Gente Book

[Mack Mosely]

Afteran impressive career of cooking in some of the world's best restaurants, Marco Quelca decided to dedicate his life to bringing gourmet cooking to lower income communities in his native Bolivia, pioneering a new kind of performance art: high-end street cooking.

Martina: Hey listeners, when this episode was made, we had to record at home to protect everyone's safety, so you might notice a slight difference in sound quality. Thanks and we hope you enjoy today's episode.

Martina: It's 2016 at the Mercado Villa Ftima, one of the biggest and most popular markets in La Paz, Bolivia. A group of people arrives, dressed in black, walking with purpose and carrying big boxes. Suddenly, they cover their faces with black ski masks, or gorros pasamontaas. Their leader is Marco Quelca.

Marco: Todos nos miran, curiosos, sin entender exactamente lo que est pasando. Todos los das, miles de personas pasan por ese mercado. La mayora son personas con pocos recursos, descendientes de pueblos originarios, de piel morena y caractersticas indgenas. Esas personas son exactamente como yo.

Martina: On the plate is a nest of meat and crispy corn silk; Peruvian red peppers in beef stock; and a mixture of creamed corn, cheese, and spicy potatoes that's been molded to look like eggs.

Marco: Al terminar de comer, las personas nos felicitan, nos dan las gracias y toman muchas fotos. Nosotros nos quitamos nuestros pasamontaas, pero esto es algo que muchos trabajadores no pueden hacer en Bolivia. Para nuestro proyecto culinario en las calles, los pasamontaas representan una declaracin de principios.

The storyteller will be using intermediate Spanish and I'll be chiming in for context in English. If you miss something, you can always skip back and listen again. We also offer full transcripts at podcast.duolingo.com.

Marco: Yo tambin venda los huevos de las gallinas que tenamos en la casa. Yo tena que trabajar, pero nunca dej de ir a la escuela. Para mi padre, eso era muy importante porque l era profesor.

Martina: Marco's father was a teacher who lived in the countryside. His mother was a domestic worker for wealthy families. And his five brothers worked as well. So at nine years old, in addition to going to school and working different side jobs, Marco became the official cook for his family.

Marco: Yo era el ms pequeo de la familia y senta que si tena que cocinar para mis hermanos, tena que hacerlo muy bien. La primera vez que cocin, yo prepar un plato popular que se llama "aj de fideo". Es una especie de estofado con carne y pasta.

Marco: La comida que hacamos en mi casa dependa de lo que podamos comprar. Nosotros comamos muchos tubrculos: mucha papa y chuo, un derivado de la papa. Tambin comamos quinua y carne de llama porque era la ms barata.

Martina: When he was 12, Marco started to work at a car wash. It was one of the many jobs he would have during his childhood. But it stood out from the others, because for the entirety of his 10-hour work day, he had to wear a black fleece ski mask.

Marco: En Bolivia, la discriminacin es muy fuerte, principalmente la racial y despus, la econmica. La sociedad est muy dividida entre nosotros, los descendientes de indgenas de piel morena, y los de piel blanca.

Marco: Los bolivianos crecemos con esa cultura, ya eso es algo que no nos sorprende, es un cdigo. Las personas que hacemos esos trabajos tenemos que cubrirnos la cara. Es muy normal para nosotros.

Marco: Era muy difcil porque trabajbamos bajo el sol y el calor era sofocante. Yo no entenda por qu tena que esconder mi identidad para trabajar, y tampoco por qu no poda tener otro tipo de trabajo.

Martina: When Marco finished high school, his family pushed him to study Educational Sciences, but he didn't want to become a teacher like his father and brothers, so he dropped out. For the first time in his life, he was free to decide what he wanted to do for a living.

Marco: Quera probar cosas nuevas, quera escaparme de lo que estaba decidido para m. Yo empec a pensar: "Qu me gusta hacer?". La respuesta fue muy simple: cocinar. Con lo poco que tenamos en mi casa, yo poda combinar elementos y cocinar algo que toda mi familia disfrutaba.

Marco: Mi pap no me habl por dos aos porque quera que, al igual que l y mis hermanos, yo estudiara algo relacionado con la educacin. Pero yo no quera, yo quera hacer algo diferente. As que continu y me concentr completamente en la cocina.

Marco: Yo decid presentarme; fui muy sincero durante la entrevista. Dije que no tena ninguna experiencia en gastronoma, pero que trabajaba desde los cuatro aos y, sobre todo, que estaba listo y motivado para aprender. La jefa me dio una oportunidad y me emple como lavaplatos.

