What does it feel like when no one feels the same?

Why shared emotion remains essential to building cultures (and tables) that endure.

This month I went home.

Returning to Buenos Aires always feels like turning the volume up on life. Every ticket works like the half-time break of a final match: not the main event, but essential if the game is to continue. And in this place that contrasts so sharply with my present in Berlin, something I did not expect appeared: perspective.

In my city, eating is still a social act before it is a conceptual experience. The table is not a neutral backdrop; it is a space where important things happen. People argue, negotiate, remember. A dish can be well or poorly plated, but if it does not generate conversation, it loses its meaning.

I was coming from a frozen, grey Berlin. November, they say, is one of the hardest months, when the shift in weather and the early darkness begin to weigh on people. But when I arrived in Buenos Aires, everything became more present: the body, laughter, conflict, desire. And inevitably, coming from a routine in which I barely spend time cooking anything special, food took centre stage again.

The idea became even clearer when I passed through Rio de Janeiro halfway through the trip. There, food blends with the climate, the music, the movement. Nothing is entirely under control, and that is precisely why it works.

They are two different cultures, but both Latin American. I do not think it is a coincidence that in neither of them does gastronomy need to justify itself. It does not ask for permission or over-explain itself. It exists as a natural extension of life—así nomás.

And then I returned to Berlin.

A city made of layers: of languages crossing at the same table, of accents coexisting without fully merging, of stories that arrived at different times and for completely different reasons. A place where sharing a language with your neighbour already feels like good luck.

Berlin is a deeply immigrant city, and living here means, almost without noticing, carrying your identity as permanent luggage. Everyone arrives with their memories, their rituals, their flavours, their silences. And all of them are different.

This is, at once, the most fascinating and the most challenging thing about the city.

When no one shares the same origin, emotion is not fully shared either. There is respect, there is curiosity, there is exchange, but often something more difficult to build is missing: a common memory. The kind that does not need explaining or translating, the kind that is simply understood. The one that makes a gesture, a flavour, or a way of sitting at the table mean the same thing to everyone.

In cities like Buenos Aires or Rio, much of culture rests on shared experiences. Not because everyone thinks alike, but because they feel from a similar place. There are common references, repeated stories, inherited emotions. And this creates a collective emotional ground on which society leans, argues, and moves forward.

In Berlin, that ground is constantly under construction.

Here, many of us are trying to rebuild identity while remaining in motion. We cook inherited recipes in borrowed kitchens. We celebrate traditions far from those who taught them to us. We adapt customs so they fit into a new life. And in that process, food reappears as one of the few languages capable of connecting what does not share a common history.

But connecting does not always mean balancing.

Every dish carries a different nostalgia. Every table gathers memories that do not overlap. And perhaps that is why, at times, gastronomy in a city like Berlin becomes more conceptual than emotional: because when there is no shared feeling, meaning is built from the idea, from the framework, from form.

This is not a negative thing. It is a logical consequence of living in a city where everyone is building something from scratch.

Seen from another angle, it is also an opportunity. An opportunity to put more of ourselves forward. To soften the narrative less. To accept that emotion is not always universal, but it is contagious. That sharing a personal story, even if not everyone fully understands it, can create something deeper than a perfectly designed experience.

Living between cultures has taught me that identity is not lost; it transforms. And that memories do not disappear: they filter through. In how we eat, in how we welcome others, in the place we give the table within our lives.

Perhaps Berlin does not need a single identity, nor a homogeneous emotion. Perhaps its strength lies precisely in that accumulation of nostalgias, in that imperfect collage of stories. But for it to work, more than coexistence is required: it requires encounter.

Here’s to a great 2026 for all my readers.
Thank you for trusting this process.

Abi