Marijke's blog

Wild boar on my mind

When you think of traditional flavours in the Maremma region in Tuscany, one of the most obvious choices that pop into mind is the wild boar. Or cinghiale, in Italian. At least, that’s what you should be thinking of as of now.

The hunt (and the subsequential consumption) of the wild boar is celebrated with many local festivals (sagra) throughout Italy. One of those Sagra del Cinghiale is hosted every year in the second week of September in Capalbio.

Capalbio is an incredibly charming little fortified town at the Costa d’Argento in the Tuscan Maremma region and definitely worth a visit, even outside the wild boar season. Be warned though, you need some planning ahead since there is only one hotel: Valle de Buttero (serves a great breakfast, by the way, and has wonderful staff).

A few know-worthy titbits about wild boars:

• Compared to the rest of Italy, the appearance of wild boars is most common in the Tuscan region.

• Wild boars living in Italy in general weigh around 80 -100 kilograms, yet in Tuscany wild boars weighing up to 150 kilograms can be found.

Only the adult male boars grow tusks.

• Nowadays hunting wild boars is highly popular, on one hand since they are considered as highly desirable game trophies, on the other hand because the wild boar inflicts significant damage to crops and forests because of their rooting in the search of food.

• Already in the Roman era, the wild boar was a prestigious prey; at least three Roman legions showed the strong animal in their emblems.

The hunt is called la caccia, and cinghiale alla cacciatora- "wild boar prepared in hunter style" - is one of the most popular ways to serve this, often a bit chewy, meat. Key ingredients of this rich stew are chunks of wild boar marinated overnight in red wine, olive oil and rosemary, prepared with vegetables, tomato sauce and a generous amount of garlic. The result is marvellous, you just have to be aware of the small pieces of bone...

Time for some tasting!

Visiting the Sagra del Cinghiale in Capalbio was a great way to get acquainted with several famous local culinary specialties of the Costa d’Argento and the Maremma region in general. At the festival you could taste four delicious wild boar dishes, proudly prepared by the male local community members:

Real guys know how to cook their Cinghiale alla Cacciatora

A traditional second option: Cinghiale alla Griglia - grilled wild boar steaks, plain and simple, yet highly in demand

Serious grilling of the wild boar steaks

 

Third option: bowls of creamy polenta covered with steaming minced wild boar sauce (polenta con sugo di cinghiale) and topped with grated parmesan cheese.

This sugo del cinghiale dish was kind of a surprise to me; I was keeping my eyes open for the traditional local way to serve sugo di cinghiale: with papardelle, the broad strips of pasta. Polenta as a base tasted great though!

And lastly interesting looking sausages - dark and plum, straight of the large charcoal grills in the back.

 

All I can say is: the Maremma people earn two big thumbs up for the way they prepare their wild boar and I can definitely advise you give these traditional local dishes a try yourself during your visit to this region.

This article is also posted on feelthebreezeoftuscany.com, the promotional website of the Consorzio Maremmare, who invited me to join this great tour through the south of Tuscany. 

So, I’arrived at the airport, more than two hours in advance for a change. I’m about to leave rainy Amsterdam behind and spend a busy weekend under the Tuscan sun!

I’m invited by the tourist board,of the Costa d’Argento, in the Tuscan Maremma region for a three day trip to get to know the area. I’ll tackle this experience as a true curious food lover and keep you updated about my finds!

My first reaction when thinking about to tourism, and people interested in culinary tourism related activities, would be to focus on “true tourists”, people travelling for pleasure alone. Yet when I think back at the times when I travelled for business (quite a bit in my IBM times), there was often some time to kill before or between appointments. And quick and pleasant culinary activities could just be a great past time. So the destinations mentioned below are important to keep in mind when considering the ordening of the destinations I will be working on. Helsinki comes as a bit of surprise, by the way.

Financial hubs and Meetings-Incentives-Congresses-Events tourism

Although 80% of inbound arrivals to cities are tourists, MICE travel (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) is increasingly important for cities, not only because of the higher per capita expenditure of MICE travellers, but also because of its promotional impact. From Dubai (4) to Tallinn (64) or Valencia (84), international events have helped to set cities firmly on the map of the world’s leading destinations. Investment in convention centres, hotels and travel infrastructure cannot be judged solely in terms of MICE activity, but instead as part of an integrated tourism strategy.

The globalisation of the world economy has also had a positive impact on city travel, especially with regard to global financial centres. Despite new technologies, the world financial centres of London and New York (ranked first and sixth respectively), far from dying out, have continued to attract more businesses, thus, increasing the amount of business travel to these financial clusters. Furthermore, other cities have followed suit, becoming important financial hubs. Shanghai (13), Hong Kong (5), Singapore (4) and Dubai (7) have entered the list of global financial hubs according to The Economist, alongside long-established powerhouse such as Tokyo (51), Zurich (55) or Geneva (98)

