This summer, I was walking towards the beach at Dunasziget, a small village near the Hungarian-Slovakian-Austrian border, next to the Danube. Like every proper beach in Hungary, there was a büfé—a small snack bar with the typical fast-food offerings. But what caught my eye wasn’t the food. In front of the snack bar was a long row of jars of kovászos uborka, fermented cucumbers—a common summer staple in many Hungarian households. The sight of those jars immediately took me back to my childhood, standing in our garden, watching my mom meticulously clean cucumbers with a dedicated brush before packing them into large jars with fresh dill, filling them with salty brine, and topping it all with a slice of bread. This was the start of a slow, deliberate process—the kind that takes days under the hot summer sun.

As I stood there, admiring those jars of cucumbers quietly soaking in the sun, my 8-year-old nephew zoomed past, demanding a bottle of Coca-Cola like it was the elixir of life. It struck me then: while I was contemplating slow fermentation, he was racing toward an instant sugar fix. Quite the culinary culture clash.

This moment reminded me of Lacan's theory of desire. Lacan, a French psychoanalyst, argued that human desire is never fully satisfied. It’s not about wanting something specific; it’s about wanting itself. Watching my nephew cry for his Coca-Cola, I realized that, like him, we often crave the chase more than the thing itself. He was convinced the sugary drink would satisfy him (and indeed, maybe it would), but Lacan would argue it’s the excitement of wanting that truly drives us.

Capitalism thrives on this chase, selling us products with the promise of fulfillment, only to keep us wanting more. Fermentation, on the other hand, asks us to wait, to slow down—something capitalism doesn’t particularly encourage. Unlike a Coke, fermentation isn’t fast or flashy; it’s slow, deliberate, and anti-capitalist by nature.

But as much as fermentation resists capitalist speed, Nancy Fraser’s critique shows us that capitalism devalues the invisible labor behind traditions like these. As I watch my mom—or the women at the büfé—tend to their jars of cucumbers, I see how this labor is essential for preserving culture. But since it doesn’t generate profit, it’s overlooked. Fraser calls this cultural misrecognition: the way traditions are ignored because they can’t be easily commodified.

For Fraser, justice isn’t just about recognizing cultural work, it’s about valuing the labor that sustains it. Watching my mom spend hours perfecting these cucumbers makes it clear this isn’t just a hobby; it’s labor—labor that doesn’t get a paycheck but keeps traditions alive. In making these cucumbers, I’m not just preserving food; I’m quietly resisting a system that devalues this kind of work.

In many ways, Fraser’s critique and Lacan’s analysis intersect. Capitalism exploits our endless desire for more, but it also overlooks the labor that doesn’t directly generate profit. Each time I follow my mom’s recipe, it feels like reclaiming something personal and cultural—stepping outside the capitalist drive for instant gratification.

I don’t expect fermented cucumbers to fulfill my desires—and yes, I still enjoy a cold Coca-Cola now and then. But these cucumbers were a good reminder of something deeper: the desire capitalism exploits can be resisted. In the slow, deliberate process of fermentation, I find not just a quiet defiance against consumerism but a recognition of the invisible labor that sustains traditions and communities. And in that slowness, there’s a quiet feminist revolution. Now, here’s my mom’s take on how to ferment desire—one cucumber at a time.

2 kg small cucumbers (approximately, depends on how tight you pack the jar)

1 tablespoon vinegar

3 tablespoons salt (for a 5-liter jar)

Peppercorns

1 bay leaf

Lukewarm water

Place a layer of fresh dill at the bottom of the jar.

Wash the cucumbers and make a few small cuts into each one.

Pack the cucumbers tightly into the jar.

Pour lukewarm salty water over the cucumbers until they’re fully submerged. Add the peppercorns and bay leaf, then place a slice of bread on top.

Loosely cover the jar and leave it in the sun for 3-4 days.

