Franziska Heberle has always believed that thinking and cooking on such a small scale as “just for yourself” is simply not an option. Nevertheless, the midday knock on her front door comes unexpectedly, unbidden and inconveniently. It is her neighbour. And then comes another. It’s enough and yet it is not enough. For suddenly, the inconvenient feels completely right and above all there is room to scale up. But how on earth can that work? A lunch for many; here in the rural and expansive Alpine upland where remote farms and isolation have penetrated deep into the mindsets over the generations? And it doesn’t suit everyone when something changes. Women from three generations are needed: Franzi, Esma and Sabina. Not all of them are “from here” but they are cut from the same cloth. It takes Ben, who doesn’t say much but when he does it is in many languages; it takes Fidel Endres, an ancestor, who left behind something of vital importance, and it takes a half-empty tub of Alpine salt in an abandoned inn kitchen, which shows that spicing up your life is not a question of time.
On the 84 vital minerals and the age old question of when a meal becomes a banquet, when a lunch becomes a feast and how “alone” and “friendship zone” actually rhyme.
