A few years ago, kids from poor areas in France were asked to

Host: The afternoon light fell lazily across the small Parisian café, spilling gold onto the worn marble tables and the curling edges of newspapers abandoned by the lunch crowd. Outside, the streets hummed with the rhythm of life — the rattle of bicycles, the murmur of voices, the distant bark of a street vendor calling out his last baguettes.

Inside, steam rose from two untouched cups of coffee. Jack sat by the window, his grey eyes following the motion of children playing in the alley — two chasing a deflated soccer ball, another licking at a cheap ice cream. Jeeny sat opposite, her dark hair pulled back, her gaze steady but full of quiet worry.

Host: Between them lay an open newspaper, the headline bold and simple: “Joel Robuchon: Children No Longer Know What Food Is.”

Jack: (gruffly) “You read this?”

Jeeny: “I did.”

Jack: (leans back, crossing his arms) “Kids drawing drumsticks instead of chickens. Fish sticks instead of fish. Sounds like a cliché — another story people share on social media and forget by dinner time.”

Jeeny: “It’s not a cliché. It’s a mirror.”

Host: A long silence hung between them. The smell of coffee mixed with the faint scent of butter and baked bread drifting from the kitchen. The café felt like a pocket of nostalgia — a world still clinging to what food once meant.

Jeeny: “You know what’s sad, Jack? It’s not just about food. It’s about connection. Those kids don’t just not know what a chicken looks like — they don’t know where life comes from anymore.”

Jack: “They know where food comes from — the store. The freezer. The world’s changed. Efficiency isn’t evil.”

Jeeny: (sharply) “Efficiency is not evil, but ignorance is.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice trembled slightly — not from anger, but from sorrow. She stirred her coffee, the spoon clinking against porcelain like a clock marking the loss of something precious.

Jeeny: “When a child thinks a fish is a rectangle of breaded paste, we’ve failed somewhere. It’s not just nutrition — it’s imagination, curiosity, empathy. They can’t appreciate life if they don’t know what it looks like before it’s packaged.”

Jack: (smirks faintly) “So, what — you want to take every kid to a farm, have them pluck chickens and gut fish? That’ll traumatize them more than teach them.”

Jeeny: “You always jump to extremes, Jack. I’m talking about education. Real, tactile understanding. The kind that makes people respect what they consume.”

Host: The light shifted, throwing long shadows across their faces. A child’s laughter outside broke into a cough — thin, dry, weary. Jeeny looked toward the window.

Jeeny: “Do you see them? They’re playing with a plastic bottle for a ball. You think they’ll grow up knowing what a field smells like after rain? What it feels like to dig for potatoes with your hands?”

Jack: (sighs) “You talk like it’s the 19th century. The world isn’t rural anymore, Jeeny. Kids grow up in cities. Their reality is concrete, not soil.”

Jeeny: “Reality isn’t the same as destiny. We shape what reality becomes.”

Host: Jack’s eyes narrowed, his fingers tapping against the table in quiet rhythm. His tone softened, but his skepticism stayed.

Jack: “Let’s say you’re right. What’s your plan? Teach every child to garden while their parents are working double shifts to survive? You can’t romanticize nature when people are hungry. They’ll take whatever’s cheap.”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly the point. They’re hungry, but what they eat doesn’t feed them. We’ve turned survival into consumption — not nourishment.”

Jack: “You sound like one of those organic evangelists who sell ten-dollar apples to prove a point.”

Jeeny: “No. I’m talking about dignity, Jack. The dignity of knowing what you’re putting in your body. The dignity of flavor, of time, of care.”

Host: The café’s door opened, and a gust of cold air swept in, carrying the faint scent of rain and diesel. The waiter, an older man with kind eyes, placed a fresh croissant between them, still warm, the butter glistening.

Jeeny: “Taste that.”

Jack: “What for?”

Jeeny: “Just taste it.”

Host: Jack hesitated, then tore a small piece. The crust flaked, the inside soft, the aroma rich and familiar. He chewed in silence.

Jeeny: “Do you know how many hands touched that before it reached you? The farmer who grew the wheat. The miller. The baker who woke up at four in the morning. All that work, just so we can sit here and call it breakfast. That’s what we’re forgetting, Jack — the story in every bite.”

Jack: “You talk like food’s a religion.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it should be. Maybe reverence is what we’re missing.”

Host: Her words hung in the air — heavy, beautiful, and undeniably true. Jack’s gaze softened, following the slow spiral of steam rising from the croissant like a prayer.

Jack: “You think a kid can learn that kind of reverence from school lunches and fast-food commercials?”

Jeeny: “No. But they can learn it from someone who still remembers. From parents, teachers, neighbors. From anyone who still believes food is life, not just fuel.”

Host: Outside, the sky darkened, and the first drops of rain began to fall. The sound was soft, rhythmic, cleansing.

Jack: “So it’s about education — not just of the mouth, but of the soul.”

Jeeny: (smiles faintly) “Exactly.”

Jack: “But you know what’s ironic? You can’t teach appreciation to someone who’s starving. Kids in poor neighborhoods — they don’t draw drumsticks because they’re stupid. They draw them because that’s all they’ve seen.”

Jeeny: “And that’s why we must show them more. Real food, real taste, real joy. Robuchon wasn’t just talking about flavor — he was talking about identity. About giving children back a sense of origin.”

Jack: “You think a carrot can fix inequality?”

Jeeny: “Not the carrot. The knowledge of where it comes from.”

Host: The rain deepened, streaking the windows with silver. Jack leaned forward, elbows on the table, his expression pensive.

Jack: “Maybe that’s what civilization does — replaces experience with convenience. Every generation loses a piece of its roots, one microwave at a time.”

Jeeny: “And yet, every generation also has the power to remember.”

Host: She reached out, breaking another piece of the croissant, placing it in his hand — a small gesture, almost sacred.

Jeeny: “Food isn’t just sustenance, Jack. It’s memory. It’s heritage. It’s the language of love and survival. When a child can’t recognize what feeds them, they lose more than nutrition — they lose belonging.”

Jack: (quietly) “And maybe that’s why everything feels so hollow now. We eat, but we don’t taste. We live, but we don’t connect.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The rain slowed, turning into a soft drizzle. The children outside had vanished, their laughter replaced by the whisper of water flowing through the gutters.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, my grandmother used to make soup from bones. She’d simmer it for hours, whispering stories about the war, about rationing. I didn’t understand it then. I thought she was just being old-fashioned.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I think she was teaching me something — patience, maybe. Respect.”

Host: Jeeny smiled — not in triumph, but in quiet understanding. The world outside seemed to slow, as though time itself leaned closer to listen.

Jeeny: “Then you already know what Robuchon meant.”

Jack: “Maybe I do.”

Host: The light faded into evening. The café grew quieter, the rain-slicked street glowing beneath lamps that hummed like gentle memory. Jeeny took one last sip of her coffee; Jack finished the last of the croissant.

Between them, on the table, lay crumbs — small, golden remnants of what once was whole.

Host: And in those crumbs, in that fragile silence, lingered the truth: that progress without awareness is poverty of the spirit — and to teach a child the taste of real food is to remind them what it means to be truly alive.