Home in a foreign land

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How to build a home in a foreign land, to go through the process of integration without losing your identity, what to give up on, what to accept. Anthropologically speaking, the story of recipes is a story of specific things that ''others'' bring to our area, but also about mutual, already accepted standards, as well as global gastronomical trends that push out local culinary habits with sandwiches and Coca-Cola. But let's not forget that gastronomy speaks about localities and traditions. Gastronomy, besides that, breaks down prejudice. To gastronomy, foreign and different is ''exotic'', but never ugly or dirty. It is hypocritical that Europe accepted coffee from the Turks, figs from Asia Minor, proso from Arabia, cinnamon from China, pepper from India, but it still despises people from the outskirts of Europe and other continents that it exploited, but did not accept. "Taste of Home" is a story of accepting differences, of ''others'' and us – the first, a story of the process of integration of foreigners, the reasons for their migration to ''Europe'' in an indirect way: in the forefront we see a Proustian search for home, the need to belong, to preserve our roots; but also for future (a richer dining table) through groceries and recipes. With life stories of refugees and the exchange of their culinary specialities we wish to bring other cultures closer to Croatian citizens and reduce the discomfort and discrimination of people with different skin colours, religions and languages.  

 

Martina Globočnik, director of documentary film "Taste of Home"