Tastes of the Danube. Let’s taste them, this is how the intergenerational and intercultural meeting we attended in ULM was titled. – Cultural heritage and diversity in terms of food are to be preserved – We shoud be careful about what and how we eat. -Traditional sources and ways of nourishment are getting replaced by food from supermarkets. We are still fed and connected by bread, which used to be staff food in our countries.
This year The 10th bi-annual Danube festival in Ulm had to do with food prepared and consumed along the Danube and rivers running into the Danube. For centuries there have been different civilizations an cultures along the longest European river. Due to the Sava, the Drava and and the Mura, the longest and the largest Slovenian rivers, three thirds of the Slovenian territory belong to the Danubain regions. Slovenia shares with other Danubian countries geographical and other characteristics, ties and bonds. Now, bread is an important part of our common history and cultural heritage. The opulence of bread is still a symbol of welfare and happiness, while being short of bread means being hungry and poor.
At the meeting titled Tastes of the Danube Let’s taste them devoted to intergenerational learning and socializing as well as intercultural meetings and creating ties and bonds, the central topic were bread and the culture of consuming it. The focus was on preserving cultural tradition and diversity in this field.
It is important what and how we eat since all aspects of human life are connected with food and social development. Food impacts our individual and social being. Countries that lack food are politically not sovereign. Therefore food has always been a cruel weapon in wars and revolutions.
For the first time in history we are faced with hyper production of food and it seems that food is over present in our lives. Nevertheless, we are not really aware of what and how we eat. Eating habits have not been changing enough and remain as they were in the past. Prof. Franz Wuketits argues that past developemental phases, when there was not enough food, continue impacting us. There have beeen are four developemental phases in the food production and in the fourth phase the food production was augmented as to become greater than the needs. Nevertheless, due to wars and political events, social inequality, privatising of natural ressources and distribution problems hunger has not ceased.
Members of Slovenian Third Age University participated in the ULM conference. Members of the journalism study group prepared for this occasion the publication Bread in the past and present which is available on the web in Slovenian and English language. It is a collectrion of interviews and the interviewees come from different social and professional backgrorunds and are of different age. Members of the painting groups from the same university prepared a catalogue of their paintings on the same topic.
The longer version of this article was published also in Nedeljski dnevnik, a national Slovenian newspaper.