fire pit and wood fired oven that was without gas or electricity in the kitchen – was anything but. The food was smart and honest, the pure expression of the ingredients. It was one of the highlights of a trip that included meals at Relae and Fäviken. Ekstedt has been open for 13 years now, so any novelty of this restaurant has worn off. Many others have followed in its path. Niklas has even opened another version of the restaurant in London too.

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I think there is something important in thinking about the way we used to eat, wherever we are in the world. The last couple of centuries have truly disconnected us from where our food comes from and how we eat it, and we are paying the price. Our food is less nutritious, it often lacks flavor and it’s pumped full of all kinds of chemicals that are tearing our bodies and environments apart. We all need to peel back those layers and see what was going on a couple of centuries ago. I don’t mean to limit that to restaurant settings, but in our homes as well.  

We also talk a bit about how the restaurant industry is changing. Pre-pandemic, chefs used to take themselves very seriously. Kitchens were more like war zones than places of work. Not to say all is fine, but I think there is a sense that things are moving in a more positive direction.

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newworlder.substack.com/subscribe

Niklas Ekstedt is the owner of the Michelin starred restaurant Ekstedt in Stockholm, Sweden. It’s a restaurant that was designed around live fire cooking, but it started doing this when it opened in late 2011, well before this was a trend. He had spent years working in modern kitchens, everything from Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago to El Bulli in Spain, and he opened a very successful restaurant focused on molecular food when he was just 21. When New Nordic cuisine started to take off and he began to think about how he could be a part of it in a way that made sense to him, he started to think about Nordic techniques. The older ones. He started to research 18th century cookbooks to understand the way Swedes used to eat. It was closer to the way he grew up in the northern part of Sweden, where foraging was a way of life and his parents would buy meat from Sami herders. I was at Ekstedt more than a decade ago and what I assumed would be something of a gimmick – a modern restaurant with just a wood stove, fire pit and wood fired oven that was without gas or electricity in the kitchen – was anything but. The food was smart and honest, the pure expression of the ingredients. It was one of the highlights of a trip that included meals at Relae and Fäviken.

Ekstedt has been open for 13 years now, so any novelty of this restaurant has worn off. Many others have followed in its path. Niklas has even opened another version of the restaurant in London too.I think there is something important in thinking about the way we used to eat, wherever we are in the world. The last couple of centuries have truly disconnected us from where our food comes from and how we eat it, and we are paying the price. Our food is less nutritious, it often lacks flavor and its pumped full of all kinds of chemicals that are tearing our bodies and environments apart. We all need to peel back those layers and see what was going on a couple of centuries ago. I don’t mean to limit that to restaurant settings, but in our homes as well.  We also talk a bit about how the restaurant industry is changing. Pre-pandemic, chefs used to take themselves very seriously. Kitchens were more like war zones than places of work. Not to say all is fine, but I think there is a sense that things are moving in a more positive direction.

Read more at New Worlder.

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Host: Nicholas Gill
Co-host: Juliana Duque
Produced by Nicholas Gill & Juliana Duque
Recording & Editing by New Worlder 
Email: [email protected]
Read more at New Worlder: https://www.newworlder.com

Andrea Moscoso-Weise, the restaurant manager and beverage director of the restaurant Gustu in La Paz, Bolivia. Born in the highland town of Cochabamba, Moscoso was trained as a sociologist, and during the pandemic created a digital platform there called De Raíz, which connected artisan producers of vegetables, wine, beer and other foods with the public. Later, after a meal at Gustu, she dropped what she was doing and decided to move to La Paz for an internship at the restaurant. When her internship was up and she was about to return to Cochabamba, she was offered a job at the restaurant and she has been there ever since.

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In our discussion, we talk a lot about wine. Bolivia has a burgeoning wine scene. You may have heard our interview with Jardin Oculto’s Nayan Gowda, but Bolivia has some incredible wines, especially the ones coming from old vines and criolla varieties. The sommeliers of Gustu have been one of my primary means of being introduced to new Bolivian wines since the restaurant opened. First it was Jonas Andersen, who now actually runs a wine shop called Folkways beside the train station in Croton Falls north of New York City and its wonderful. I went there the other day actually and it’s by far my favorite area wine shop, plus they do nationwide deliveries if you need a a good natural wine purveyor. Then there was Bertil Tøttenborg, who now lives in Brazil but is still active in the Latin American gastronomy scene. And now Andrea is there and it’s a really exciting moment, so there was lots to talk about her.

