Adrià and superchef pals publish letter to future cooks

"Cooking represents a powerful tool for change and will transform the diet of the world thanks to the collective work of cooks, producers and consumers. The future for chefs is to become engaged professionals."

This is the message issued to the next generation of cooks from superchefs Ferran Adrià, Gastón Acurio, René Redzepi, Michel Bras, Alex Atala, Massimo Bottura, Dan Barber and Yukio Hattori.

The eight want to use their fame to launch a message about the important role kitchen professionals have in social change. Along with British chef Heston Blumenthal, the group forms part of the International Advisory Council of the Basque Culinary Center (BCC), which is set to open its doors in San Sebastián on September 26 offering a pioneering university degree in Gastronomic Sciences, and which has just held its second meeting in Lima.

Assembled at the Mistura de Lima gastronomy fair, which has become a key event for emerging Latin American cuisine, they wanted to stress the role of professionals to innovate and improve the world from behind their stoves. And their mission does not stop at the plate: through humility and continuous learning the aim is to create a chain of social wellbeing that goes from the producer to the consumer.

The eight top chefs have laid out their ideas in a text called Carta abierta a los profesionales del mañana (or, "Open letter to the professionals of tomorrow"). "It is not an absolute truth; it is based on respect, but we want it to be an inspirational document for the chefs of the future who don't want to be passive," summed up Peruvian chef Gastón Acurio after the group's two days of talks.

Cultural identity, biodiversity, sustainable practices, support for producers to preserve and create wealth and encouraging healthy eating are some of the subjects covered by the letter.

As both host of the Mistura fair and of the meeting, Acurio read the letter out to an auditorium packed with youngsters from Peru's cookery schools. Ferran Adrià, president of the BCC council, said the current boom in Peruvian cuisine "shows the whole world how a society uses cooking as a form of development."

The now head of the elBulli Foundation noted that the "Lima Letter" was a starting point and awaited reflections and contributions from the social networks. The text will be available on the website of the BCC, whose next meeting will be held in 2012 in Tokyo "in solidarity" with Japan and in support of its gastronomy industry.