Cooking together digitally: Disco soup

It is not so long ago that we met in person to exchange knowledge about the topic of food waste by chopping and tasting food together. In the last six months we were confronted with completely new challenges due to Corona. It necessarily opened up paths into a digital world that were previously unknown to us. Never before had we used the internet as extensively as since the Corona Pandemic.

Thus, in April 2020, the World Disco Soup Day took place online for the first time. Slow Food uses this action day to draw attention to crooked and therefore often wasted vegetables and prepares them into simple and delicious dishes. Once again, people gave deep insights into their cooking pots full of food, which we pay less attention to because of supposed visual defects. There was good music for dancing and interesting facts about food processing and artisanal foods. All in all, a very successful event, which Slow Food has already carried forward in the digital world.

For example, Slow Food created a 'Legume Edition' as part of the accompanying program of the 4th General Assembly of the TRUE project: cooking, dancing and sharing recipes about legumes together. This fits in very well, as Slow Food's mission in the TRUE project is to collect and publish European legume recipes.

The TRUE project partners actually wanted to meet in Stuttgart at the University of Hohenheim. Since this was unfortunately not possible due to Covid-19, the organizers successfully moved the meeting to a productive, fruitful online format using a zoom and miro-board including an evening program in the kitchen, living room and pub.

The virtual kitchen was the stage for Slow Food's Disco Soup. Participants cooked legumes together, exchanged memories, knowledge and recipes. Many of them did not know in advance what was going to be served. They knew the main actor, their legume, but other ingredients were improvised, true to the motto "let's see what else is in my fridge". A clear statement against food waste and for the appreciation of all foods, no matter shape and size.

The participants were creative and courageous, trying out new ways of combining food. The evening was hosted by Elisabeth Berlinghof, who discovered her love of colorful, shapely crops at the Slow Food University of Gastronomic Sciences in Bra, Italy, and who promotes legumes at every opportunity. She asked the participants about their childhood memories of legumes. These will not be revealed here; instead, we invite you to ask yourselves what your own memories are. You are welcome to send them to cookbook@slowfood.de and, by publishing them on Slow Food and TRUE, help to make more people curious about legumes again. We also encourage everyone to keep their eyes open for more online offers - we'd be happy to work with you. Because even if we are only together digitally, we can create closeness and common ground, provide culinary insights and connect people across national borders.