After 3-4 days, taste the cucumbers. Once they’re ready, strain the liquid, rinse each cucumber individually, place them in a new container with the strained brine, and refrigerate.

I started this little recipe research by looking through old photos to find a version of it that I made some years ago. I didn’t find it, but instead endless pictures of loved ones and memories, reminding me of change, transformation and time passing in a strange way. Food also works like a container for those memories. I cried over seeing the pictures and then decided to let it drip into a fresh 4x4 that I’d try before writing down the steps again and translating the recipe I got from my french aunt. 

My aunt's 4x4 is not really hers, but I associate it with her, Martine; as between my grandma, my mum and me, she did it best. My aunt died 11 years ago (it doesn’t feel like that long ago), way too early and through circumstances that still equally enrage and sadden me. Martine also was one of my queer ancestors that I never got to talk to about her queerness, cause it wasn’t something she could live in her lifetime. Anyway, this is what I think about when I bake her cake and it’s kinda soothing that the ingredients hold these precious thoughts in easily memorizeable measurements: 

150g sugar
3 eggs
150g flour (I have done it equally with wheat flour, spelt and could imagine buckwheat/corn/rice as well, but haven’t tried a gf version yet)
150g butter (same here, plant butter works)
1 teaspoon of baking powder
Optional: Apples, Pears or another fruit of choice 

→ Melt the butter and mix it with the sugar in a separate bowl
→ Add in the 3 eggs and whisk it
→ Add the flour and baking powder through a sieve (if you have patience, it makes a difference in smoothness)
→ Cut 2 apples into cubes and add it to the moist batter
→ Grease a square baking pan (mine on the pictures was slightly too long) and scatter flour on top for the cake not to stick
→ Bake for approx 45-50 minutes at 180° (check with a knife its not humid anymore)

While baking the cake I wrote text messages with my mum, whom I had asked to bake one as well. Unfortunately she couldn’t, as she was taking care of my grandma, but she googled the recipe out of curiosity and found one where the author tried to do the math. It doesn’t really matter but the funny thing is that the person was called „Florence“, that’s my birth name, too: 

1. (Florence) » Si on additionne quatre quarts, cela fait combien? »
2. (sourire du petit gourmand) « Un gâteau! Miam »
3. (Florence) « Euh, si tu ajoutes un quart à un quart, combien cela fait? »
4. (Mari) « Une pinte ! »

Bon Appétit <3 

Tofutopia 豆腐托邦 is a video installation by HE Shen 何珅, which explores tofu’s contemporary identity as a racialised and queer agent, connected both to its Taoist alchemical heritage and to Caséo-Sojaïne, a Parisian tofu factory influential in spreading anarchist ideas to China. A series of tofu workshops acts as a performative counterpart to Tofutopia, positioning the collective act of tofu-making as a practice filled with subversive resilience, pleasure, and mutual care. This collective action reclaims the tofu-making space as a site of decolonial queer resistance.

Tofu’s versatile taste and malleable texture evoke a queer materiality that willingly accepts new characteristics imparted by sauces, spices, heat, force, and water. Inspired by this transformative nature, the workshop intentionally sets no fixed narrative beyond the communal process of making tofu. It evolves uniquely with each session, adapting to the spaces it occupies and the dynamic interactions of its collaborators and participants.

This recipe was born from a tofu workshop in summer 2025,  as a collaborative encounter between Vanny, Daodao, and Shen. Our joint effort is rooted in intimate friendship and the growing momentum of an emerging Asian community in Switzerland. Simultaneously, the ongoing genocide in Gaza perpetrated by the Israeli settler-colonial regime—which has increasingly weaponised hunger—makes it especially urgent to revisit Caséo-Sojaïne’s vision of disseminating tofu-making skills as a means of nourishing communities suffering from malnutrition, hunger, and poverty.

