photo: Manfred Weber.
Have you ever experienced this? You’re standing in front of a packed buffet at the company Christmas party and you’re just about to start feasting when you think: wait a minute, where are the vegan and gluten-free dishes? Sometimes you’re lucky and find at least a selection of, well, one dish. But often there are simply no dishes that meet one or the other criterion – let alone both. Eating then becomes an exclusive and, let’s face it, exceedingly monotonous affair.
Anna and Sophie from Berlin want to change that with their new Catering Gaumenrausch. The concept is simple and revolutionary at the same time: inclusive “Easy Eating”. Food that can be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of whether they have an intolerance or have committed themselves to a vegan lifestyle. Their catering is designed to prove that responding to all needs and intolerances in food preparation means diversity. And in doing so, Anna and Sophie also break directly with the old prejudice that vegan and gluten-free diets are synonymous with a deficiency, a “less”. Because the problem lies not with the vegan or gluten-intolerant folks, but in the assumption that it is sufficient to dispatch them at said Christmas parties, birthday celebrations, weddings or get-togethers with just one dish. Food – like our society – should be fun, colorful, and, above all, “the same delicious taste experience” for everyone, as the two gourmets put it.
And their inclusive concept is not just limited to food. At the queer Christmas market in Berlin-Schöneberg, the founders are selling non-binary gingerbread as well as a whole host of delicious sweets – and are finally liberating the gingerbread fans out there from the classic “gingerbread man”. With their philosophy, the two want to bring everyone to the table. And that’s still not all. Sophie and Anna have set themselves high goals. In addition to their mission to be a kitchen of inclusive and simple enjoyment, sustainability, regional and seasonal produce are on their agenda, too. In this way, they are not only in tune with the zeitgeist but also exactly the kind of catering our planet needs. And that we have simply been missing in the catering landscape for far too long. So it’s good that the two of them are determined to make our taste buds happy with a wide range of tastes.
Both of them met at a time, by the way, when they were both still working in completely different professions. And then? Then “it was love at first sight,” Sophie says with a laugh. Since then, the two have shared an intimate friendship and an even more intimate, shared love of pigs (they both have the same cuddly pig), which enriches their work together enormously. What do both find distinctive about the other? Sophie simply makes everything that can be homemade, indeed, herself. And Anna brings a cake to every opportunity that presents itself. Could it be any more likable? Let alone more delicious?
photo: Manfred Weber
Anna and Sophie’s story is sympathetic, inspiring, and packed with ingredients for an inclusive taste experience. Best of all, it’s a story that – thank the pigs – has only just begun. All that remains for me to say is: open your mouth Berlin, get your taste buds ready!
P.S. If you like Sophie and Anna as much as iHeartBerlin, you can support them directly here. And if you want to follow their story, subscribe here.