Top 10 Cities by Number of Meetings 2006

	City	Number of meetings
Paris	1	363
Vienna	2	316
Singapore	3	298
Brussels	4	179
Geneva	5	169
Helsinki	6	140
Barcelona	7	139
London	8	118
Amsterdam	9	117
New York	10	93

source

http://www.guidevietnam.com/travel/vietnamese-food-cooking-courses.html

• » Carp Fair (Where Country Meets City)
  Location:Carp (Ontario), Canada Activity type(s):• festivals & events → single specialty festival Culinary specialty:• general → agriculture
• » Richmond Fair (Richmond Agricultural Society)
  Location:Richmond (Ontario), Canada Activity type(s):• festivals & events → single specialty festival Culinary specialty:• general → agriculture
• » Festival Franco Ontarien
  Location:Ottawa (Ontario), Canada Activity type(s):• festivals & events → single specialty festival Culinary specialty:• cuisines → country of origin: France
• » Ottawa Greekfest
  Location:Ottawa (Ontario), Canada Activity type(s):• courses & workshops → single topic workshop; • courses & workshops → short courses/workshops; • festivals & events → single specialty festival Culinary specialty:• cooking → general – country of origin; • cuisines → country of origin: Greece; • nuts, seeds & oils → oil type: olive oil
• » Ottawa Turkish Festival
  Location:Ottawa (Ontario), Canada Activity type(s):• festivals & events → single specialty festival Culinary specialty:• cuisines → country of origin: Turkey
• » Canada Day
  Location:Ottawa (Ontario), Canada Activity type(s):• festivals & events Culinary specialty:• cuisines → country of origin: Canada; • sugar & sweetners → type: maple syrup
• » Italian Week of Ottawa
  Location:Ottawa (Ontario), Canada Activity type(s):• festivals & events → single specialty festival Culinary specialty:• cuisines → country of origin: Italy
• » Carnival of Cultures
  Location:Ottawa (Ontario), Canada Activity type(s):• festivals & events → carnival Culinary specialty:• cuisines → multi-cultural cuisines
• » Toonik Tyme (Iqaluit Spring Festival)
  Location:Iqaluit (Nunavut), Canada Activity type(s):• festivals & events Culinary specialty:• cuisines → indigenous cultures → North America; • fish & fish products → fish – country of origin → Country of origin: Canada; • fish & fish products → fishing
• » Festival du Voyageur
  Location:Winnipeg (Manitoba), Canada Activity type(s):• festivals & events Culinary specialty:• cuisines → country of origin: Canada

Bà Rịa – Vũng Tàu to host World Food Festival « Vietnam Travel Blog.

Sounds great, surely to be added to culinary activity collection!

.

A unique and memorable gastronomic identity is an indispensable asset to any successful tourist destination. In this respect Croatia’s tourism falls seriously short.

Based primarily on “international” cuisine, the gastronomic offer of Croatian tourist destinations is predictable and conventional. This paper calls for a new, exciting gastronomic identity of Croatian tourist destinations founded on Croatia’s exceptionally rich gastronomic heritage.

Apart from the food offer itself, crucial to the success of this new identity will be its commodification and spectacularisation through the discursive practice of gastrospeak.

Learning to appreciate and use gastrospeak will be an important future task for Croatian tourist destination management. (abstract)

Keywords: Gastronomic identity; Foodies; Croatian tourist destinations; Croatia’s gastronomic heritage; Gastrospeak; Benefits

Article Outline

1. Introduction
2. International research
3. Croatian researchers’ contribution
4. Attitudes and consumption habits of Croatia-visiting tourists
5. A social climate for change
6. Creating the gastronomic identity of a tourist destination
7. Gastrospeak: a systemic construct
8. The value of the new gastronomic identity of Croatian tourist destinations
8.1. Differentiation
8.2. Aestheticization
8.3. Authentication
8.4. Symbolisaton
8.5. Rejuvenation
9. Discussion
Acknowledgements
References

A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the international conference “Days of Turistica” in Portorož, Slovenia, 18–19 March 2004.

Source: International Journal of Hospitality Management Volume 26, Issue 3, September 2007, Pages 546-559

Author: Renata Fox, Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management, 51410 Opatija, P.O.B 97, Croatia, Tel.:+385 51 294 717; fax: +385 51 292 945.

Reinventing the gastronomic identity of Croatian tourist destinations.

archnetwork :: Traditional Turkish Kebabs and Gastronomic Tourism 23 – 30th May 2010.

Sounds nice, contains at least a few ideas for culinary travels in Turkey!

Abstract

Food in tourism is becoming an important subject to researchers in the field of tourism and food service. Food and its related tourist activities [MB: in the broadest sense of the word, so not only the actual consumption of food/drink, but also learning about culinary culture. history and production practices in general] have been ascribed into a new category of tourism called food tourism [MB: or culinary tourism/gastronomic tourism] in which the motivation for traveling is to obtain special experiences from food.

However, limited attention has been paid to explore precisely what factors influence food tourists’ destination choices. The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to explore food tourists’ motivations using push and pull theory. The sample was drawn from a food event in the southwestern United States.

The development of the instrument begun with literature review and was followed with a pretest on graduate students who have attended food events. After the pretest, a review of the instrument was conducted by tourism and foodservice experts. A pilot test was employed to ensure the reliability and clarity of the research instrument before actual survey. The final instrument was used to gather 305 usable questionnaires. Three factors emerged from the 14 push items [MB: =  reasons to consider culinary travel]: Knowledge and Learning, Fun and New Experiences, and Relaxation with Family. Three factors were generated from the 14 pull items [MB: = reasons to consider a specific destination]: Area Quality and Value, Quality of Event, and Food Variety. The instrument can be tested and further validated in other food tourism settings.

Authors: Young H. Kim a; Ben K. Goh b; Jingxue (Jessica) Yuan b

Published in: Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, Volume 11, Issue 1 January 2010 , pages 56 – 71

Development of a Multi-Dimensional Scale for Measuring Food Tourist Motivations – Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism.