A recipe for living and eating together

We have all been intermingling at the dinner table for a least several millennia. Proof of this is found in the history of Mediterranean cultures and crops, nurtured by the continual exchange of plants, seeds, techniques, recipes and products between the different shores of Mare nostrum. From Pantelleria pots to wines from Samos, Tangiers’ tangerines to honey from Ibla, eggplant parmigiana to pasta. In fact, if you look at history stripped of any parochialism and localisms, the idea of being a native turns out to be a myth and this applies to ethnicity as well as food and wine, since culinary arts are the result of people migrating, intermingling and borrowing from each other. In this context, the Mediterranean diet or the “Mediterranean way of life” represents a recipe for living together that does not only involve good and healthy food, but also, above all ethical and social values, models for conviviality, education in sustainability, an appetite for exchanges and a willingness to integrate. Hence, a dress rehearsal for tomorrow’s humanity.