Cooking Communities. The Cultural Importance of Food.
Every time we gather around a table to eat we perform one of the most important social activities that we do as human beings. Eating is not only about nourishing our bodies, but our souls. Every bite is a bite of culture, of history, and knowledge that has passed from generations to us. For several reasons we have forgotten how important food is and all the symbolism that surrounds it. Sitting at a table and sharing a meal is a fundamental act of communion and it helps us reconnect with ourselves and connect with a larger community. We are a cooking community – a community where we cook and eat– but we are also cooking a community, because we are cooking, forging, our own concept of community. And this might be the recipe to understand ourselves and the world around us. Through food we can share cultures, we can leave our comfort zones and "travel" to another place and experience the diversity of our peers and neighbours. I want to contest the idea of pure national dishes to show their underlying diversity, and I also aim to prove how accepting ethnic foods is a process in which we open ourselves to the communities that originated them. In this talk I'll discuss food, eating, and cooking as activities of great social and cultural value.