Cooking is also a form of architecture;
It is a production of space in movement,  gathers people, produces momentum experiences with ingredients that represent a specific frame of ecology .

Culinary Contact Zone

To respond to the lost of Açorda and regulated publicness , a possible entry point to intervene is to alter the practice of public spaces by building a shared cultural practices, particularly using Collective Cooking as a form of Contact zone (Pratt 1991). Like language and illustrations, cooking can be a social movement generated through daily ritual that combines space, knowledge, and social interaction.

In the current eco-political context, olive oil should not be viewed as a symbol of capitalised authority. Rather, olive oil plays a dual role: it is both a global commodity and a central element of culinary practices rooted in the land. This duality can be interpreted as a  counter-culture that challenges the existing asymmetrical socio-ecological power relations. Within this framework, collective cooking becomes a zone of encounter where marginalised groups redefine resource use, spatial practices, and adopting diverse culinary practices within exploitative structures.


(1) Forage (2) Community Kitchen (3) Bus stop 
Today, against the backdrop of rural socio-ecological and political imbalances, rural communities are experiencing significant seasonal population mobility. This adds instability, multicultural migration, racial discrimination, and spatial fragmentation to the already complex fabric of rural communities. To some extent, the public sphere, spatial practices, and land ownership in rural areas have reached a critical intersection, requiring a reexamination of their roles from a broader perspective.

Migrant workers, a fleeting population are the natural embodiment of multiculturalism, but because of their existence is controlled by capital, they have failed to integrate into the cultural and spatial fabric of the region. To address this surge of cultural transience, uncertainty and diversity must be recognise and weave into everyday spatial practices. Spaces associated with olive oil, as well as its culinary use, should be treated as contact zones—not static entities, but rather a culture that transcends time and space, cultivated through shared daily spaces.


The story of finding Açorda has finally comes to an end. Throughout the entire investigation, I did not expect the complexity of a tradition dish can unfolds. The story of Açorda is only one case among thousands diminishing rural traditions. It is easy to overlook the structural force behind a dish that encompassed from farming inequalities, social exclusion, hidden socio-ecological gaps to spatial reconfiguration. Above are only few perspectives to navigate existing inequalities and erasures of traditions from the viewpoints of tradition and space. Yet to actively resist the vicious cycle, action must emerge from our daily rituality and action.

Changing daily spatial practices alone is urgent but not enough; fundamental changes must be  addressed and enacted through the restructuring of agricultural and labour policies, which majorly influenced by the mast population consumption choices in everyday. The people who are struggle in the monoculture agrarian economy, whether they are remained rural populations or fleeting migrant workers,  did not initiate or benefit from these exploitative systems, yet they have long suffered proximately, and becoming passive contributors to this vicious cycle.

Alentejo is only one of the unequal Mediterranean agrarian regions, the ongoing oppression of labour, rural communities, and the extraction of resources are happening across the globe. Here, I would like to invite the readers to reexamine the power of food and rural spaces. As consumers, we should understand that the food we receive do not grow on supermarket shelves, but comes from a sophisticated, mechanical ecosystem. We should rethink our relationship with agrarian infrastructure and we must recognise that our everyday consumption choices have a profound impact on markets, land, people, and everyday policies.