Culture, Heritage, Identity and Food – the methodology at the base of the Slow Food – CE project

The Slow Food-CE project, involving Slow Food, the University of Gastronomic Sciences and a network of European cities and associations, can count on a new salient element: the publication of a book illustrating the scientific assumptions of the project and its working practices. The book discloses the first outcomes of this research activity and outlines some future perspectives resulting from this demanding research-based work to valorise gastronomic heritage in urban contexts. 

“We reckon that the great efforts in terms of work and methodology that each project partner made, had to end up giving birth to a scientific publication accurately presenting the work done so far.  This is the reason why this volume, whose title is Culture, Heritage, Identity and Food. A Methodological Approach, was drawn up, so to introduce the methodological and research path that has been structured and put to the test in the first two years of the Slow Food-CE project”, claims Gianpaolo Fassino, one of the authors of the book, together with Piercarlo Grimaldi and Davide Porporato. 

The book provides a support that, in combination with Food Paths Network (https://foodpathsnetwork.slowfood.com/) platform, may represent a tool and an incentive for other cities and associations, and also researchers, allowing them to approach, test and improve the identification and valorisation of the cultural heritage of a specific geographical area. 

The book, which premiered in Brussels during the European Week of Regions and Cities, in occasion of the worskshop on this very project, was published in English within the «Percorsi di ricerca» [Research Paths] Series by Milan's Franco Angeli Publishing House - a prestigious and renowned publishing brand, with an expertise in academic research publication. 

 “Trying to summerize a research activity that was so demanding and complex from the methodological point of view was not an easy task for us: let us hope we have succeeded and these pages might be a source of appreciation and interest. If it was not for this joint, passionate and active work that all the partners contributed to, we surely would have had a hard time conceiving an ambitious and extended project such as SlowFood-CE. As a consequence, the book telling about this experience is the result of this commitment ” concludes Gianpaolo Fassino.   

The book is also available in its electronic version at the following link:
https://foodpathsnetwork.slowfood.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Culture-Heritage-Identity-and-Food-A-Methodological-Approach.pdf