“El Viudo De Pescado”: Living Waters, Living Food

This is a reflection about how “caring for a dish is caring for the river.” The viudo de pescado (the widower of fish) is an emblematic dish that is part of the fishing and riverside traditions along the río Magdalena in Colombia, South America. The ingredients used to cook the dish, the locations where it is eaten, and the steps taken to protect this tradition illustrate the enormous complexities of environmental justice as seen through the lenses of rural communities.¹ Environmental justice, understood as the meeting point between environmentalism and social justice, calls for the fair treatment and meaningful participation in environmental management of all people, regardless, for example, of ethnicity, nationality, income, or gender. It also entails understanding notions of co-responsibility at the local, regional, and global levels: whose actions will be taken into account in order to understand and reverse pollution, to mitigate and better adapt to...