Everyone wants to hear the sharpener, but no one sharpens anything

PalmaI like to hear the sharpener. I take pleasure in seeing the vendors and the pleasure of selling black artichokes or drunk cabbage. When I spot a sign with 1980s typography that says 'Bar Centro' or 'Bar Sport', I stop to observe the bustle that goes on there. But my knives are all from Ikea. I do all my shopping at the supermarket (including fresh produce). And I find it very difficult to drink a coffee that is roasted and without oat milk. I am a hypocrite.

If it were up to me, I would have long ago welcomed the morning with the sound of the sharpener, on any given Thursday. It's like a gift. It had been so long since I had heard it that, at first, I struggled to detect what that sound was. I guessed it with the same feeling as when you find an object in a pocket that you thought was lost. Everyone wants to hear the sharpener, because it is a symptom that something has not yet died. It consoles us because it is a sincere display of enthusiasm and confidence, a door to the past that keeps alive what we once were. Knowing that he still does his job comforts us because it means that there are still people with hope in the future, who believe in the maintenance of things. Not like us, who buy everything as if the world were to end tomorrow.

When we have romanticized something, it means that its end is near. It is with condescension that we look at what makes our experience of living romantic. It betrays us 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's 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 decoration, a postcard to walk around and take photos, not to live in. We have normalized that everything is ephemeral and that perhaps tomorrow giant teddy bears will hang on the entire facade of the town square (have you been to Ses Salines recently? 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, can be said to be an expert on the subject – what he thought. Among other things, he told me: “There is the issue of patience and time: it is not automatic, it is not fast, it is an exercise in tenacity.” And this is important, on the one hand, “because a well-cut food is better: it has more properties and more flavor” and, on the other hand, 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, from Monday to Sunday – I will go to a shop and find it.

The way I have developed to consume is no longer a legacy of anything. It poses 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 purchasing 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 community-based and conscious act. And, therefore, more powerful.

I have tried for a long time, but I haven't managed to have a trusted bar either, which for me is the equivalent of having an excuse for my friends to drop in mid-week and disrupt my routine, to remind me that my worries are not so important because they are 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 only giving two hours to use the table – are putting an end to – ‘spontaneity, a very characteristic feature of our gastronomic culture’. For this reason, 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”.