The Table and My Five Essential Reads of 2025

faridam7
Dec 13, 2025
3 min read

This year, in all the noise and rush, I kept asking myself one simple question: what truly holds a society together?

Economists point to GDP, politicians to strategies, tech experts to algorithms, all designed to glorify metrics. But for me, the answer is much simpler and profound. A society stands or falls by its rituals: the bread we break, the stories we share, and the wisdom we carry forward.

I live in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, where we throw away mountains of edible food every week. Yet in that same city, families skip meals, children eat packets of crisps for dinner, parents ration fruit because it costs more than fried snacks engineered for addiction. A city full of food, yet home to hungry children, that’s more than inequality. A food system that can’t feed people with dignity isn’t efficient; it’s broken.

Different genres and voices, across five books, return to the same table – revealing how food, culture, and dignity are inseparable, and how their erosion fractures society.

The first was Europe: The Echo of a Tragedy. A tough read, but important. It shows how a nation rich in culture lets fear eclipse intelligence, and how leaders cut off from culture can turn a country into collateral damage. I kept asking: how does a society forget its own depth? The book is pro-intelligence, pro-culture, and pro-Europe. It reminded me how fragile any foundation becomes when the values that hold a society together are ignored.

After that heaviness, I needed something lighter. I turned to Edward Slingerland’s Drunk. What a relief. What a joy. Slingerland shows that people have always used shared drinks to build trust; not to escape, but to connect. It reinforced something I’ve seen everywhere: conviviality does what policy cannot. It makes people feel they belong.

That idea came alive again in Felicity Spector’s Bread and War. A powerful account of feeding and surviving in wartime Ukraine. You smell the wood ovens in villages shaken by war; you feel the quiet power of mothers kneading dough at dawn. Bread becomes identity, memory, resistance. When a society forgets that, it begins to fall apart. Hunger meets dignity, and it is there, at the table, that humanity is defended.

Then came Sukegawa’s Ryosuke’s Dream, one of the gentlest books I’ve read in years. A man searching for the perfect non-industrial cheese: mountain milk, long quiet days, patience. He becomes an accidental philosopher. That book confirmed what I’ve seen through my extensive travels – in markets, kitchens, and amongst artisans: the model we need isn’t new. It’s slower, built on taste, nature, humility, and skill – not speed.

And then the loop closed. Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map revealed not what nourishes a society, but what holds it together – or quietly pulls it apart. I’ve always travelled with curiosity, knowing food often opens the door to friendship. Meyer shows how cultural differences shape daily interactions, and how many misunderstandings come from tone and timing, not values. Curiosity and humility build everything worth building. Meyer says powerful leaders adapt. I’d add: the happiest ones do too.

When we sit down, slow down, and share food, the edges soften. People become stories; connection returns. A society is not held together by data or decrees – it’s held together by the tables we return to. Fear eases. Distrust loosens. Hunger turns into dignity. Craft beats speed.

A table is not only where we eat. It’s where we learn how to treat each other.

This is what Movimento Metropolitano is: food as belonging, not transaction. Culture, not branding. Dignity, not privilege. The right to food calls us to shape cities, economies, and public health around nourishment rather than profit. It’s when wellbeing comes first. And this is where people reclaim what’s theirs: to feed themselves, sit with dignity, and expect more without apology.

What if a meal is not the end of a process, but the start of a new one? A process that builds communities, restores ecosystems, teaches skills, and reimagines our cities. The books show one truth: a fairer world begins at the table. We sit, share food, and remember what it means to belong. Once we taste dignity, we expect it everywhere. And when we do, the world begins to change.

Food still knows the way home. We need only to follow it.

For more insights and stories, follow us on Insta @movimentometropolitano.