Breaking down walls: in Rome the first show cooking between Italians and migrants

Are the recipes, dishes and flavours of different countries and cultures really so far from the ones we are more used to at home? Culinary traditions, the ingredients and the way they are mixed together change from culture to culture, but are the differences then so great?

Three elderly people, witnesses of Italian culinary memory, and three young foreigners met to cook together the dishes of their traditions for the first show cooking of Italians and migrants, realised by Asia Onlus for the Distinti ma non distanti project funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation.

The result was the discovery of empathic bonds that allow people to understand one another and to make of difference a great value. A meeting and comparison between distant experiences, not only from a culinary and gastronomic point of view, but also cultural and generational, to bring out the points of contact, the similarities and the possibilities of convergence and sharing that are created when individuals put themselves on the line, entering into empathy with one another.

Special guest was chef Cristina Bowerman, Michelin-starred signature of Roman cuisine, who led the meeting recounting differences and similarities between the different traditions.

Other activities of the project: Oggi a scuola ci vai tu, children teach their parents the universal values of empathy, interdependence and non-violence>>