From Global Bellies to Global Minds: The Bread Platform for Geo-Cultural Integration

As demonstrated by numerous ethno-anthropological studies, food can be a powerful basis for the integration of different ethnic groups and populations. The Bread project uses this integration capability, rooted in the convivial atmosphere of the experience of eating together, to address the pressing issue of the integration of migrant communities and host communities in the face of the recent migration flows that cross the world and that in Mediterranean Europe find one of their focal hubs. As part of the Bread philosophy, food is the Trojan horse for full-spectrum cultural integration, so we can actually say that the goal is to go from “global bellies” to “global minds”. To this end, a platform was developed that merge this ancestral capacity of food with the potential offered by the Internet, Web 2.0 and technologies and advanced solutions for social networking and for the dynamic acquisition and sharing of content. But Bread is a concept replicable on a global scale as well as adaptable to local needs and features, and the implementation referred to here is indeed adapted to the specific context of the city of Rome.