Food Under Fire Highlights Shared Humanity

Summary

Journalist Erin Lyall discusses her blog 'Food Under Fire', which uses meals shared in conflict zones to highlight resilience, hospitality and everyday humanity beyond the battlefield.

• Lyall launched the blog after covering Ukraine's 2014 Maidan revolution, where she saw protesters sustained by homemade soup and boiled eggs.
• She recounts generous hospitality in Gaza, including a watermelon farm meal with salty cheese, mint and fresh bread.
• In liberated Kherson, a couple hosted her with homemade 'lady wine,' pasta, pickled vegetables and pork fat toasts.
• Lyall says readers connect more personally to food stories than to standard war reports, as they can imagine themselves in those situations.
• She observes that people in the poorest, most destitute places are often the most generous and first to invite strangers into their homes.