Hello (again)

This project is where I explore the stories and questions that look to food as the bridge between the interpersonal and the political.

I came to be who I am through food. I built a home, in between changing countries, through the tastes that comforted me: the cake my abuela would bake for us as an afternoon snack and the orechiette recipe my mother would make with broccoli to replace the Puglian cime di rape. I expanded what I knew and who I was in large part by eating my Senegalese host family’s chicken maffe, overestimating how much spice I could handle and cooking for myself from my almost-empty fridge. I have found joy, play and community in making a pear cake with the help of ChatGPT for a group of friends on holiday and learning how to roast a chicken.

Some of the times I have fed or been fed recently

Through the act of being fed, and feeding myself and others, I have not only become myself, but also delved into place, people and politics. I have not just asked myself “how is this made”, but also: where does it come from? How did it reach me? Who is growing it and how? What has been erased, replaced or created through the process?

Ultimately, how we produce, transform, sell, cook and waste food deeply impacts the world we live in, and how we live in it. Today, about a third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions is linked to food, and our global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss. One-third of the food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. Yet, one in three people globally are affected by malnutrition. Food has historically been used as a means of exploitation,  domination and marginalisation. Rosy picture, right? 

And yet, I am not hopeless. I believe that, in the wilds beyond the fences, we are already nurturing a better, fairer, more just food system.

Through Com’Eat, I explore the stories and questions that look to food as the bridge between the interpersonal and the political. I cook with and talk to the people who are re-imagining the system, and delve into the questions that haunt me about what food tells about where we come from and who we are as individuals, but also how we’re shifting as a society. 

‘Food justice seeks food sovereignty, an end to food apartheid, and the availability of culturally appropriate food to the ends of serving a “decent meal.” Food justice is not merely the ability to access fresh food; it is the space, time, energy, and ability to cook it and serve it in a way that provides a nourishing, complete, and aesthetically pleasing dish according to one’s cultural standards.” - Alicia Kennedy

What does food mean to us? How has it shaped us? How have the stories we hold about food changed as we and our worldview have shifted? How is food enabling us to engage with the societal shifts we want to see? What future food system are we investing in and building? 

Ultimately, we are not separate from the systems that shape how food is produced, sold or wasted. We, you and I, are tasting it, building our lives and homes with it. Through eating, we are nurturing the world we want. Com’eat is how I make sense of this.

So, thank you for coming to eat with me on this journey.