At the IP in Romania (see two earlier blogs) students study various aspects related to traditional foods, from discussions over micro-organisms and hygiene rules to marketing and rural development. The category ‘traditional’ is a social construction, what is considered traditional changes with time and cultural context. Tradition is influenced by new techniques and innovations; which one is allowed and which one is not? But also by current food cultures and the customer base to which traditional foods appeal. Traditional foods often carry one or more labels to protect these products against imitation. This is necessary as customers are usually cultural outsiders, urban consumers, tourists or consumers in other countries. Without a cultural reference point, they can’t judge on their own whether the product is traditionally produced and thus as authentic as claimed. Continue reading
Category Archives: Food
Traditional foods at IP in Romania (2)
At the Intensive Program for two weeks in Cluj-Napoca, students from France, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Poland, Belgium and the Netherlands study the relationship between traditional foods and micro organisms. Next week, they will receive lectures in micro-biology and they will go on a study trip to the mountains to learn about Slow Food in Romania. This week, they study traditional foods from a social science point of view, with lectures from sociologists and economists. Some of these lectures deal with how to market traditional foods, which are credence foods. Adding the category ‘traditional’ adds value/credence to the food, similar to the category ‘organic’ or ‘healthy’. An apple is not just an apple anymore but an órganic apple, which brings a world of associations and symbolic connections to the product. Once a credence food, it is vulnerable to cheating practices, how to distinguish the ‘real’ traditional food from its wannabee imitations? (see short BBC item on camenbert) Continue reading
Traditional foods at IP in Romania
Two weeks of Intensive Program are currently in progress in Cluj-Napoca, in the North West of Romania. Coming from 7 different countries, 42 students are learning about Traditional foods in relation to micro organisms. The course is international and interdisciplinary, this week they first had lectures in Sensory Analysis from colleagues of France, Belgium and Denmark and yesterday they started with the social science part in which I gave the first lecture on Food Culture & Authenticity.
We started the week on Monday with student presentations of Traditional Foods from their countries which we closed with a tasting session on the many products they brought. I used many of their examples in my lecture yesterday. For example, not one of the products presented was related to the ‘breakthrough’ of new preservation techniques (such as freezing) which developed simultanously with industrialisation. Of course, but without realising I found out, everybody had chosen products that had ‘old’ preservation techniques such as salting, smoking and fermenting.
A product such as sour cabbage was presented as typical for Romania but disputed by other students, for sauerkraut – zuurkool is a typical winterfood in many Eastern and Northern European countries. Cabbage, Pork, Cheese, Fruits such as plums, Walnuts were among the main ingredients of many traditional foods presented. Traditional because these products are rooted in rural self-subsistance household preservation. Pork, for example, is the pride of Romania. One of the traditional foods presented by a Romanian student group was the Ignat on the 20th of December. On this day, families in rural areas gather together and sacrifice the pig they have kept for this reason. It is a big ritual with particular techniques involved and roles to play for different members of the household. More than once, I heard the ‘joke’ that pork is the vegetable for Romanians.
Living the peasant way of life in Santa Cruz de la Colina
After a longer posting-pause in which I finalized my first research phase, identifying supporters of rural grassroots development initiatives in the Province of Soto, here a new update of my activities in Colombia:
Time is flying and I am finalizing my second research phase, asking grassroots development initiatives to evaluate the support they are receiving to build joint capacities. To be able to speak with rural development initiatives, I was invited to spend a week with a peasant family in the vereda St. Ana of Santa Cruz de la Colina.
Santa Cruz de la Colina, Matanza, Colombia
Request for a master student interested in product development and marketing for an organic farm and macro-distillery in Wales
Glynhynod is an organic farm where artisan cheeses are produced, situated in west-Wales and managed by a Dutch family. The firm is highly innovative, applying sustainability guidelines to all their activities and producing food of high quality; several cheeses have received prices on national and international level. The family is now developing the first organic Welsh whisky and an orange liqueur at their newly established organic micro-distillery. They are looking for a master student- preferably one in food technology- who will be able to do an internship and/or thesis inWales. The student should be interested in organic, artisan food production. The student will be during his/her intership:.
- actively involved in developing, testing and trying out new liqueur and spirit recipes using organic ingredients and trial batches of different orange liqueurs using different ingredients and different amounts of ingredients. The student will be required to accurately measure the amounts of ingredients e.g. total weight, of oranges, orange peel amounts of sugar etc; ‘age’ the different liqueurs for 3 different periods e.g. 40, day, 50 day and 60 day infusions. The same method will be used to develop various recipes for spirits e.g. sloe gin and seaweed gin.
- Doing research on marketing aspects to try out the new recipes such as implementing a sensory evaluation in a real life situation where the public will be asked to judge the product. The student will be expected to develop a statistical sensory evaluation method that will determine which liqueur the public prefers and this liqueur will then proceed to bulk production.
His/her master thesis can be focused on of the following themes:
- Marketing and/or gastronomy: how to enhance the supply of local artisan products in this rural area;
- Consumer demands towards locally produced speciality products in west-Wales;
- Develop guidelines for food quality and taste of new alcoholic local products
- Research on food safety of organic artisan products
The student will start around the beginning of April 2012 and stay on the farm for 3-4 months in the beautiful setting of the Teifi Valley in Llandysul near Carmarthen, not far from the sea in west-Wales. The research will be supervised by a staff member of the relevant chair group and co-supervised by Ina Horlings (Rural Sociology Group). If you are interested please apply or ask for more information by sending a mail to (lummina.horlings@wur.nl) before the end of February, 2012.
