The considered father of the Mediterranean diet, whose international day is celebrated on November 13, was a man from Syria. The person who accidentally arrived in the Galapagos Islands in 1535, and who would become the basis for Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution, was a gentleman from Syria. The architect of the move to improve communications on the American continent and the predecessor to what later became the Panama Canal was a gentleman from Syria. The same in all three landmarks. That man from Syria was Fray Tomás de Berlanga (Berlanga de Duero, Syria, 1487 – ibid. 1551), a Renaissance cleric when the Renaissance did not even appear in the cultural calendar of the time. This Dominican friar born in Berlanga de Duero (Syria, currently population 830) was assigned to the new continent, and there he ended up becoming bishop of Panama, as well as a restless thinker. Through his garden innovations, he promoted diverse gastronomy and ended up being considered the patron saint of the Mediterranean Diet, declared an Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2010, which includes Spain, Italy, Greece and Morocco.
Fray Tomás de Berlanga’s culinary legacy is based on several keys today written in stone on healthy eating tables, which distinguish Mediterranean cuisines from the barbarians of the north, but then lacked such recognition. Olive oil, abundant plant food with legumes, seasonal vegetables and fruits, regular consumption of breads and cereals, defending fresh produce, eating dairy products and limiting red meat. Today they are practically obvious, but if they have achieved this status it is due to the drive of the Dominicans, inspired by his stay in America and his studies and horticultural works, the teachings of which he spread to his subjects. Researcher Ignacio Juriji Lobera, from the Institute of Behavioral Sciences at the Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, studied the personality of this multi-talented monk in an article entitled The Galapagos Islands, Theory of Evolution, the Panama Canal and the Mediterranean Diet: Fray Tomás de Berlanga.
The analysis reminds us of Tomas Martinez, or perhaps Enriquez, because it is not clear, and with the second last name Gomez. The man from Soriano is remembered today in his hometown, where he lies forever, with a statue of a turtle and a crocodile at his feet, a reminder of his strange adventures. Another evocation was found in the collegiate church of Santa María del Mercado de Berlanga de Duero, where this great man was buried, in the form of a saurian: known as the Berlanga lizard, about four meters long. Legend has it that upon his return from America, old Thomas decided to bring a live crocodile to display in Castilla and demonstrate his expeditions. Once the monster was dead, it was stuffed and hung on one of the walls of the temple so that no one would suspect the cleric’s travels.
This historical figure’s religious training took him from Berlanga to El Borgo de Osma, also in Syria, then he jumped to the Dominican monastery of Salamanca and ended up enlisting in the New World Crews, where he served as protector of the indigenous people. Thomas went to sea in 1510 to soon be elected before the Dominican monastery of Santo Domingo. They then appointed him as provincial vicar of their order in Mexico, and at the same time, Pope Clement VII, through the mediation of Emperor Charles I, appointed him bishop of Panama. His adventures took him to Lima, where he collided with Francisco Pizarro, and in those voyages he developed accurate navigational charts without being able to prevent the currents from depositing him in the pristine Galapagos archipelago on March 10, 1535. Only 300 years later, Charles Darwin landed on those islands, noticed the difference in the beaks of birds of the same species and realized that they evolved according to their environment, adapting to the environment. The monk also anticipated the later Panama Canal (which began to be modified in 1903) by developing a proposal to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean, or vice versa, as there were only a few kilometers between the two.
Soriano’s gastronomic side has been cultivated since moving to America. He brought to Santo Domingo the current Canary Island bananas, which are much smaller than the Central American bananas, and at the same time he discovered the beauty and flavors of tomatoes and was the first foreigner to begin cultivating them on a large scale for the possibilities of the time. Later, he brought to his homeland, along with parsley and potatoes, tomato seeds and plants that are highly valued today in Europe. Likewise, it introduced basic European knowledge and techniques to American soil to improve local agriculture. These exchanges of products and knowledge between regions and how they became rooted in their respective gastronomic cultures has led to him being considered the father or patron of the famous Mediterranean diet, which draws from both worlds and was born in Syria.
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