And in fact
Hello and welcome @Cindy_P. Thanks for these reflections. They make a ton of sense not only to me, but, it seems, to a lot of people.
- It brings people together. During LOTE5 (we had a workshop called Collaborative Inclusion, you would have liked it It think) we learned about a project in Belgium called DineWithUs. Elizabeth, the lady who started it, said:
“Once a migrant has been processed and is “legalised” in Belgium there remains a wall between Belgians and newcomers. I was personally frustrated that I did not know any of them, and all my friends were white. Our idea is pretty simple, just share a meal, learn recipes and teach your own. We have now over 100 registrations, it’s working OK but we need to grow.”
- It has direct consequences on health – it is, in fact, health care. I recently learned that a medical school in the US started giving cooking classes to its students. The key person is a man called Tim Harlan, "who is both a doctor and a chef", and heads something called The Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine. Theirs is an open care initiative, I think, because they teach mediacal students, doctors and the local community to cook in a tasty and healthy way. This way, they are making patients into caregivers (because patients cook too!) and even inventing a new shared language whith which doctors and patients can talk about health. "We are not talking about nutrition: we are talking about food."
