Heroic agriculture closes Italian cuisine week in Belgium

(ANSA) - BRUXELLES, 24 NOV - With a scientific-disseminative symposium held at the Italian Ambassador's Residence and dedicated to heroic Italian agriculture, the Mediterranean diet, the promotion of the cuisine of the roots, and the valorisation of the relationship between cuisine and territory, the IX Edition of the Italian Cuisine Week in Belgium came to a close.
    The event, promoted by the Italian Embassy in Belgium with the contribution of the CREA, saw the collaboration of three Italian regions with experience in heroic agriculture (the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, the Region of Campania, the Region of Sicily), ICE-Brussels, the Italian Farmers' Confederation (CIA), Coldiretti, the National Confederation of Craftsmen and SMEs (CNA), Confartigianato Imprese, and Confindustria Sicilia. To crown the evening, the unfailing show-cooking tasting of Italian culinary excellence.
    In welcoming the audience of MEPs, foreign guests and Italians from the sector, the Italian Ambassador to Belgium, Federica Favi, took the opportunity to support the candidature of Italian cuisine as a Unesco intangible heritage: 'A cuisine made not only of good food, but above all of social practices, habits and gestures, a cultural element that is the identity of the Italian people, in the round, that speaks of history, roots, biodiversity, environment and well-being.
    The initiative closes a cycle of activities promoted within the framework of the Week of Italian Cuisine in the World that began on 16 November with the conference at the University of Liège on the theme of the ninth edition 'Mediterranean Diet and Roots Cuisine: Health and Tradition', which continued with two days organised by the Italian Chefs' Association in Belgium, one in the presence of the Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests, Francesco Lollobrigida, the other dedicated to B2B meetings, organised by ICE Brussels, of companies from the 3 participating regions with Belgian interlocutors and distributors. A sensory dinner with the staging of one of Luigi Pirandello's best-known dramas, 'Six characters in search of an author,' at the theatre of the Italian Cultural Institute in Brussels, accompanied the guests on a journey through the scents and flavours of Sicily, the author's native land.