Cooking is a call to act. Watch Massimo Bottura at MAD Symposium

“Could hunger be relieved by creative management of daily food wastage?”

By quizzing the crowd of Sydney Opera House with this question, Massimo Bottura introduced Food for Soul in a speech entitled “Cooking is a call to act”. On last April, 3rd, he took part to the Australian edition of MAD Symposium, together with other great thinkers of the food world such as René Redzepi himself, Chido Govera, David Chang and Kylie Kwong.

The main theme of the speech was social responsibility of chefs. Massimo shared his personal story and that of Osteria Francescana to explain how and when he became aware of his role outside the kitchen. Even when paved with good intentions and hard work, the road to success is not always smooth and straight: from Massimo’s own experience, the greatest ideas come out as a response to the unforeseen troubles along the way. This led him to a deepen awareness: the time for chefs as a sum of their own recipes is over. Cooking can be a response to the need of local communities and a useful weapon against the major contemporary issues.

The MAD Symposium asked his speakers to answer the following question: what is the future of food? Massimo gave his unique recipe made out of ethics, aesthetics, responsibility, awareness and, above all, the ingredient that will lead chefs towards their new social role: culture.