The kitchen is a place for confidences, for conversation. Often in the intimacy of
this space, in front of an appetising dish, or over a
cup of tea, we say things that in the rush get pushed into
the background. How often does that happen, right? Well, starting from
the kitchen, we asked Moni Ovadia to tell us a little about
himself…

Your latest book "Il conto dell'ultima cena" is a kind of
journey in search of an ethics of food. How did that inspiration come about?

The theme of non-violent eating and above all of
respect for living beings and for nature has involved me for
a long time now, since I became aware of how much
brutality there is in intensive farming and in abattoirs generally,
but also in our relationship with nature at large; we
have violently brutalised this Planet and we continue to violate it.
To be honest, this is not a book I had in mind to write — it was Gianni Di Santo who proposed
a collaboration. And so I said, well yes, why not,
that way I can put forward my vegetarian case, but
not only that — a reflection on conscious eating, on a
different relationship between us, animals and nature. Animals are
our travelling companions on this planet, they are living beings,
they suffer beyond our capacity to
understand — far more than we think. So nourishing ourselves by
inducing atrocities and suffering is truly a grave
perversion that leads us to pervert ourselves and is
turned against ourselves. I placed right at the front of the book the epigraph by
Einstein, which says that the only possibility we have of
living in peace on this planet is to move towards a vegetarian
diet — and this is someone who knew a thing or two about it. The book
is a little volume that also ranges across the paradoxes
of eating in the Jewish world, particularly in Jewish ethics,
and therefore includes humorous touches and personal forays
into the food culture history of my family
and the world I come from.

In the book you say you are not a good cook, but that you
appreciate the flavours and pleasures of good food. What is your
favourite dish?

Oh, that's a hard one… A favourite dish… I'd be doing
other dishes an injustice if I named just one! There are many things I
love, very many. I'm not a good cook — I'm an absolute disaster,
truly! In fact I had kitchen aprons made, one for
my wife and one for me. Mine says "Moni, king of
boiled eggs" and for my wife I wrote "Just the top" —
Elisa is simply the best; my wife is an extraordinary
cook, also because she is capable of
putting together a lunch at the speed of Superman and it is
always exquisite, light and wonderful. Favourite dish? No,
but I can say that I have an almost morbid fondness — said with a touch of humour — for sweets.

You said earlier that you are vegetarian. Is it
first and foremost an ethical choice?

Ethical and dietary. I am profoundly convinced that it is
an immensely healthier way of eating. I can tell you that
Professor Veronesi — I believe he is also vegetarian — told me:
"It's the best thing you've done for your health," and
once again we're talking about someone who knows what he's talking about.

What is your relationship with books, and what does reading mean to you?

I am Jewish, I come from the people of the book. A book changes
life. A book determines, a book opens up entire universes — not
one, but many: human, ethical universes. It opens abysses. A book
can also have negative, incendiary results — it's not only positive;
if we think of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and what it unleashed. Having a relationship with books creates in a person
awareness, inner richness. Of course there are books and
books. There are books that are not really books; there are great
books, and then books that are pleasant, enjoyable, intelligent,
witty. I do not consider myself a writer — I consider myself someone who
writes, which is a different thing. Books have shaped the
ages of human history; the Bible, the Gospel and the
Quran are proof of that. So what does a book do? It completely changes
spaces, times and ways.

What do you do in your everyday life to respect
the Earth and the environment?

I try to adhere to everything that is
possible. First of all, I try to participate every day through every
kind of expression of thought, beyond mere gestures. We have
a waste sorting scheme available to us. I do it even
if I know it may count for little in the moment I'm doing it,
because you have to start somewhere. I try to
be very meticulous, I try to do nothing that devastates the
planet, to pollute in no way and under no circumstances, I do
everything I can even in my small
daily life. But I am also engaged in constant battles —
for example, the most significant thing I am doing right
now is defending public water, that is,
the universal right to water and ensuring that water is not
privatised, because these are processes that devastate
the very idea of nature. Thinking that natural resources
are private property — resources like water, like air,
like forests — is already a grave attack on the health
of nature, because when the logic of profit takes over,
everything is devastated. I fight constantly and continuously against
this disastrous logic of wanting to subject even
natural resources as precious as water to the drive for profit.