A Sarajevo for centuries the neighborhooda true manifesto of hospitality. According to that ancient custom typical of multi-religious communities, for holidays we sat at the table together and, out of respect for everyone, we avoided foods prohibited by the different faiths. Pork was excluded for Muslims, chickens and clams for Jews, game for Buddhists, beef for Hindus. In short, it was the dinner of food taboos where everyone, however, loved to participate for the pleasure of eating and being together. This was before the war destroyed such an extraordinary example of peace and coexistence.
«Food serves to unite, because it has something sacred. Always. When we sit at the table, and even more so during the holidays, we eat as God commands. It not only means that we eat well, but that we are obeying precepts even if we are not aware of them. Indeed, it can be said that every religion is a menu. In some cases it is still very visible, such as in the Jewish, Muslim and Hindu ones, but also in Christianity which has taken a decisive step towards a diet free from any taboo. Secularization has in fact messed up the rules of ancient food chains, but even today our meals are steeped in it. Just think of the Friday fish, a product of the Council of Trent which at the end of the 16th century established the days of fasting and abstinence.”
Elisabetta Moro and Antonio Niola couple (even in life) of anthropologists, both professors at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples, know this well. And they even wrote an interesting essay on this, Eat as God commands (Einaudi) where they talk about the neighborhood and where they explain that in every one of our menus, even those with secular and secularized eating habits, there are religious traces. The essay won the 2024 prize (together with the Pope's encyclical Praise God) Living with Zero Waste of the association of the same name (born in collaboration with the department of Agro-food Sciences and Technologies of the University of Bologna) because the book «is also a reflection on the contradictions of our world, opulent, rich, which has everything and more and at the same time, however, he is always ready to repent for his sins of gluttony”.
Contradictions today: overabundance and waste. The recent data provided in September by the Zero Waste observatory: the Waste Watcher International Observatory Food & Waste Around The World speak for themselves. Food waste in Italy in 2024 grew by 45.6%: it means that 683.3 grams of food per person ends up in the garbage bin every week (compared to 469.4 grams recorded in 2023). In the top five of the most wasted foods we find fresh fruit (27.1 g), vegetables (24.6 g), fresh bread (24.1 g), salads (22.3 g), onions/garlic/ tubers (20 g). That is to say the main products of the Mediterranean diet, a world heritage site. And assuming the average weight of a meal of 500 g (estimated by the Food Waste Index Report UN 2024), Italian domestic waste translates into 4.26 billion euros of food thrown away every year.
«It is scandalous that so much is thrown into the face of increasing food poverty, these numbers touch our consciences. If the trend continues it will be impossible for Italy to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goal which requires it to be halved by 2030″, he comments Andrea Segreprofessor of agricultural policy at the University of Bologna, founder of Last Minute Marketa market in the Emilian capital which recovers food surpluses from large-scale distribution and resells them at retail.
But, then, with the pleasure of the table as we put it, what at Christmas lasts practically for 12 days without interruptions? “THEFood is not just nutrition, it is conviviality, pleasure, in fact. Many studies show that eating in company is good for your health and produces endorphins. Food unites, it is ritual. Not to mention that celebrating Christmas means eating particular, regional dishes, celebrating with abundance”, they explain, also telling us their menu for the 24th evening: anchovies, cod, pasta with clams, Christmas broccoli, reinforcement salad. To finish, lots of desserts. «Then he collapses!» they joke, virtuously adding that, however, “the leftovers go in the fridge for the following days”.
Too much on our platesespecially during the holidays, is still jarring. «But it has always been like this, since the times of the Romans who said that it wasn't a real banquet if the food didn't fall under the tables». This display of abundance where necessary and superfluous coexist (at least on certain tables), has therefore always been there. As well as waste. Today, however, we are more guilty and cannot make excuses, because we have conservation techniques that the ancient Romans did not have. «Our world, however, is a living contradiction, so much so that after binges with peaks of gastronomic exaltation there are fasts. And we invent forms of repentance to relieve our conscience, like Doggy bags at restaurants (the data, however, say that in Italy it is still little used, only 15%, ndr) or brotherhood tables, which are fine but do not eliminate the problem.”
During the Christmas period Adiconsum claims that, in our homes, 500 thousand tons of food end up in the dustbin (fresh products, but also panettone, nougats and sparkling wine), a malpractice that costs up to 80 euros per family. What could it be, then, one Call to Action if only because at the end of the year they take stock and make good resolutions? For large-scale distribution, use platforms that recover typical redundancies Regusto, Last Minute Sotto Casa and MyFoody. Or Neighborhood Hub, like the eight already present in Milan which then redistribute food among the poor. And for us at home even just downloading an app like Fridge Emptyer, TooGoodToGo or Waste Meterbecause, explains Segre, «Italians still have little awareness of how to make the most of available foods, from conservation to purchasing planning, demonstrating the need to intervene in food education». Educating the next generations to have a more balanced relationship with resources and with themselves is also a priority for Moro and Niola. Also to counteract the «foodmaniathat is, food overexposed on social media compulsively posted for performance and rankings. It doesn't mean that we are against the digital world, on the contrary. But food on social media feeds the bulimia of a virtual community. Not the people.” Who knows, maybe for Christmas it would be useful for someone to promote a neighborhood for the great of the earth. «A beautiful parable, but I fear that the adults are busy doing something else». Sin. «In the meantime, let's transform our tables» invite Moro and Niola: «at tables of peace with those closest to us». That's already a lot.
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