ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on cooking practices and distribution of food in two reception centres for refugees and asylum seekers in Rome, Italy, in the context of a phenomenon that affects several European cities: the flow of people fleeing conflicts in their homeland and crossing Balkan and Mediterranean routes to seek asylum. The first centre hosts a bottom-up and secular hospitality initiative named Baobab; the second centre hosts a soup kitchen known as Centro Astalli, a branch of international Jesuit Refugee Service. The chapter looks at the two case studies on different models of hospitality that are nonetheless comparable and reflects upon some humanitarian approaches on food donation and reception. Food as a symbol of humanitarian aid is at the core of Elisabeth Cullen Dunn’s research in the Tsimindatsqali camp for internal displaced people at outskirts of Gori in Georgia.
