Lets start this off with a short little reminiscence of last year’s gathering in Turin - a really incredible, positive experience for me.  A year later I’m still thinking about the experience, trying to understand the larger importance of what happened there.

    What I remember most from Terra Madre are the people I spent every evening with at dinner, the people I sat on the bus with after breakfast, and the food.  I suppose it kind of makes sense, I mean after all, wasn’t that what it was about, people and food?  Not only people and food but the communities created around people and food, the ability of food to bring people together, all that is positive and good about food in the world today.  That’s really it.

    Everyone eats, and everyone is eating food.  Not all food is equal though, and not everyone is eating good food.  But everyone should be eating good food, I mean food that is produced well, food that is healthy to eat from a nutrition perspective, from a social justice perspective, from an environmental perspective.  Food like that brings people together, it doesn’t create problems, it relieves them.  All food should be that good.  Maybe by trying to produce food like that, by promoting food like that, there can be more events like Terra Madre where people come together, where countries come together to celebrate diversity.  I’m sure that my experience there, my little corner of Terra Madre where a small group of us got together and enjoyed good food and good company, was just a reflection of the larger event, and a reflection of what the world could be if we all ate more “good” food.