Food is what makes you feel home, what makes you feel welcome, what makes you happy, what gives you a path to explore different cultures.
The Berlin episode of the cooking journey started at a Brauhaus with homebrewed sorts of delicious german beer. Proust! is the best opening line for your Berliner host as a Food Connects People guest. And an FCP event is the best to meet new and old friends to sooth your hunger for new food, different cultures and different worlds of those new people.
Saturday came in with an exceptionally nice weather for Berlin to help us with the open air shopping. The teams matched up with the recipes and went to the cozy local market at Breslauer Platz. Each team had a nice mix: one Berliner, one guest and a recipe from our colorful FCP collection. It was also a change for the most locals as who makes it to the weekly market after a long Friday nights party! It is such an adventure to shop for something you have never tasted. You just need to let it go my dear, if the recipe tells pear with bacon is going to taste good together, just go for it. Happy to have packed in the most crucial ingredients, the group moved to the Winterfeldtmarkt. There was the lunch exploring international cuisine of Berlin with organic german dishes, turkish pastries and coffee, vietnamese rice dishes to name a few. In the super equipped kitchen, all the fresh ingredients were turned into gorgeous dishes.
Like the tastes of any spicy olive oil dish blending in better the next day, Sunday was even more fun. Our dear playback theater actors filled the stage with emotions and beautiful stories around food. It meant so much: childhood memories, a feast of colors, a way to connect to your surroundings and an inner struggle between the desire to eat more and to resist the urge. The stories flew: of a skinny north Italian kid visiting his Sicilian family to be drowned in food to heal him, the German youngster who redefined his time perception in the train and the dinners with his summer school friends in Italy, the artichoke which turned into a cannibal plant and a dancing and inviting kebab which made the smiles come back the day before. Laughters for the world’s most unfortunate hostel neighbours who mixed cocktails in their Italian neighbors salad bowl which was indeed a portable bidet! All with the wonderful moderation by Jürgen Schoo from Playback Theather Berlin and the live improvised soundtrack by Arthur.
The theater setting up the scene for the creative part, the teams got a table full of ingredients and some cues telling what to do: “rock’n’roll chicken”, “sexy salad”, “vegetarian dinner before opera”. The magic of just giving people the room to express themselves got to work. The dishes of Sunday left us with great tastes and a great feeling of sharing and connection.