Mission To Sicily
From May 6th to 15th the first stage (field seminar) of the postgraduate Master in Gastronomic Sciences and Quality Products,
organized by the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo and
Colorno, will be held in Sicily. The course commenced on February 28.
The seminar, which will be centred in the Nebrodi Nature Park in
northern Sicily, will allow students to learn all about the island’s
typical food products.
The 25 students at the Colorno campus of the University of
Gastronomic Sciences, near Parma in Emilia-Romagna, come from all over
the world: France, Switzerland, Finland, Japan, Canada, the United
States and Mexico, not to mention Italy itself.
During the ten-day trip to Sicily, the students will visit the
fish market in Catania, old-fashioned honey producers, artisan
ice-cream and granita workshops, small extra-virgin olive oil mills and
provola and maiorchino cheese makers.
The Nebrodi Nature Park, with its 50,000 hectares of beech and
oak forests, will be the main venue for the study tour. Its unspoiled
ecosystem is important for food production and is home to the Nebrodi
Black Pig, a Slow Food Presidium, whose meat is used to make
traditional and highly prized cured specialties, and the cows whose
milk is used to make Provola dei Nebrodi cheese, another Slow Food
Presidium.
From May 13th the students will have the opportunity to attend the national Slow Food Presidia Congress,
organized by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity in collaboration
with the Sicily Regional Authority and the Sicilian Department of
Agriculture at different venues in the Nebrodi Mountains,
Tindari/Patti, and Capo d’Orlando.