We also talk about this pull this particular restaurant has on people. I’ve been going there since Gustu has opened and I have felt it every time I have been there. It has a way of taking someone in and bringing out the best in them. If you ask anyone that has ever worked there will probably tell you that. We spoke with chef Marsia Taha about it in an earlier interview. The restaurant has such a purity in what they are trying to do, in a way that is hopeful and real. And what they do is far more than just a restaurant, but have inspired culinary and human development in Bolivia in everything the long arms of gastronomy touch, and that’s a lot of places.

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Gustu was started with funding from Claus Meyer’s Melting Pot Foundation. Meyer is a well-known chef in Denmark and famously founded Noma, so media coverage of Gustu tends to attribute a lot to Meyer. Every once in a while there is a story that comes out that tries to paint the restaurant as neo colonialism because a Danish person helped establish it. There was a story like that about Gustu written by a writer in Alicia Kennedy’s newsletter after this interview was recorded and that’s why I’m bringing it up now. I think the writer wanted to say that you cannot get to know a culture’s food just by eating at fine dining restaurants and I completely agree with that. However, it was framed in such a way that they used the specific case of Gustu as an example of all of the wider systematic problems surrounding fine dining in developing countries. To make that case, there were a lot of assumptions and other inaccuracies about what Gustu is and how they work. Here’s the thing: Gustu completely breaks the mold.

For one, there was something that was extremely important that got overlooked in this story: Gustu is run by an entirely Bolivian staff. Many of them are indigenous and come from rural backgrounds. I think in the story of Gustu, way too much media attention has been paid to Meyer and anything to do with New Nordic food. I think it was an easy narrative when they opened 10 years ago because it gave a restaurant in Bolivia instant credibility for both local and international media. It got them to pay attention and it got people in the door, which was necessary to make this very unlikely experiment work. From what I have personally seen, Meyer has been pretty hands off of the entire project since the very beginning. Kamilla Seidler and Michelangelo Cestari, who are not Bolivian, helped launch the restaurant as chef and manager with an otherwise almost entirely Bolivian staff. The work they did in not just building logistics for the restaurant, but listening and engaging with local concerns and issues, was remarkable and should be applauded. The restaurant has had a couple of foreign sommeliers, but as soon as there was someone able to take over those positions that was Bolivian, they did. Marsia has been the head chef for a while now and continues to do incredible things, not only the kitchen but in the quiet leadership outside of it that never gets enough attention. Sumaya Prado, a communications director and administrator, has been there since the beginning and has fought tooth and nail to keep Gustu moving forward in the most honest and transparent way possible. Meyer and others from the Melting Pot Foundation have been there for guidance when asked for it. No one in Denmark has ever made money off of Gustu. All profits have stayed in Bolivia and have been reinvested into the employees and rural communities. So to say it has not been a project run by Bolivians is completely misleading.

To be fair, I pointed this out to Kennedy and she made a note of it in a follow up. She also responded that “it’s important to ask questions about who’s setting the standards by which we define a “best” restaurant, why we need to create the “next great culinary destination,” and whether the vision of New Nordic needs to be spread around the world.” I think these are fair questions and I ask them all the time. I especially wonder about why tourism and outside validation is overemphasized in Latin America, and I also routinely question international ranking bodies trying to define regional gastronomy. I think it’s important to think about why they need to be asked, though in this particular case it’s a distraction from what Gustu’s actual goals have always been.

The article also pointed out problems with language being used in stories written about Gustu, which I would also agree with. I think there was a moment in Latin American gastronomy, about ten years ago, around the time the Latin America’s 50 Best list was launched, where food media was trying to define what was happening in Latin American gastronomy and was using phrases like “elevating a cuisine” and “discovering ingredients.” Obviously, you cannot elevate a cuisine. Adding fine dining techniques to heritage ingredients doesn’t make them better or the best. They are just another variation of using them, which can sometimes lead to important things. Also, no one is discovering anything that has been in use for centuries. The same goes for Machu Picchu, by the way. Hiram Bingham may have been the first outsider to encounter it, but there were people farming there at that time. That’s a bit of a sidetrack, but still, this language was mostly being used by the media which was trying to put into words what was happening and trying to understand how fine dining in this region fit with the rest of the world. It was just sloppy writing in most cases; a lack of understanding of what was actually happening.

