Manger Mieux Demain: reconnecting with the source of our food

This Sunday, 4 October, the Entropy team took part in Manger Mieux Demain, hosted at Hors-Champs in Ernage-Gembloux.

After the summer we have just experienced, it was difficult to imagine an event whose name could resonate more strongly with us.

Eating better tomorrow.

Behind these three simple words lies a much bigger question: how can we continue to enjoy food while taking better care of our soils, the people who produce what we eat, our health and the resources available to us?

For us, part of the answer starts somewhere simple: reconnecting with the source of our food.

Meeting the people who produce our food

Since the beginning of Entropy, our cooking has rarely started with a recipe.

It starts with an ingredient, a season, a conversation with a producer. With what is growing here and now, followed by a simple question: what can we create with it?

Taking part in Manger Mieux Demain meant rediscovering this philosophy on a larger scale.

Discovering what is produced locally. Meeting farmers, producers, artisans, chefs and other people shaping our food system. Tasting, asking questions, learning and better understanding everything that happens before an ingredient reaches our plate.

Because eating better tomorrow also means rebuilding the connection between those who grow, those who transform, those who cook and those who eat.

Learning by doing

Manger Mieux Demain is also about workshops, demonstrations, tastings and know-how that encourage us to get hands-on with our food again.

At Entropy, we believe the food transition cannot happen through speeches and instructions alone.

We need opportunities to taste, experiment, cook, ferment, preserve, understand the seasons, discover new ingredients and learn to use what we already have differently.

This is also what we aim to share through our projects: helping everyone become a little more curious, but also a little more autonomous when it comes to food.

Plant-based food as a space for creativity

Our team was also there to share what has been our playground for several years: mainly plant-based, local and seasonal cuisine.

Vegetables, grains, pulses, seeds, fruits, herbs, fermentation… When we allow ourselves to change perspective, constraints can become an extraordinary source of creativity.

Eating better should never mean giving up pleasure.

Quite the opposite. Working with the seasons, making fuller use of each ingredient, reducing food waste or discovering new techniques can open up an entire world of flavours that we may simply have forgotten to explore.

Eating better tomorrow is something we build together

That is probably the most important thing we take away from this edition.

The transformation of our food system will not come from one restaurant, one producer, one association or one consumer acting alone.

It grows through connections between all of them.

From people willing to share their knowledge. From producers who continue to protect their land and expertise. From chefs who learn to work differently. From companies, associations and citizens choosing to support alternative models.

And from events such as Manger Mieux Demain, which simply create the space for all these people to meet.

Entropy Restaurant has evolved, but this mission remains unchanged: to cook, share knowledge, experiment and contribute, at our own scale, to building a more sustainable, resilient and human food system.

Thank you to everyone we met around a dish, a workshop, an ingredient or simply a conversation.

Because before searching far away for solutions to eat better tomorrow, perhaps we should start by looking again at what is grown, transformed and passed on right around us.