How can we re-establish a connection with the process of transforming plants into human food? How can we consider a specific food not only for its health benefits but also for its effects on the surrounding bioregion? How can seasonal growing cycles be expressed in a publication?

As a response to critical conditions – climate change, the global food industry, overconsumption of meat, and a crisis in grain supplies because of the war in Ukraine – Robida is trying to find the tools to raise awareness of the food cycle, from landscape to plate.Simultaneously, the group is trying to stimulate local production and consumption in two different contexts: at Ljubljana’s Krater and at their home in Topolò. The focus is on buckwheat (Slovene: ajda), a pseudograin with a key role in Slovenian cuisine and culture.

Robida gathers and shares knowledge that evokes the Slovenian Alps and the region’s resources through the embodied practices of cooking, eating, smelling, making and storytelling related to the whole cycle of buckwheat’s life. Buckwheat can be seen as a super vernacular plant, not only as a rediscovered traditional food, but as a crop capable of facing contemporary environmental issues. It can survive in difficult conditions and poor soils as well as have a positive effect on human health and the environment.