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Head chef Jacqueline Badran, assistant chef Andri Silberschmidt and sous-chef Melanie Mettler cook a budget menu in the summer club series.
The main course is certain: Jacqueline Badran’s “world’s best Bolognese”. National Council colleague Andri Silberschmidt explains: “Today I will only listen to Jacky for once.” She replies: “You already have! When I stopped you from posting photos of boring tapas on Instagram.” The assistant cook is beside himself: “I never have! She caught me once when I wanted to photograph food.” “If you want to be taken seriously, don’t do that!” she says.
Cooking is done because food always has something to do with social policy. Is the cake distributed fairly in Switzerland? This is being discussed while Bolognese is simmering on the stove and National Councilor Silberschmidt is grating carrots. There is a budget menu today that goes with the theme of “wealth and poverty”.
“Hungry is man not man”
The sociologist Ueli Mäder and Amine Diare Conde, founders of the organization “Eating for All”, which distributes food to around 1,400 families in Zurich every Saturday, are sitting at the table in the club’s summer series “Politics on the Plate”.
Over 740,000 people live in poverty in this country. What to do? “Integrating people into the labor market,” says Silberschmidt. “Wage increases” and “increasing purchasing power”, says Jaqueline Badran. “Not with the watering can,” says Mettler, and adds: “You have to see that the right people are helped, in this country fortunately most have enough to cope with inflation.”
Food has also become more expensive in the last year. So what did the politicians’ menu cost? 61 francs – or 8.70 per person.
For those who have to make do with scarce resources, this is not particularly cheap. Diare lived for four years as a rejected asylum seeker on daily emergency aid of CHF 8.50. He has survived on his escape from Guinea with less, even without food in a Moroccan forest. “A human being can only be human if he has enough food,” says Diare, adding: “Sometimes I confused stones with food. I couldn’t walk because I was hungry.” It was also because of this experience that he founded «Essen für alle».
What global responsibility does Switzerland bear?
Ueli Mäder also knows from experience that eating shows social status. “There were always at least eight of us at the table, so you shared two sausages.” Mäder, who has always been concerned with social justice, regularly dines with bank directors and the marginalized.
When he organized a Christmas dinner for professors and announced the venue, the question arose as to whether the restaurant was good enough. «So I rescheduled and chose a kind of soup kitchen. There were many nice encounters that evening.”
Despite all the disagreement regarding the fight against poverty in Switzerland, there is also unexpected agreement when it comes to global responsibility. “We have to make sure that people don’t have to go to the machines, but that the machines come to the people,” says Silberschmidt. Badran widens his eyes, turns to face him, and reaches out to high-five. “You agree?” he asks. Badran: «Yes! What a miracle!»