Tofu’s revolutionary potential profoundly intersects with the Palestinian struggle and broader resistance movements opposing colonial violence in various communities and territories. The devastation in Gaza thus significantly informs Tofutopia, reinforcing its mission to foster decolonial solidarity across diverse communities and territories. Together, we will engage these interconnected threads, making tofu collectively, cultivating solidarity, and opening possibilities for creative work.

Soak the soy beans for 8 - 12 hours. Discard the water and pick out any impurities. In a large pot, combine the beans with fresh water. The ratio should be: dry beans to water 1:10.
Grind the beans with a mixer or blender for at least 3 minutes. Discard any foam that may appear during blending. Apply the draining cloth on top of a colander. Filter the mixture, and make sure there are no particles in the filtered liquid. 
Heat the filtered blend. Keep stirring while heating up, and discard the excessive foam. Once the liquid is boiling, turn the heat down and keep cooking for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and cool it briefly.
Prepare the electrolyte agent. Ratio reference for 100g dried beans: 10ml vinegar, 3g food grade gypsum, 2g food grade bittern, 2.5g gluconolactone (GDL). 
Add the electrolyte agent. For silk tofu, a special skill is required: mix the electrolyte with 50ml of warm water and place it in a thermally insulated container. 
Cool the soy milk to 85-90 °C, then pour it into the container with the electrolyte solution from 30 cm above. This allows the kinetic flow of the milk to mix well with the solution without stirring. 
Keep the container closed and insulated for 25 minutes. If there is no insulated container, use a big pot instead, and put it on very low heat for this step. For silk tofu, the procedure ends here. 
For pressed tofu, apply a piece of draining cloth to the formwork and then add the mixture. Wrap the mixture with the cloth and top it up with a flat lid. Apply weight to the lid and leave it for at least 1 hour. Overnight would be optimal.

begins with an everyday object that is often overlooked: Chinese‑made bamboo or wood chopsticks, packaged with a clear “recommended use” period of three months. 
These single‑use utensils come with a predetermined expiration — their death is sanctioned, normalized, and justified. This reveals a consumer logic around materials and time, as well as a disciplinary relationship between the body and nature in risk management.
I chose to apply Urushi — traditional Chinese lacquer that requires time, patience, technique, and precise humidity control — coating these chopsticks by hand, layer upon layer, over several months. This labor process is an act of companionship, care, and re‑animation. 
Linked through heart and hand, the lacquer’s natural anti‑mold properties also reshape the relationship between microbes, objects, and the body, transforming these “expired” disposable items into kin‑like objects that receive care.
This artwork explores how food, the body, objects, and ecology interweave in contemporary life. To me, what I eat, how I eat, and the vessels I use to eat are all decisions about identity, environment, and ethics. 
As The Material Kinship Reader suggests, 
kinship is no longer confined to 
human‑to‑human structures but becomes a coexistence among humans, materials, 
microbes, and labor.”

I don’t eat out or go for Thai food anywhere,
I was disappointed too many times before. 
They never come close to my mom’s . 
I know how she cooks, She fights with fire. 
Her kitchen is a battlefield and a dance floor at once. 
You better step out of her way when she shakes that wok. 
Her face so grim, 
so focused, I’ve always wondered 
why she barely has any wrinkles, even at sixty. 
Maybe it’s the steam. 
She must cook from memory, but I know 
it’s more than that. Her hands are guided 
by something deeper,  an instinct, a hunger 
to create, to experiment, to stay alive in taste.
She bridges lives. 
The one she was born into in Rayong,

and the one she carved out in Lindau. 
I used to stare at the strange mix in her restaurant: 
the heavy Bavarian wooden chairs, dark and carved, 
planted between delicate Thai silk cushions and gold paper ornaments, 
lacquered flower vases, sandstone elephants. 
It didn’t make sense to me as a kid. 
I wanted coherence, aesthetics.

She wanted home.
I observed spirit houses, 
their gabled roofs and intricate carvings   homes for energies, ancestors, the invisible. 
And maybe that’s what she was doing, too.
  Making a house for her spirits, 
  for her past and future to co-exist.

