“Meals, particularly good meals, brings folks collectively. The Mediterranean food regimen and the Italian custom embrace the notion of consuming collectively and spending high quality time with household and mates,” the ambassador mentioned. “And that is additionally what we now have carried out on this occasion, by bringing folks from numerous worldwide, native, and enterprise communities collectively.”
And therefore, the residence grew to become a vibrant and vigorous place, with laughter and cheers and mates catching up, with the garden internet hosting various stalls the place cooks (principally folks from the Italian group in Bangladesh), made and introduced the company with delicacies of the nation — from pizza and risotto to gnocchi (also known as Italian dumpling) and cotolette di melanzane (eggplant cutlets) and bagna cauda (a dip that’s typically served with greens).
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel. Within the coronary heart of all of it is in fact Mediterranean food regimen, which is recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, together with the artwork of Neapolitan ‘Pizzaiuolo’, the standard culinary artwork of the preparation and the baking of the dough.
Beatrice Kaldun, head of the workplace and UNESCO consultant to Bangladesh, was additionally current throughout this occasion and spoke of those heritages in her speech.
The Every day Star was one of many media companions of the occasion. Mediterranean food regimen promotes wholesome consuming and wholesome residing. It’s a broader idea than folks generally make it to be. It’s a heritage, comprising of assorted expertise, rituals, traditions, and many others. associated to not simply the manufacturing and cooking of meals, but in addition the sharing and consumption of meals. As for the selection of the meals objects, it locations quite a lot of emphasis meals like fruit and veggies, beans, nuts, fish, and olive oil. Consumption of dairy and meat merchandise can be there, however in comparatively smaller extents. Therefore, the Mediterranean food regimen is commonly thought to be a nutritious diet and life-style, nourishing not simply the physique with nutritious meals, but in addition the thoughts, with the idea of consuming collectively and strengthening group and household bonding.
This 12 months the theme of World Week of Italian Delicacies was ‘custom and views of Italian delicacies: consciousness and enhancement of meals sustainability’. The theme includes, amongst different issues, a variety of points associated to biodiversity, meals variety, biosphere reserves, and sustainable agricultural practices.
The Week additionally raised consciousness towards the Nutri-Rating system of labelling on meals packaging, which categorises meals merchandise on a five-colour scale in accordance with their calculated dietary scores. It has been argued that this method might present a imprecise and distorted picture of many Mediterranean meals that are usually thought-about to be very wholesome.
“Further virgin olive oil, which has many well being advantages, has been deemed as being slightly unhealthy (as a consequence of its fats content material),” ambassador Enrico Nunziata exemplified. “Now in fact, in case you are utilizing it for frying in massive portions day-after-day, it’s unhealthy. It actually depends upon how you might be utilizing it and the way a lot you might be consuming, however a direct unfavourable label doesn’t take note of all that and should negatively affect shoppers of their purchases.”
Be it points like meals sustainability and biodiversity, or the talk of the aforementioned meals labelling, or the safety of intangible cultural heritages, the World Week of Italian Delicacies tackled all of them.
And the meals fiesta on the ambassador’s residence had been a medium to deliver ahead these conversations, in essentially the most pleasant and charming method, with the assistance of scrumptious meals and celebrations of the Mediterranean food regimen and Italian delicacies.
Photograph: Sazzad Ibne Sayed
