“Food may not be the answer to world peace, but it’s a start.”
– Anthony Bourdain

It was a warm, pleasant December morning. Ron and Manvi (names changed on request), our guests, were just back from the sunrise canoe cruise. As we waited for the breakfast to arrive, our conversations drifted to current affairs and geopolitics. The talks were getting heavy on us and the pleasant breezes around the coconut fronds could do nothing to ease our frowning faces. Just then, Goutam served the Puttu, warm and fresh from the cylindrical Puttu maker and Jes joined us with another plate of crispy dosas and coconut chutney. Almost instantly, the air became infused with the sweet aroma of food and that broke all the heaviness that hung around with the previous conversations. 

When you sit together sharing food across a table, the cutleries clink, the warm scent of the spices waft around the air above, and you open and warm up to the people around you as you start eating together. As you eat together, the shared meal powerfully and quietly connects countries, nationalities, religions and cultures. New relationships are made, old differences are mended. 

At our WonderWerk Kitchen, we’ve seen this happening over and over again. All differences started melting when we served freshly made fried Mackarels, piping hot Kerala Chicken Curry along with Kerala Matta Rice. We hope this is the same everywhere, food arrives as a peace agent resolving all the differences. 

Food is a universal language like music

We don’t need to speak the same language to enjoy good food together. The same happens when we listen to music in a language that is not our own. We drift away to a magical world with the flavors and melodies. At our dinner table, we have experienced that while hosting travelers from the different parts of the world, they have warmed up to each other over the common meal we served on the table. 

A traveler from Denmark once told us, with shining eyes and duck mappas on her spoon, “This tastes like something my grandmother would make with our locally raised chicken. Not the same, but the same feeling. It feels like home.”

That’s what food does. Food feels like home, sweet memories of childhood and comfort. This feeling burns down the distances whatsoever. 

Around Our Tables, Borders Fade

When guests dine with us at WonderWerk Kitchen, it's never just a meal—it's an exchange. Between every bite of puttu, beef fries and daal, stories flow. Some share tales of lost recipes. Others remember flavors from childhood. Some simply pause, savor, and smile.

In these moments, age, nationality, profession—none of it matters. What remains is the universality of taste and togetherness.

One evening, we watched a heartwarming scene unfold—a quiet conversation between a local fisherman and a guest from overseas. The language barrier was real, but so was the connection. Over pickled mangoes and tales from the toddy shop, they laughed, mimed, tasted, and nodded in understanding. The joy wasn’t in the translation—it was in the shared moment.

Because at WonderWerk Kitchen, food becomes more than sustenance.
It becomes a bridge—across oceans, across generations, across differences.

Cooking as an Act of Peace

If food brings peace, we might extend ourselves to say that the art of cooking fosters that peace and makes it long standing.

We have an open kitchen here. Sometimes, our guests join us in collecting the ingredients, vegetables,fishes and meats from the local market, we grind the spices together in our traditional stone mortar and pestle, grate the coconuts manually in our traditional coconut grater or stir in the marinated fishes, they not only learn about Kerala’s traditional cooking methods, but also about the feeling of cooking together, sharing stories, empathy, patience and care. 

In Kerala, cooking is slow and soulful. Meals aren’t rushed—they unfold gently, with time, care, and intention. Every ingredient holds meaning, often freshly picked from a backyard garden or sourced from a trusted neighbour or sourced from the farmers’ market. When it comes to collecting fish, they travel with us to meet the fisherfolk, who spend their days working hard, skillfully casting their nets. Techniques are passed down through generations, shared like heirlooms—spoken of with pride, practiced with love and treasured like valuable generational knowledge. 

When people come together to cook, it’s more than just preparing food. They listen to one another—really listen. Stories are exchanged over spice blends, and silences are filled with the rhythm of chopping, stirring, and tasting. In those moments of togetherness, guests begin to truly understand the local ways—the connection to the land, the rhythms of daily life, the essence of community, and the deep cultural identity woven into every dish.

That’s where peace begins.

A Bigger Table, A Kinder World

When the table grows larger, when more people join the meal, and when food is shared more widely, boundaries begin to fade—softened by smiles and endless conversations about life and daily chores and about growing children, the kind that feel universally familiar. Just like the humble backyard kitchen gardens found in homes across the world.

What if we treated conversations like communal meals?
What if diplomacy had more shared breakfasts and fewer boardrooms?
What if we taught our children that understanding another person’s palate is the first step to understanding their past?

Food can’t fix the world. But it can slowly heal us—one meal at a time. 

We get reminded of life’s quiet magic every time someone lingers a little longer at Wonder Werk Kitchen—sipping their chai, sharing one last story, laughing with someone who was a stranger just an hour ago.

Here in Kerala, with the backwaters murmuring just beyond our doors and the comforting sound of crackling of spices in a cast iron wok, peace doesn’t feel far away.

It feels like now.
It feels like the warmth between bites.
It feels like the next shared meal.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s where something beautiful begins.