A place she could stand in fully.
South Germany didn’t give her that. Not at work, 
not in the streets, not in the way people looked at her food like they owned it. 
So she built her own resistance.
Decorated with dreams and remnants. 
Refused to assimilate completely, 
and refused to let go entirely. 
Her belonging was something 
she had to cook up herself, over years, like broth. 
Strong, subtle, impossible to fake.
Now I see her still driven. Still tired. 
Still trying to claim something for herself, 
not borrowed, not translated, 
not filtered through someone else’s taste. 
She longs for more than survival, meaning, 
a reason to be, not just a function. 
Her cooking isn’t nostalgia,  it’s a future 
she keeps imagining with every dish. 
A belonging 
she insists into existence, one plate at a time.

Fry the tofu in oil until golden on all sides, then let it drain for a few minutes before slicing.
Finely chop garlic and fresh chili. Slice white onions.
In a pan, sauté the garlic, chilli, and onions until fragrant.
Gently add the tofu slices to the pan.
Add oyster sauce, soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, and a little pepper. Add a splash of water to create a light sauce that coats the tofu evenly.
Let everything simmer briefly until the tofu absorbs the flavours.

silk tofu 500g
pea starch or corn starch 3 tbs 
chilli oil 3 tbs
soy sauce 3 tbs
oyster sauce 1 tbs
Thai chilli 1-3 pieces
Thai basil 1 bundle
celery 1 piece
spring onion 2 piece
garlic, minced or crushed 2 cloves
sichuan pepper, ground 1 tbs
lime 1 piece
pretzel sticks/other crisps 1 package
peanuts/ soybeans, deep fried 2 tbs
rice (optional) 2 bowls

Mince all the herbs. Cut the lime into wedges. Crush or mince the garlic. Grind the sichuan pepper. Add the starch to a small pot and mix with 400ml of water. Cook the mixture on medium heat while stirring constantly. When it starts to boil, lower the heat and cook for another minute. Add the silk tofu to the mixture. Let the tofu warm up on residual heat. 
Serve the tofu in a bowl, a tofu temple, or on top of a bowl of rice. Add the soy sauce, oyster sauce and the chili oil. Add all the herbs and spices. Add the pretzel sticks and peanuts. Add a splash of lime juice.

Unpeeled potatoes
Cook for 15-20 mins, peel and cut in cubes
Optional Fleischsalat or veggie cream
Pickled cucumbers, cut in small pieces
1-2 apples, peek and cut in small cubes 
Apple vinegar
Rap seed or vegetable oil
Salt, pepper, sugar
1 garlic clove 
Parsley fresh
Dill fresh
Chives fresh

A melhor receita que a minha avó me deixou foi a de aprender a fazer alguma coisa apenas por a observar. E, claro, a de fazer as coisas com alegria. E sempre acompanhada pela música da telefonia, quando não estava a falar com alguém que entrava pela cozinha adentro. Na casa dos meus avós sempre se entrou pela cozinha; sempre foi o sítio da casa onde passávamos mais tempo. E quando lá ia de visita, passava o dia na cozinha. Quando acordava, já havia três panelas ao lume ou uma carne pronta a ir ao forno. Há uns anos perguntei-me porque raio toda a gente tem receitas deixadas pelas avós e eu não. E fez-se luz: lembrei-me de que a minha avó Conceição era analfabeta; só sabia assinar com a primeira letra do nome.

Não me deixou receitas escritas mas lembro-me muito bem do paladar da sua canja, cheia de hortelã, feita com as galinhas que criava e que fazia questão de matar sempre que a íamos visitar a Idanha-a-Nova, para nos receber com a sua canja com ovinhos. Lembro-me também do estufado de borrego, do arroz-doce, do caldo verde e dos pastéis de massa tenra.

