Sheila Dillon: Food Is Political — The Common Table BBC Food Programme presenter Sheila Dillon has spent four decades establishing food as an important, newsworthy subject and breaking big political stories through the lens of food. Today, she says, in...

Fantastic piece on the living legend that is Sheila Dillon via @thecommontable.eu thecommontable.eu/sheila-dillo...

Worth your time reading this & seeing quite how long she's been doing this good stuff…

SOS: Who's Saving Our Soils? — The Common Table The EU Soil Strategy for 2030 was launched as part of the European Green Deal, but is it enough to save our soils and ourselves?

"Whether the strategy succeeds could depend less on its legislation than on whether the cultural understanding of soil shifts from background condition to central actor."

The EU Soil Strategy's Soil Monitoring Law went into force in December 2025, but is it enough to save our soils and ourselves?

The Last Harvest — The Common Table Dr Debal Deb and The Last Harvest is a documentary about one man's decades-long battle to rescue India's indigenous rice diversity from oblivion. Journalist Dan Saladino visits Basudha Farm in Odisha,...

In The Last Harvest, we feature a beautiful documentary film by Dan Saladino and the Gaia Foundation about ecologist, scientist, and farmer Dr Debal Deb, who has spent decades working with his community to save over 1,400 rice varieties from extinction.

The Burnt Chef Revolution: In a timely interview, Kris Hall, the founder of The Burnt Chef Project, discusses how he came to found a global mental health support network for the hospitality industry – a professional field renowned for its toxic work environments. thecommontable.eu/the-burnt-ch...

The strange story of WWII veteran Stanley Green, who spent 25 years, from 1968 to 1993, standing on the corner of Oxford Street in London, urging people to adopt a low-protein diet and dampen their passions. Was he a proto-incel or a beacon of resilience – or both? thecommontable.eu/beans-peas-n...

The Future is Ancestral: "They are not farmers anymore; they are the guardians of the environment. They’re keepers of knowledge. What they need to do is not just produce crops, but produce life."
thecommontable.eu/the-future-i...

The Honey Merchant — The Common Table Diego Contreras is a honey expert from the uniquely biodiverse region of Oaxaca. His project Nunduve aims to educate consumers about honey's origins and environmental issues, rather than just its flav...

Diego Contreras is a biologist and honey expert from the uniquely biodiverse region of Oaxaca, Mexico. His project Nunduve, a way of doing business with honey that focuses on educating consumers about honey’s origins and environmental issues, rather than just its flavours and uses.

The Honey Merchant — The Common Table Diego Contreras is a honey expert from the uniquely biodiverse region of Oaxaca. His project Nunduve aims to educate consumers about honey's origins and environmental issues, rather than just its flav...

How can grassroots support of local producers, regional ecology and traditional practice work without commercial exploitation? By making education the product. Our latest interview is with a honey expert in Oaxaca.

@sophielovell.com and Orlando Lovell's interview with Nathan Thornburgh of Roads and Kingdoms is full of insights about three of our favourite subjects: food, travel and publishing.

Through The Lens Of Food — The Common Table Nathan Thornburgh, co-founder and publisher of Roads & Kingdoms, who worked closely with Anthony Bourdain, explains how food can be a lens on the world and the soul.

"If you go to difficult places and start talking about something as common and good as cooking, eating, and food traditions, then you can break through some of the alienation between readers and subjects." There is so much to learn through the lens of food.

The Ghibli Foodiverse — The Common Table In the Studio Ghibli foodiverse, food is hearth and home, conjuring a sensual state of longing and belonging, says Sophie Lovell.

“The preparation, textures, and slowness of food scenes in Ghibli films, such as the clatter of bowls, steam rising from soups, and the slurping sounds of characters eating, all evoke sensory comfort; a cinematic version of a warm hug.”

Transparent Tuna — The Common Table Cynthia Asaf of Pacifical on using digital traceability to improve transparency and integrity in the Pacific tuna supply chain and why it's a game-changer.

