The study trips that third-year students at the University of Gastronomic Sciences will embark upon from June 3 to 7 will focus on sustainable fishing and local fish varieties.
The different itineraries will take in the Marche, Campania, Calabria, Puglia, Sicily and Sardinia regions where, thanks to the collaboration of local Slow Food convivia, students will go out to sea with fishermen, visit fish markets and mussel farms, and meet dairy producers and farmers. They will also learn to prepare regional recipes through cooking lessons and tastings of food products from land and sea.
More specifically, on the Gulf of Sant’Eufemia, on the Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria, where students will find out about local seafaring traditions by watching the fishing boats coming in, attending the fish auction in Vibo Marina in the company of researcher Antonio Montesanti, taking part in a fishing trip off Tropea with the marine biologist Fabrizio Fabroni, and visiting fish farms and canneries.
The trip to the Marche will revolve around the underwater fishing of moscioli, wild mussels typical of the Conero peninsula, cattle and buffalo breeding, wine and spumante production, and oil-making with a special eye to the evolution of the presses.
In Sardinia students will find out about shellfish farming with visits to oyster farms on the lagoon of San Teodoro and a mussel farm in Olbia. In Castelsardo they will visit the fishermen’s cooperative and nearby organic myrtle and olive groves. For the first time ever, guided by director Augusto Navone, a UNISG party will dedicate a whole day to exploring the marine protected area of Tavolara.
Students on the trip to Campania will meet Vittorio Rambaldo, a representative of the fishermen’s cooperative of Marina di Pisciotta, who will explain the importance of fishing for the economy and development of the local community. They will then attend a workshop on Cetara anchovies, followed by an educational lunch. A visit to the fish and fruit and vegetable market in Salerno will provide them with an overview of local fish and produce.
In Puglia students will visit the marine protected area of Torre Guaceto, where they will meet fishermen involved in a sustainable fishing project, and Porto Cesareo, where the Pescatori dello Ionio cooperative’s temporary suspension of fishing is a fine example of ecosustainability. The party will also have the chance to visit the dairy producers’ and fiaschetto tomato communities of the northern Salentine peninsula.
The Sicilian island itinerary from Catania to Messina to Lipari will allow students to discover fishing activities in the Strait of Messina and the Aeolian Islands and to enjoy a guided tour of the old nassa (creel) storehouse in Ganzirri and lakes where shellfish farming is practiced with the marine biologist Laura Gugliotta and creel-maker Giuseppe Arena. The UNISG party will then take part in a Happy Slow event with tastings of local food products organized by the young members of the Valdemone Slow Food convivium.
A group of students will be accompanied by UNISG lecturer Silvestro Greco to the island of Lampedusa where they will be put up by local fishing families. Here they will take part in a fishing trip on trawlers and seiners and in small fishing boats. They will also visit the marine protected area of the Pelagic Islands and a fish hatchery.
The study trips have been organized with the collaboration of the Slow Food convivial of Vibo Valentia, Amantea, Olbia and Alghero, and Rosario Gugliotta, leader of the Valdemone Slow Food convivium.