O que me ensinou foi a saber combinar sabores mais do que a medir quantidades. Ensinou-me a fazer mesmo as coisas, a pôr a mão na massa e a não ter medo de errar; a observar, a ir à horta buscar as coisas, a receber os outros e a ter prazer em cozinhar. 

Como estava sempre a pregar partidas, ensinou-me que a hortelã era urtiga, só para se rir quando eu me picava ao apanhar a planta errada.

Quando lhe tiraram a cozinha, deixou de falar e eu deixei de a ver. Quando morreu, em 2020, estas receitas e memórias voltaram a habitar em mim. Lembro-me de tudo.

Cooking and food are ordinary daily topics that might be understood as side subjects, as they were back in my home, in Brazil. When it comes to culture, memory, and research, these two become gateways to intimacy, sensibility, ritualistic practices, and politics. Food was one of the main channels through which I managed to bond with Cape Verdeans in the countryside area of Santiago Island. Located in the Central Atlantic, Cape Verde was exploited by the Portuguese up until 1975. The archipelagic history is ravaged by its arid climate, droughts, and the colonial poor management of the consequent famines. Food is political. And it is an important topic for the people, who’s attachment to their cuisine surpasses geographical boundaries, entering the memory realm in all corners of the vast Cape Verdean diaspora. 

During my last fieldwork, I was researching Cape Verdean traditional tales and finding storytellers in the rural areas was a difficult task: my references were either dead or had already forgotten the stories. Up until I met Abel. But this is not about him - or his tales - it is about his family and how, at first, food became a bridge between my experiences and theirs. My weekly visits to their household had started a few months before the catholic celebration that marks Lent’s beginning and, since then, the sole topic the three women residing in the house discussed with me was food. The lack of it, the taste of it, the proper way to prepare it. They were curious about how we made couscous in Brazil or with which ingredients we cooked feijoada. The kitchen was full of their secrets, their opinions on life, marriage, and their role as women. And it was the only space in which they recognized me as a woman too, for in the living room I quickly became the foreign researcher again. This came as no surprise: gender inequality is one the archipelago’s major problems and it took me sometime to get past the feminist questioning and look at these conversations as steps towards intimacy and sharing experiences.

We started cooking together whenever I visited their home and after a few shared bowls of xerém, they invited me to join their family celebration of Festa das Cinzas. The catholic liturgy indicates fasting as a rule, but in Santiago Island, the first to be occupied and colonized, Ash Wednesday became a day in which enslaved people got to eat more since the morgados¹ were fasting. There is a great deal of catholic influence in Cape Verdean cultural and institutional practices, but the contours of certain rituals tell the many different versions of a single story. In Ribeira Seca, the celebration starts at home, with the family, and after that, some people visit their neighbors, at least, it was what we did. My duty was to bring fish from the Sucupira market and help them cook xerém, cabbage, cassava, potatoes, coconut, couscous with honey, and dried fish to the relatives who were joining. The celebration actually starts way earlier than lunch,  in the market, where the ingredients are bought. The second act happens in the kitchen, when the food is prepared. I remember the women moving around quickly, and me being dreadful about taking the couscous out of the binde.² I was cautious and aware and at first I thought it was because of my role as a researcher, but coming to think of it, it was because of the intimacy of such a situation in which I had never taken part.

That experience was not new to me as a researcher, but it was completely new for me as a person. Ash Wednesday symbolism synthesizes our mortality, the finitude of the individual experience. But on that lunch, finitude was not the topic: the continuous adaptation of traditions and practices allows for the never ending creation of narratives, pasts and recipes. And community practices impact and shape individual memories, for they are ties of the same complex fabric of social experience. Memory draws from multiple senses and this photographic essay is an attempt to understand what changed for me that day, in that kitchen, now that the smell of the feast seems so distant.

Cape Verdean couscous translates some of the Atlantic transits that make up the country’s history. Very different from the North African one, this couscous is similar to a steamed cake - both in format and consumption. Cooked inside the binde, wolof word likely inherited from the senegalese enslaved people, its warm slices are a perfect match for butter, honey, or milk. Maize or yucca flour take the place of sorghum in this recipe and any flour is used to seal the binde.

