Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition
The excellence of the Mediterranean Way
Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition
Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition
The interpretation of the Mediterranean Way that we aim to embrace refers to a particular attitude – an original approach to interpreting and experiencing the act of eating. It is not reduced to a mere nutritional phenomenon, but rather lived as the synthesis of a set of elements and values typical of that extraordinary geographical, historical, ethical, and cultural place that is the Mediterranean basin. The first objective of this document is therefore to make the most relevant features of the Mediterranean Way timely and meaningful again, so they may continue to be beneficially experienced and adopted today.
What drives us toward a reinterpretation of the concept of the Mediterranean Way is not only the desire to celebrate its virtues and draw from it every possible cue for taste and satisfaction, but also a deep sense of concern.
The Mediterranean approach to food – commonly known as the Mediterranean diet – now reveals an unexpected fragility. Unexpected because, in the past, the Mediterranean diet proved uniquely capable of integrating elements of extraordinary novelty without losing its identity – on the contrary, it was enriched by them. Today – conversely – even within the Mediterranean countries themselves, the lifestyles and dietary habits rooted in recent history are easily being lost, giving way to habits, styles, and food consumption methods derived from other traditions – often much poorer in nutritional value as well as in elements of social connection and meaning. The consequences, not only social but also related to health, are plain for all to see. What seems to have broken down is the mechanism of tradition transmission, thus exposing Mediterranean peoples to the risk of losing a body of knowledge and food practices unique in the world.
This document, therefore, arises out of urgency. It is a strong call to the need to protect a heritage inherited from the past – one that we now perceive as threatened and whose relevance to the present is indisputable.
The Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition
1. The Mediterranean way: an extraordinary fount of cultural wealth for today’s lifestyle
Commensality and the Mediterranean Way in the 21st Century, Claude Fischler
1.1 Why a position paper dedicated to Mediterranean Way?
1.2 Position paper concept and structure
2. The key dimensions that define the Mediterranean Way
2.1 What do we mean by Mediterranea Way?
3. The Mediterranean Way as a guide for today’s living and eating styles
3.1 Social-economic factors and eating behaviors
3.2 The Mediterranean Way yesterday and today
“The Inner Mediterranean”, by Nancy Harmon Jenkins
4. Characteristic features of the Mediterranean Way
Conviviality - The table
Art of the senses - Aesthetics
Mare Nostrum – The Mediterranean “macchia”
Culinary tradition - Recipes
Culture - Rituals
Time - Leisure
Territory - The marketplace
“Mediterraneans”, by Franco Cassano
Variety - Memory and cross-fertilization
5. The Mediterranean Way, food production and corporate responsibility
6. Concluding remarks
7. Appendix: key characteristics of the Mediterranean diet
8. Bibliography
| Pubblicazione: | maggio 2010 |
| Pagine: | 92 |