Martina: Marco's daily journey between home, school, and his job was exhausting. But his hard work paid off. In just a few months, Marco went from dishwasher to chef's assistant. Eventually, he became the restaurant's head cook.

Martina: When Marco was twenty-four, his school put him in touch with the investors of a five-star hotel in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the wealthiest city in Bolivia. They were looking for someone to be in charge of the hotel kitchen. It was a big deal, a job with a lot of responsibility and creative control.

Marco: Yo me preguntaba si una persona como yo poda tener un lugar ah. Pero, como a m me gustaba ponerme a prueba, y como soy un hombre aventurero, decid que era una oferta que no poda dejar pasar.

Marco: Entre los collas y los cambas existe una diferencia de clase. Santa Cruz de la Sierra es una ciudad donde viven personas con mucho dinero. Es una sociedad muy consumista, donde la imagen es una de las cosas ms importantes.

Martina: When Marco arrived in 2006, it was an intense political moment. Evo Morales had just become Bolivia's first indigenous President. While Morales's triumph was celebrated by Bolivians with indigenous roots, his success also sharpened long-standing social class differences and, above all, racial tension.

Marco: Al principio, no fue fcil para m. Yo era el jefe de la cocina, pero era joven y colla. Mientras el pas se divida cada vez ms, yo decid que mis platos iban a tener como caracterstica la unin de estilos de comida de los collas y los cambas. La diferencia principal son los ingredientes que usamos.

Marco: El plato ms popular era "cola de lagarto con salsa de quirquia". La cola de lagarto, que es carne, es algo tpico de los cambas, mientras que la quirquia es una hierba muy comn entre los collas.

Marco: En la tele estaban hablando del presidente Evo Morales y la madre de mi novia dijo: "Ay, este indio de porquera!". Yo la mir y le dije: "Seora, yo tambin soy indio. Por favor, respteme".

Martina: Marco lived through these scenes of classism and racism in daily life, relationships, and at work. He grew tired of it. After two years of living in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, he decided to take the money he'd saved and leave Bolivia. He'd go study in Spain.

Martina: After his time in the Canary Islands, Marco found work at Michelin-star restaurants in Spain, like Aponiente, in Cadiz, and Kabuki, in Madrid. Things were going very well for him professionally, but he didn't feel completely satisfied with his achievements.

Marco: Mi formacin ya haba llegado a un lmite, haba obtenido mucho ms de lo que haba imaginado. Yo empec a cuestionar lo que realmente quera hacer con mi vida y con mi trabajo. Quera estar en mi casa, en mi tierra, en mi pas y con mi gente.

Marco: Mientras viv fuera, mi familia y yo nos distanciamos un poco, pero ellos estaban felices por m y por mi carrera. Mi pap tambin estaba feliz, y finalmente entendi mis decisiones profesionales porque vio el resultado de todo mi trabajo.

Martina: Back home, Marco couldn't help but return to his roots. For example, he created a dish that he named "To my Pachamamita." Pachamama means "Mother Earth" in Aymara, the native language of Marco's ancestors. The dish To my Pachamamita" is inspired by the Yatiris, which are the Andean traditional healers of Bolivia.

Marco: La hierba se quema y una nube de humo llena el interior de la campana, hasta que no se puede ver nada ms. Cuando se sirve el plato, se abre la campana. Y cuando el humo sale, se siente el mismo aroma que caracteriza las ofrendas ancestrales de los yatiris.

Martina: Marco served these dishes to his friends, and they loved them. He was enjoying playing with new flavors and concepts, but he was still struggling to find even deeper meaning in his work. He started to wonder: what if he focused less on the food, and more on the people eating it?

Martina: He decided that he didn't want to work at the best restaurants anymore. He wanted to find work that made him feel more connected to his own community. It was such a radical decision for him, that he even changed his name, calling himself Sabor Clandestino, or Clandestine Flavor.

Marco: Yo ya no quera ser Marco Quelca, el famoso cocinero. El aspecto clandestino tena una relacin con el tiempo que pas limpiando autos, usando un pasamontaas. Yo quera ser un instrumento para transformar lo establecido por la sociedad.

Martina: After so many years and so much work, Marco had finally found the path that he thought would give meaning to his cooking. He started to develop a plan that would give him a chance to put his new vision into practice.

Martina: Of course, to really bring gourmet food to the people, Marco and his colleagues knew that Somos Calle needed funding. So they created a parallel project in which they charged customers money for the same dishes that they then would take to the streets, and offer for free.

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