Cape Verde was not the first place in which I tried this cake-styled couscous: in Brazil, the ceramic pot with small holes on the bottom is replaced by a pan named cuscuszeira and you can fill it and eat it with many different salty or sweet ingredients. For me, taking it out of the binde was one of those *life-changing wonder-hesitation moments* that can only happen while cooking, in which one is not sure if it will look as good as it smells; if it will hang in there or fall to pieces, if you are about to start it all over again.

Spoilers: you can use a plant pot with holes too; there are many diverse couscous recipes, this is the one I learned.

fine maize flour 

water 

pinch of salt 

sugar (to taste) 

cinnamon (to taste)

Start by slowly mixing the flour and the water inside a large bowl or recipient until it reaches a loosen and moist consistency: the consistency is your goal, not specific quantities; 

Add the sugar; the salt & the cinnamon; 

Mix it again.

Grease your binde (or plant pot) with butter and add your mixture inside. 

Meanwhile, boil water in a pot that matches your binde size - it will rest inside this pan, above the boiling water, but must never touch it. 

Mix water and any type of flour into a thick paste. 

Use this to seal the gaps between the binde and the pan so all steam is going up the top through its holes. Cover the top with a plate and wait for the steam to start coming out through its sides: your couscous is ready.

Re-ordered recollection of stories à table with my great-auntie, who grew up in Jamaica in the 30s and found her way to a canton in the Jura hills, and my mama, who left the island in the 80s and married an Italian-American.

They both begin their day with a slice of toast for breakfast.

When she comes to visit, I make her guava jelly. Very ripe guavas, enough water to cover the fruit. Boil until the guavas are tender and you thought to plant roses, but I won’t be around to help in the garden. Remember she would eat otaheite apples till she was sick, and her mama’s mama would mix the pickapeppa with the tinned corn beef to bring to the beach.

The traditional way of straining the guavas is to tie a muslin cloth to the legs of an upturned chair. The contents of the pot are poured into the muslin and the juice drips through and is caught by a bowl placed underneath it. 30 minutes pass, so I bring you peonies and then send her a picture of you with the peonies and an empty garden. Light the candles to save the apricots, she tells me. I’ll mourn your orchids in Geneva.

One cup of juice to one cup of sugar. One lime for every 3 cups of liquid. Or so they say. She sewed her wedding dress from a tablecloth and her daddy counted all the sugar that left Jamaica on an abacus. Return the mixture to the pan and boil vigorously, stirring occasionally, until small bubbles begin to appear. Let it cool slightly, then pour into jars. Often, accidentally, I will make enough for one jar of guava jelly to match the silk tacked to the edges of the window frame, red orange shadow to make you look sunburnt in the early morning.

Serve with bread, double toasted. Butter on the side. Pairs well with black tea and milk, or ginger tea.

Adaptation of page 196, Traditional Jamaican Cookery by Norma Benghiat

Cut the ginger, boil in water for a long time. Let cool and settle.

Option to water down depending on how spicy and sweeten to taste.

We sit outside the doctor's office and put our lipstick on, clip our hair. Listen to the blood pass; make a new artery by walking.

Still image. You table me.

Pewter plate, mother of pearl spoon.

You wash my hair in the sink,

Blow dry the letter’s ink.

Khus Khus on the counter.

Hardo toast buttered to remember the

feeling of her mother’s affection.

Forgive me it was delicious

To eat in bed.

Toast the panettone

In a cast iron pan.

Heat the beef patty.

Place the patty on top of the panettone,

Eat together.

Where did you come from?

How did you arrive?

How will you begin?

These Americans, they’re really weird. How can they eat mustard like that. It must have gotten lost in translation somewhere between Patwa (abandoned) and Italian (acquired through unknown means).