So, what has been going on over the past 10 to 20 years in the region? Without going too deep into it, rapid development and globalization was and is happening, a lot of it tied to international trade agreements. These things have had a tremendous effect on traditional food systems, which were already being disrupted by a number of other things. The gastronomic heritage of the last millennia was and still is being lost. Extremely rapidly. The diversity of what farmers are growing becomes narrower every single day. This is because of changing markets, because of climate change, because of changing family dynamics, industrialization, general societal integration, pollution, political instability and urbanization. There are serious issues with food systems in the region and multinational companies are the ones taking advantage of this. The development of gastronomy can become an opposing force to them. Notice that I am saying can be because it needs to be done with great care or else it can have a negative effect. Also, when I say the development of gastronomy I don’t mean the development of fine dining. I mean every aspect of how food is being produced and how it is being consumed. Let’s be clear in this specific case: the development of gastronomy in Bolivia since the inception of Gustu has been an overwhelming force for good. The creation of this restaurant started a collective conversation among cooks, rural agricultural and foraging communities, anthropologists, biologists, winemakers, brewers, street vendors, artisan markets, bakers and policy makers. This conversation may have been ignited by a Dane, but it is a conversation that has always been lead and continues to be led by Bolivians. They are the ones deciding the standards for their country.

Food writers out there, there are a thousand important stories that deserve exploration about this restaurant and what has resulted from its existence. Don’t take my word for it, go talk to the people that work at Gustu. Go talk to the Aymara farmers who take 10-hour bus rides and show up on their door with bags of heritage varieties of oca because no one else wants them. Go talk to the women selling sandwiches de chola and tucumanas in the streets of La Paz whose voices are finally being heard. Go talk to the biologists at the Wildlife Conservation Society that are working with caiman hunters recover populations of the animal because they are getting above market prices from Gustu. Go talk to the people preserving centuries old vines in the Cinti Valley because they suddenly have a market for wines that are uniquely Bolivian. Go talk to all of the former employees of Gustu that have opened their own restaurants because of the training they received there and are helping keep heritage ingredients in use. Talk to the thousands of graduates of the Manq’a cooking schools, students that lacked economic means but now have the tools to start sustainable culinary businesses based around ancestral gastronomy. There are a lot of stories you can write about Gustu that go beyond if you should travel there or if it is “the best.” Find out if this one-of-a-kind situation could be implemented elsewhere. Find out the ways it worked and the ways it didn’t. Or the ways it could have been done better. Don’t just praise all of this blindly either, that’s just as frivolous. Ask questions and listen. Go explore all of these things because there is so much we can learn from this experiment.

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Jaime Duque (no relation to co-host Juliana Duque by the way) is the founder of Catación Pública, a brand of specialty coffee shops, roasters and educational centers in Bogota and Quindio, Colombia. Throughout his career, Jaime has worked every part in the value chain of Colombian coffee. He started his work in the fields, as an agricultural engineer, working with farmers to fine tune their process to attain higher levels of quality. He has worked to encourage more specialty growers and for more coffee to be roasted and consumed inside the country. He has become leading coffee educator in Colombia and Catación Pública offers a wide variety of workshops and certifications that are sought out by those in the coffee industry throughout the region.

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In the interview, we discuss how, even as the rest of the world had been exposed for half a century to the general quality and story of Colombian coffee through the emblematic and imaginary future of Juan Valdez, it has only been until recently that you have been able to actually drink good coffee in Colombia. When I first went to the country, in 2005, most of what you find was tinto, these little cups of coffee loaded with sugar to offset the low quality. All the good stuff was exported. Tinto is still around, but there has been a gradual transition towards a more dynamic coffee culture in the country. Today you see specialty coffee shops like Catación Pública all over Colombia. There are world class baristas and roasters, and the growers can actually see how their coffee is being consumed, which gives them additional insight into how they should grow it. We also talk about why he thinks fermentation processes like carbonic maceration will remain niche, while cold brew still has enormous growth potential.

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Cyrus Tabrizi is the founder of Caspian Monarque, a producer and distributor of fine Iranian caviar. I first met Cyrus last year when we happened to be seated together at a dinner in Udine, Italy during an event called Ein Prosit. After spending a few minutes with him, I began to realize how little I actually understand about caviar and where it comes from. I know it’s considered a luxury product. That caviar is usually expensive. That Russians are known to eat a lot of it. That suddenly millennials are putting it on fried chicken and tater tots. But if you asked me what distinguishes good caviar from great caviar, I couldn’t tell you.

