The most important political building of our time has no flag.

It has a kitchen. A counter. A few tables that get pushed together in the evening because more people came than expected.

The churches are emptying. In Switzerland, in Germany, everywhere in the West. That is not an opinion, it is a census. But only those who leave are counted, not what disappears with them. Not the faith, but the gathering. The rhythm. The feeling that not every day is the same, because you go somewhere and belong somewhere.

Clubs and associations are dying out. Parties are losing members, at least where anyone still counts. The digital public sphere promises connection and delivers noise.

The secular world considers itself enlightened. It has left the church and failed to notice that it has entered another one. Faith in science, in progress, in consumption: these are not neutral attitudes, they are creeds. And whoever deviates from them is no longer brought before the Inquisition. He is torn to pieces on Twitter. The form has changed, the logic has not: confession, judgement, punishment.

What remains is older than all of that. Older than the church, older than the state, older than any dogma: people eating together. Looking each other in the eye as they do. Having time, or taking it.

Gastrosophy is not foodie culture, not Michelin tourism. It is the question of what arises when people sit together at a table. And why that is not a matter of course.

The world is not in calm waters right now. Not geopolitically, not socially. Institutions that were taken for granted work worse or no longer at all. People are becoming more distrustful, quicker to anger, harder to reach. That is not a mood, it is a direction.

The table is no answer to all of that. But it is a place where you slow down. Where you sit across from one another. Where strangers become, at least for a while, table companions.

That is what this is about: gastrosophy. The table as the place where society is not explained but practised again.

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