Everyone wants to hear the sharpener, but nobody sharpens anything

PalmI like to hear the knife sharpener. I feel pleasure watching the pleasant women and the pleasant men selling black artichokes or borage cabbage. When I detect a sign with eighties typography that says ‘Bar Centro’ or ‘Bar Sport’, I stop to observe the hustle and bustle. But my knives are all from Ikea. I do all my shopping at the supermarket (fresh produce included). And it's very difficult for me to drink a coffee that is torrefied and without oat milk. I am a hypocrite.

If it were up to me, the sound of the knife sharpener wouldn't brighten my morning any Thursday. It's like a gift. It had been so long since I'd heard it that, at first, I struggled to detect what that sound was. I guess it with the same feeling as when I find an object in my pocket that I thought was lost. Everyone wants to hear the knife sharpener, because it's a symptom that something hasn't died yet. It comforts us because it's a sincere display of enthusiasm and confidence, a door to the past that keeps alive what we were for a time. Knowing that he still does his job reassures us because it means there are still people with hope for the future, who believe in the maintenance of things. Not like us, who buy everything as if the world were going to end tomorrow.

When we have romanticized something, it means its end is near. It is with condescension that we look at what makes our experience of living romantic. It gives us away and shows that, even, it surprises us that it is there. It evidences that we question its existence. But it's fine with us that it is part of our attrezzo, as long as we don't have to do anything to maintain it. We are getting used to this, to our urban and rural landscapes being a backdrop, a postcard to walk around and take photos in, not to live in. We have normalized that everything is ephemeral and that perhaps tomorrow giant teddy bears will be hung on the entire facade of the town square (have you been to ses Salines lately? What is this teddy bear craze?) and that nothing will happen.

To delve deeper into this symbolism of the sharpener – without me ever having sharpened anything in my life – and to know if it worked to explain what I'm trying to express, I asked my friend Borja Triñanes – who yes, it can be said that he is an expert on the subject – what he thought. Among other things, he told me: “There's the issue of patience and time: it's not automatic, it's not fast, it's an exercise in tenacity.” And this is important, firstly, “because food that is well cut is better: it has more properties and more flavor” and, secondly, because “it reduces obsolescence and consumption, and makes us more aware of what we acquire.” After all, it has to do with “the circularity circuit, where the supplier, the manufacturer, the distributor, the seller, the buyer, and the maintainer are involved.” And who is aware of this cycle? I only know that when I need something – at any time, Monday to Sunday – I will go to a store and find it.

The way I have developed to consume is no longer a heir to anything. It represents a risk of total rupture with the environment of which I am a part: with the subsistence and traditions of the territory I inhabit. The recipe for my first Christmas soup, for example, is the result of the advice and indications given to me by the two women who were waiting to be served that day at the butcher shop, when I decided to make an exception to my shopping habits. When everything has become so easy for us, we forget what we are losing: spaces for the transmission of knowledge, where consumption is a more communal and conscious act. And, therefore, more powerful.

I've tried for a long time, but I haven't managed to have a reliable bar either, which for me is the equivalent of having an excuse for my friends to barge in mid-week and disrupt my routine, to remind me that my worries aren't that important because they're the same ones they have and that we all have. More than a social function, bars now offer us a glimpse of social class. Carles Armengol explains it exquisitely in his book Matar un bar (Col&Col, 2025): “Mass tourism and gentrification are not only transforming our urbanism, they are also changing our catering and, more dangerously, our bar culture.”

Armengol argues that current practices – such as reserving the terrace only for dinners or giving only two hours to use the table – are putting an end to “spontaneity, a very characteristic trait of our gastronomic culture.” Therefore, he considers that “bars are places of passage, but also spaces that reflect the type of society we are building” and eating, “an opportunity to strengthen our beliefs and support the values we want to see flourish.” In short, “a political act”.