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The Fish Knows Everything - Dinner, Film, Workshop

Speculative Gastronomy & Regenerative Menus

Join us for dinner! — © Gunda Schliep

In order to live, we must eat. Food is our most reliable source of pleasure and the cause of great demands on the natural world.

This project examines the lives of 4 more-than-human beings, and uses gastronomy as a tool for speculation on desirable futures, and reflection on the present crisis.

Four Beings & The Regenerative Menu

We delve into the stories of the nearly extinct European Eel, the invasive American Crayfish, the for-sportfishing-released European Catfish and the – nowadays extinct in the European rivers, but one of the most consumed fishes worldwide – European Salmon. We uncover their stories of looming extinction, obstruction, displacement, commodification and human desire, and the fisherfolk communities that share them. Here, gastronomy is used as a tool for speculation on desirable futures, and reflection on the present crisis.

The rethinking of our relationship with food should be rooted in a greater awareness of the past, present and future entanglements of the life systems it depends on. And on a curiosity for what we can learn from the sustainable cycles that thrived long before human dominance. What are the teachings from the beings around us and how can we become better listeners?

Join us for DINNER, a FILM or a WORKSHOP.

Through taste, touch, smell, and storytelling, we explore how eating can be a regenerative act that extends beyond our bodies and considers our relationship with all beings, ecosystems, and all the worlds within this world.

Regenerative Dinner & Film Program

Our examination of the 4 more than human beings will lead us to the dinner table. We serve our culinary interpretations of the stories of these 4 beings as a tasting menu, accompanied with a drink pairing.

Join us on:

Saturday October 19th at 18.30 to 21.00
Sunday October 20th at 18.30 to 21.00
Friday October 25th at 18.30 to 21.00
Saturday October 26th at 18.30 to 21.00

Tickets in link


We developed a curated film program accompanies our project. For multiple evenings, after the dinner event, we will host an independent filmmaker's work.

Saturday 19th

Title: To Speak on Behalf of the Living

A short film aiming to understand the last remaining fishermen of the Northern European rivers and wetlands as custodians of these ecosystems and their more-than-human inhabitants.

Sunday 20th

Title: My Want of You Partakes of Me

My Want of You Partakes of Me interrogates digestion as the fundamental condition for being in the world, a process of physiological, psychological, spiritual, literary and political dimensions.

Saturday 26th

Title: Ama-San

A dive, the midday sunlight filtering down through the water. The air in her lungs has to last until she can dislodge the abalone.

Storytelling Talk / Foraging Workshop

From foraging to fishing, come to speculate together on radical conviviality through our workshop program:

Sunday October 20th at 14.30 to 16.00

Our guest, the 76 year old Arie van Dalen, has spent his life in dialogue with the surrounding waters of Woudrichem. He holds multiple decades of tales of fish and their fishermen, as well as the political, economical and ecological turmoil the area has gone through.

While demonstrating the nearly forgotten craft of netknitting, he will share stories of human & more than human conviviality, skills and crafts of the household, man made ecological changes in the Delta area, and their effects on industry and sense of community. Spoken in Dutch only.

Thursday October 24th at 14.00 to 16.00

Riverine Foraging - Following seasonal changes in wild, feral, and domesticated flora along an industrialized body of water – a radical encounter.

In this excursion of ecological attunement, we will identify, pick, touch, taste, and smell various land offerings, reflecting on these marginal(ized) ecologies, along with a selection of foraging book archives.

With the herbs we gather during the walk, we will collectively brew tea at the end the event.

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About The _ Knows Everything

The _ Knows Everything is a speculative gastronomy project, online platform and community of culinary creatives, cultural practitioners and academic & artistic researchers. Together we explore food as a tool for speculation on desirable futures, and for reflection on the present crisis.

This chapter in the project is led by Katinka Versendaal, in collaboration with Miguel Teodoro, Shuang Xu, Joe Sartorius, Angie Diaz Benitez and Phood Farm.

Gunda Schliep

Gunda Schliep

Gunda Schliep

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