Creative Bulletin n.290

Since I didn’t bring any gifts back from Porto for my friends, I decided to cook for them instead. What you see in the photo is my francesinha alla piemontese (with boiled beef, ham, and sausage 😅): beautiful to look at and absolutely deadly when it comes to digestion.

Creativity as adaptation. I’ve always liked the story behind the francesinha: it seems that around 1960, a certain Mr. Daniel da Silva, a Portuguese emigrant who had returned from France and Belgium, tried to adapt the croque-monsieur to suit local tastes.

Just cheese and ham felt too light for the Portuguese palate, so the sandwich ended up with a slice of beef and some sausage inside, all drenched in a rich sauce of tomato, beer, and port wine.

Isn’t that one way to be creative? To take, mix, and reinvent. The process seemed so fun to me that I decided to try it myself, and I spent several days figuring out how to build a francesinha using ingredients from Piedmont.

Creativity as dedication. I was so anxious and excited on Sunday that I woke up at 5:50 in the morning. I had completely messed up the boiled beef the day before, so I went out to buy more meat and cooked a whole new one 😂

It got me thinking about the idea of perfectionism. Is it really an obstacle to creativity? As I fired up the stockpot for the second time, I realized that doing things well means doing them over and over again, with love and dedication.

🌈 Creative takeaway: in the end, what matters is doing

Around one in the afternoon, still sweating away at the stove, I suddenly understood why most Portuguese don’t cook francesinhas at home but go out to have them at a bar instead. For a second I thought, “Why on earth did I decide to do this?”

A silly thought: in the last twenty-four hours I’d learned so much, and even more importantly, the francesinha had been an excuse to invite friends over, to drink, to talk, to have fun, and to enjoy each other’s company.

And what’s creativity for, if not to bring us together, to nourish us, to spark something new, and to open up an exchange?

I’ve promised myself to remember that the next time I’m torn between doing and not doing.

With ❤️,
Matteo

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