Supply chain transparency and integrity are not just good practice; they are also becoming mandatory. Food industry expert William Harris and Cynthia Asaf of Pacifical talking about why digital technology is a game-changer for the industry, with implications for supply chain monitoring worldwide.

Can Food Design improve our relationships with food, or is it just fancy plating? OxfordFoodSymposium’ Kitchen Table & @thecommontable.eu invited Priya Mani, Sonia Massari, @fparasecoli.bsky.social, Laila Snevele, @sophielovell.com & Orlando Lovell to discuss. thecommontable.eu/food-design-...

We need to talk about Food Design. thecommontable.eu/food-design-...

New interview at the Common Table with First Nations filmmaker and curator @cassgardiner.bsky.social about stewardship, reciprocity, the bittersweet aspect of "home", and how she uses food to open a window for non-Native people into her world and community. #reciprocity #sovereignty #stewardship

The Good Life — The Common Table Anishinaabe Algonquin filmmaker Cass Gardiner talks to The Common Table about how she uses food as a window for non-Native people into her world and community.

“What if the settlers had arrived and had agreed to coexist instead? I wonder if we would have had a robust, very cool food culture by now. Because they were so hell-bent on disappearing us, we never got that cross-cultural exchange and an evolution of what American food truly could have been.”

Risoprint illustration of two blackbirds playing with a carrot and two other birds forming the letter C with their bodies.

“One day, while watching them, I thought: what if these birds could cooperate and create their own alphabet?”
A multi species food alphabet by @curly_mads.

thecommontable.eu/wild-birds-f...

#thecommontable #curlymads #wildbirds #wildbirdsalphabet #pictoplasma #foodalphabet #risoprint

Risoprint illustration of birds and nuts and two birds forming a letter N with their bodies.

“Every morning, I visit a large urban park near my home to watch birds.” artist @curly_mads tells the story of herWild Birds Food Alphabet.

thecommontable.eu/wild-birds-f... Wild Birds Food Alphabet — The Common Table

#thecommontable #curlymads #wildbirds #foodalphabet #pictoplasma

Change The (Design) System — The Common Table A conversation with Systems Change Designer Ashley Scarborough about how she redesigned her own professional path and found food systems as her medium.

We invited Systems Change Designer Ashley Scarborough to The Common Table to share how she redesigned her own professional path and found food systems as her medium.

We need to talk about 'Food Design': What is it and can it improve our relationships with food, individually or on a global scale? - Oxford Food Symposium Agriculturalists, economists, chefs, politicians & policy makers, and educationalists & educators have ‘solutions’ relating to improving the food system. Unfortunately, many have fallen flat, and we c...

Adjust your preconceptions about Food Design by joining the Oxford Food Symposium Kitchen Table panel talk online with the founders of The Common Table and others here tomorrow May 13th 6pm CEST on Zoom

A Game Of Monopoly — The Common Table We talk to Canadian political economist Jennifer Clapp about her latest book, “Titans of Industrial Agriculture” and the evolution of an extreme concentration of power that has allowed 12 companies to...

If you want to understand how we ended up in this mess, you go to an expert.
The Common Table talked to political economist @jennifer-clapp.bsky.social about her banging new book: "Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters".

Just as we understand individual ingredients, like apples or crisps, to be expressions of systems, The Common Table is an expression of a system initiated by studio_lovell. It is designed to be a hospitable space for learning to ask better questions.

The Common Table's founders studio_lovell were invited to co-design an immersive dining experience and give a keynote at the #HotelschoolTheHague for their Future of Food course in Amsterdam. We talked about learning to ask better questions & understanding ingredients as expressions of systems.

Ancient Grains and Other Myths, an interview with Aterraterra at The Common Table. #aterraterra #thecommontable #colonialism #artandagriculture #foraging #heritage #taste #graniantichi #sementielette #ancientgrains #ethiopianredaubergine Image © Filippo Nicoletti, courtesy Aterraterra.