
I grew up in a small town in eastern North Carolina.

Most people I knew had never left the state, only spoke English, were white middle class, and attended a Christian church.

At home, we ate a predictable set of meals – tacos with flour tortillas and a seasoning mix from the grocery store. An oven-baked chicken and rice dish. Pork and potatoes. Spaghetti with jarred sauce and powdered parmesan cheese.

That was my world. It was familiar and comfortable. Everything else out there was simply something on TV or in a book.

All of that changed when I left North Carolina for New York at 22. Then London. Then Washington, DC. Over the past 15 years, I have been so incredibly lucky to have visited many different countries.

I've eaten absolutely delicious khinkali in Georgia, rich gamjatang with bokkeumbap in Korea, and fantastic pide in Turkey.

Traveling has taught me many lessons. Three feel most important: The world is much bigger and more wonderful than I imagined as a child. All people everywhere are far more similar than they are different. And I was wrong about food.

Before I traveled, I thought food was simply energy. Nutrition. Utility. Fuel.

I was so ignorant.

Food is everything.

Bourdain said it best – "It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get-go."

He is absolutely right. Food is who we are.

There is no way we can truly understand one another, no way we can ever overcome our hatreds and feel like one humanity, without sharing our food.

I deeply believe that technology alone will never create the advanced utopian future we all want. But tech plus culture can.

This is the real reason I created [Cardoon](https://cardoon.com/) and started Vernly.
