Brazilian chef Alex Atala, of two-Michelin-starred restaurant D.O.M. in Sao Paulo, still remembers the first time he ventured into the Amazon rainforest as a child in the 1970s.
One day, his mother, a seamstress, and his father, who worked in the rubber industry, packed up their dusty old car and drove 4,000 kilometers from Sao Paulo to "the middle of nowhere" in Amazonas, "just to discover the place," he says.
"It's the adventurous spirit that my family has always had — the feeling of going somewhere where you have no idea what to expect. But we had tents, and we knew we could get food to feed ourselves. As a boy, I was completely fascinated," Atala recalls, describing trees laden with fruit and meals shared with native tribes. "Eating is a way to discover where you are."