Welcome from the editor: the return of the bon vivant
Welcome and thank you for joining me this weekend.
With the new year come new resolutions. After a month of excessive eating and drinking, for many January is a nigh ascetic month; a month when we can reinvent ourselves, lose the Christmas weight, join the gym and maybe even get buff.
For this reason, I can only applaud the French education system for launching a Master’s degree course in ‘eating, drinking and living’. To me, these basic life actions are actually what makes living worthwhile.
Perhaps at times, we forget how to enjoy life, caught in our routines, internal judgements, the unrealistic expectations we can have of ourselves, and of course, depressing worldwide news. Maybe we should all get back to basics and remember what is like to just eat, drink and live, simply savouring these moments.
And there’s more reasons to enjoy life. Whilst the food and fashion sectors don’t score very well on the environmentally-friendly barometer, the two industries are teaming up to try and cut down their greenhouse gas emissions by turning food waste into sustainable clothing. This certainly gives me some hope, and something to smile about.
This theme of enjoying life is also tapped into in this week’s Table Talk podcast, which delves into the low and no alcohol sector. Rather than being about deprivation, this low/no area is expanding, with new products, events and soirées reminding us that we can be social, go out and enjoy ourselves without the need for copious amounts of hooch. This is not about deprivation, it’s about inventiveness and options.
Which leads me to Italy saying no to Nutri-Score. Il Bel Paese is not being cantankerous, it’s merely arguing that its traditional national produce shouldn’t be penalised by the HFSS food labelling system. It’s about quality rather than quantity, and I must say, I do agree. I very much in fact salute the return of the bon vivant, those who live well, because live well we must.
Wishing you all a wonderful weekend: to the bons vivants and those having an ascetic month.
Stef
