The sad sandwich that chef José Andrés led to the rescue of the members of the Zamora Brigade

It all started last Saturday. The complaint from the Twitter account of the Castilla y León professional union of environmentalists about the poor quality of the food given by the Junta de Castilla y León to the personnel in charge of firefighting in the Sierra de la Culebra (Zamora) bore fruit. In it, they asked Spanish chef José Andrés for his opinion on the image of a sandwich with just three slices of sausage. It was the meal given to a brigade member after a full day fighting the flames. The answer came immediately; The chef wrote on the social network: “One must always eat well, especially people who risk their lives and work tirelessly. Especially fires. It helps morale and it’s important that you have the calories you need for hard work!”

The answer didn’t stop there. He started the kitchens of his NGO World Central Kitchen, which came to distribute food to firefighters and other extermination team members. They had previously done so in Cáceres, where their volunteers were distributing food to workers in the fire that ravaged Monfragüe National Park.

As of last Monday night, the World Central Kitchen team has been responsible for replacing sandwiches with hot, quality meals. They stayed past three in the morning and on Tuesday morning they returned for breakfast. Alicia Ruiz is one of the volunteers taking on this task and assures that “they will leave when they are no longer needed”.

José André’s kitchens play a key role in emergencies of all kinds. Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the NGO has opened various points across the country to provide food to Ukrainians most affected by the Russian invasion.