The world of caviar has changed dramatically since 2008 when a global ban on caviar from wild sturgeon was enacted by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species after sturgeon were being severely overfished. Now, nearly all of the world’s caviar comes from farmed sturgeon. There are 26 different types of sturgeon and each kind produces unique tasting roe, but the conditions in which each are being raised can vary drastically. The most coveted caviar comes from the Beluga, followed by the Ossetra, sturgeons, which are originally from the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Farmed caviar, however, is coming from anywhere now. There are hundreds of farms all over the world. There’s lots of caviar being farm raised in the United States. It’s being raised in Uruguay. A ton of it is being raised in China. Much of it is not Ossetra and Beluga, but from other species. There is also fish roe from other kinds of fish, such lumpfish, flying fish or even salmon, that are called caviar, though technically they do not fit the definition.

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I tried Cyrus’ caviar in Italy and it is indeed the great stuff. That much I know. He explains why Caspian Monarque stands out, in his words. They are a sustainably minded sturgeon farm in the Caspian Sea, the origin of the finest grades of caviar. As they are being farmed within the Caspian Sea, the natural environment they are from, eating the same food they eat in the wild, they can get the highest quality caviar. However, I cannot even get his caviar, Iranian caviar, in the United States because of a ban on Iranian products in the U.S. He explains why that is and how Iranian caviar industry has a history of legal issues despite being historically sustainable and well managed. That’s why he started the business. He was a lawyer and he liked the challenge.

The caviar industry is one ripe with fraud. There are scandalous producers and misleading labels, though there are ways to know if you are getting caviar from a good source. On Caspian Monarque’s website they actually have a way to check the origin of a tin of caviar by the CITES number on the label, and it’s not just for their caviar, but any legally traded variety. For the most part, it’s up to the consumer to know the difference and understand what they are buying. We talk about how blockchain might be used in the future to help make caviar even more transparent. Who knew there was so much to know about caviar?

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Andrea Petrini, or Andy as I know him was born in Italy but has lived for many years in Lyon, France. He is a writer, author and founder of Gelinaz!, an always evolving culinary performance concept that aims to push the boundaries of culinary art.

I was first exposed to Gelinaz! in 2013, during one of the initial events in Lima, Peru. It was a 22-course, 8-hour dinner beside a Pre-Columbian pyramid with some of the world’s best known chefs where all of them made some variation of octopus and potatoes. It was wild and debaucherous, to say the least. I wrote about the experience for the website Roads & Kingdoms, and the story quickly went viral. After that I had the opportunity on many occasions to get to know Andy. I was involved in various Gelinaz! performances during the Gelinaz! Shuffle, where I helped chefs like Ana Roš and Niko Romito behind the scenes when they had to cook meals at Boragó in Chile and Central in Peru, respectively. I was also a part of several other Gelinaz! events in New York and elsewhere in one form or another. I’ve had the opportunity to travel and dine with Andy on many occasions. A couple of years ago I was on a television show with the chef Victoria Blamey that Andy was hosting about Emilia Romagna for Discovery Plus in Italy, where I got to experience his driving skills and lived to tell about it.

Andy is one of my all-time favorite people and I think he wildly misunderstood sometimes. What he stands for has always been, at least in my eyes, is pushing gastronomy to break free of its shackles. To take chefs out of their comfort zone and do something creative. To strive for art and love and soul. It doesn’t always work out that way, as you will hear him explain, but I’m grateful there is someone out there like him that keeps pushing, because its needed more now than ever. For the past year he has been working to help restaurants collaborate with different musicians, to rethink the relationship between food and music. Different events will be occurring throughout the year, so follow Gelinaz! on Instagram to find out more.

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Melissa Guerra is an author and food writer that lives on a working cattle ranch the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas near the Mexican border. She is someone I have wanted to have on since this podcast started, but the timing never quite aligned. I have known Melissa for more than a decade and she has been doing incredible work writing about the foodways of southern Texas. She used to have a PBS show called the Texas Provincial Kitchen, received a James Beard nomination for her book Wild Horse Desert: Norteño Cuisine of South Texas and also wrote a series about her life on the border for New Worlder in 2017. Today she has a blog called Kitchen Wrangler where she writes recipes inspired by her surrounding landscape, as well as a YouTube channel.

Melissa’s family has been living in the region since the 1700s, long before Texas was a part of the United States. She sees the food of Texas and the U.S,. rather than divided by a political border, but united by ancient trade routes and modern culture. During the interview we talk about the influence of mesquite in the region’s food, how watering holes were the foundation for human habitation there, what real Tex-Mex cooking is and the migrant crisis and how the people in the borderlands view it, rather than through vapid political gestures by politicians.

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