A pure taste of mountains
17.07.2015
In Central Italy, the project called ‘Menu of the Sibillini' was inaugurated on 15 July 2015. The Monti Sibillini National Park challenged local restaurants to create a dish (traditional or innovative) whereby every single ingredient is from the park.
The positive spinoffs are numerous:
Some chefs have revitalized ancient local recipes. Now restaurants are reaching out to small local producers like never before, forging links. Some restaurants have decided to create a shop area to sell the local products after the meal.
Visitors are given a menu map of the mountain park and each participating restaurant offers one meal on the menu. This structure spreads the economic benefits. Plus visitors are given an opportunity to plan amazing meals to correspond with hikes in different parts of the diverse landscape which this mountain park is famous for.
When you sit down at each restaurant to eat your 100% mountain meal, there is a description of the ingredients, as well as the person who produces the food, their location in the park, and importantly how the products contribute to, or help maintain biodiversity.
Through food the public is encouraged to learn more about the plants and animals of the mountains while helping local producers.
In an interview, Maria Laura Talame, the Sustainable Tourism and Environmental Education officer for the Monti Sibillini National Park, and the instigator of this project, explained:
“One of the greatest challenges mountain parks in Europe face today is to reconcile the needs of nature and conservation with social and economic demands. Sometimes these needs are conflicting and this project was developed to harmonize these forces by stimulating sustainable, high quality tourism.”
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News and photo by Tamara Griffiths
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