As part of a growing food resistance movement, I find purpose in creating and nurturing spaces to think with Food. Meaning is found through experiencing together, eating, cooking, and sharing stories around the table. In June 2025, as part of my master’s portfolio, I created a dinner that represented the journey my class went through during this unique year at Pollenzo.
I see every dinner as a journey. The process, the senses and the storyline matter as much as the dishes themselves. During the evening, senses and philosophical concepts were woven together in a complex narrative. Dish by dish, we explored what it means to transform and find meaning with others. This process, which was undoubtedly central to our master’s year, we would hopefully experience many more times during our lives.
This dinner was also meant as a thank you to all the beings that surrounded me in this journey.
The process
This philosophical and poetical adventure was very challenging. See, I am not used to asking others to help and contaminate my projects. But here and around the table, you cannot do without other perspectives and mingling bodies.
As I sat down on the kitchen’s cold tiles, with my apron laced tightly around my body, with a pen and a knife in hand, I breathed slowly. To capture it, I had to make sure I was willing to go through a process of transformation and doubts once again.
And so I did.
I decided to divide the journey into four chapters. Each one was based on a project I had created during the year that had shifted something in me. I first explored each chapter by mind mapping concepts, sitting in the university garden, accompanied by the bees and the compost worms. I was trying to grasp the feelings and senses that I would focus on. I then researched ingredients, spices that grew near me or my hometown back in Switzerland. I wanted to make sure pieces of my identity were sprinkled through the menu. In two weeks, I did some trial testing and, with the help of my friends, looked for music, utensils and sensory elements that would fit the story beyond the plate. Geetika told me about warming and cooling spices used in India, meanwhile Calvin showed me which ingredients I could find hidden in the corners of the garden. Emma shared her dad’s favorite jazz and his love for Maria João Pires’ interpretation of Arabesque n°1.
When I had planned out every single detail, a thought came to me: “How will I make sure they understand all that is behind these dishes?” I picked up my pencil, frowned my brows and wrote an introduction for each dish that I would read during the evening. With a stern voice and sparkling eyes, I started each dish with words, standing in the footsteps of my grandmother, who is still to this day the best storyteller I have ever met.
We started the dinner by being lost. – dish 1
“Why was I so lost at 25 years old when I had studied so hard to get all the answers? Maybe because I was looking at being lost in the wrong way: trying to get out of there, finding back the hand of certainty and ignoring the questions that clearly had no answer by their sides. What if being lost was something I needed to get acquainted with my vulnerability ?”
The first dish we served was an expression of what being lost feels like to me:
The music Hide in Your Shell by Supertramp was playing in the background.
Everyone came in blindfolded and ate with their hands. Vulnerability is not found with distance and our hands might show us something our eyes do not see.
I asked everyone to stay by themselves for a moment. On the paper they had in front of them, their fingers followed lines, found strong animal, sour and smoky flavors. In the middle, under a thin broken veil of crust, a cold ice cube of sheep’s yoghurt – acceptance.
letting ourselves be contaminated by stories. – dish 2
“When I see you all now, I see you differently than on the first day of the year. Maybe because I was contaminated by you. By your stories, by your cooking and by your supporting hands. This dish is honoring all those stories that you told me, about how you grew up with food, how you found meaning and how your path came to cross mine.”
The second dish was a shared plate, because stories are meant to be shared, in a circle, with bread passed from hand to hand. Each of the spoons looked slightly different; we all receive stories differently after all. On the plate, a rich creamy bed of white beans, with 13 elements. Each was reminiscent of a story they had told me. Smiling, giggling, they all started pointing their fingers at the ones they knew and telling the tales for the ones that might have missed it. In the background, I started playing a recording of their voices. The voices lowered and everyone ate as they heard, one by one, the story of how each of them first experienced food.
let go of fears and expectations. (dish 3)
“There is always something that grows out of letting go, and we will eat it together. Donna Haraway tells us about the compost as a key to let our ideas rest, decay and reform into something that can give life. To me, letting go tastes like something full of life: fragrant, fluid, rich and refreshing at times.
The moment before tears are running down your cheeks is terrible: this little ball that started growing in your chest or throat hurts so much that you feel like shouting at the world. When you let go and actually cry, it feels liberating, like a cascade that finally flows through you after being contained too much. In these moments, you allow others to hug you, weakness to shine through and meaning to find you again. ”
Before serving the dish, I asked everyone to focus on the light in front of them and think about something they needed to let go of. I came to each person with a mortar. They selected a spice from the ceramic plate in front of them and gave it to me. We all dropped a fear, doubt, or complicated story into the heavy stone. In the kitchen, I mixed it into a fine powder that was fed to the edible compost. The dark soil-looking crumble was then sprinkled on a vibrant, aromatic tomato confit and we ate it together. Eating away our fears, expectations and letting our body do the rest.
and discussed our community and what we wanted to take from it. (dish 4)
“Standing now at the end of this year together, it is really hard to think that we won’t have each other by our side every day anymore. But it is also necessary. We all gave and took something from this community. Together we weaved a new understanding of food. Those threads that we weaved, we can now use to give life to new communities, wherever we go. I invite you to weave, in pairs, the net that will hold your dessert. Once your net is ready, we will come to serve the last elements. On your plates, you find a dessert to share. Like any community, it is a balanced mix of warm and cold, sweet and sour.”
The 4th dish represents what happens when you trust a group enough to be lost, to hear all their stories and to let go of what holds you back: they become your community. As we had arrived at the last dish of this journey, I wanted everyone to take the time to reflect together. I brought one plate per duo and a dozen strands of rhubarb thread. Every pair made a net and spoke about what they wanted to take from this journey to the next. When they were ready, the candles were painting shadows and strains of light on their proud faces.
Calvin came around the table, placing a spoon of warm and sweet compote on the rhubarb. Joëlle placed pieces of pain perdu to rest in the compote. Pain perdu, a French dessert, can be directly translated as lost bread. Somewhat being lost in the community can feel sweet. The weekend before the dinner, my mum had carefully braided with her hands that typical Swiss bread for us. After all, she was the one who gave me my first sense of community. To finish the story, I dropped a big spoon of whipped sheep ricotta on the plates and sprinkled some pollen on top. Reminding ourselves that ecosystems exist beyond humans. That even when we forget them, bees and other beings are building the world around us. Relentlessly.
When we finished our plates, the tired pink clouds had long waved goodbye, the sky was lighting up with stars and “Days Like This” was slowing in the background. I untied the apron strings that were holding the fear in my belly, breathed once more and hugged the people who trusted me so much that I had no choice but to trust myself.
I only know what I experience from the point of view of being myself; sometimes I think it is not enough to be shared. But that dinner showed how transformed we are by others and because of that, an experience can only be more meaningful when shared.
A big thank you to all those who contributed to the making of this special moment.
