Dear Reader,
This month’s theme, Food Travels, was born in Copenhagen, a city known for its design, its precision, and its extraordinary culinary scene. Yet what stayed with me most was not a Michelin star, but the warmth of hearing my native language spoken. It reminded me that while we travel to discover new places, we often turn to food to rediscover ourselves.
In this edition, our writers explore how food becomes memory, performance, resistance, and home.
In Flavors of Life, Anett offers a deeply sensory meditation where rosemary steam, cinnamon coffee, and a steaming pot of stew become anchors against darkness. Her piece moves through dream and reality, asking how taste can steady us when life feels fragile, how a bowl of soup can quietly hold us together.
Lucía takes us behind the scenes of MasterChef Spain, speaking with director Patricia Fernández about food in the age of spectacle. As dishes are increasingly “eaten with the eyes,” she explores how gastronomy balances art and authenticity, and whether food can remain democratic in a media-driven world.
In “We Need to Talk About Cheese”, Erandi challenges Europe’s shifting dietary landscape. As meat consumption declines, cheese rises as a cultural and economic substitute. Her investigation exposes the environmental, ethical, and political systems sustaining Europe’s dairy obsession, urging us to reconsider what truly sits at the center of our plates.
From Iran to Sweden, Niusha’s Golden Threads reminds us that some cultures do not live in monuments, but in kitchens. Through saffron, herbs, and slow-simmered stews, she shows how ritual cooking becomes a quiet act of return, a way to carry home across borders.
In Berlin, we discover ZAP, a Polish fast-food spot serving zapiekanki, a dish born from scarcity in Communist Poland and now embraced by both locals and tourists. Through video, the story reveals how necessity became tradition, and how a simple street food continues to connect cultures across borders.
And finally, in my own journey through Copenhagen’s Albanian-owned spaces, I reflect on how language, hospitality, and simple names preserve identity far from home.
Food is a practice, not a fixed place. It is memory, media, market, migration. It is how we gather, how we adapt, how we remember who we are. We invite you to reflect on your own flavor map. What dish travels with you?
Warmly,
Fiona
