Abstract
Today’s attention paid to food, related to the challenges to sustainability of its production and to the large numbers of humans, must not relegate its spiritual features into a corner. Lettre aux paysans sur la pauvreté et la paix (1938) of the Occcitan writer Jean Giono is not a praise of poverty but the praise of a modest measure, linked to the dramatic situation of that time but generally valid. The Lettre is now a classic. We present it starting from the recipe of a vegetable soup, humble fulcrum of the author’s message meant to announce the reform of the rural world. The topic of the letter has an arrival point with L’homme qui plantait des arbres, written by Giono in 1953 and published in 1980, gaining a success ever renewed; the Italian translation, L’uomo che piantava gli alberi obtained a similar success. There is not mention of the food but its environmental premises perform a protagonist role.
