Cook It Raw: a decade of discovering cultures through the lens of food

with Alessandro Porcelli

Cook It Raw is a conduit between emerging chefs, culinary luminaries, producers and—in a sense—nature itself. Cook It Raw is based on dialog, reflection, experimentation and collaboration, with the ultimate goal of exploring the exhilarating possibilities of sustainable foodways that these encounters can offer.

Over the past nine years, Cook It Raw has successfully hosted exciting gatherings in Denmark, Italy, Lapland, Japan, Poland, the USA, Mexico, Canada, and Norway. Our programming is showcasing ideas, issues, people and ingredients that are fundamental to the iconic, site-specific cuisines in our areas of focus. Through immersive strategies, participants examine local food systems, explore possibilities for sustainable food chains and product life cycles, understand the narrative of the area and apply these ideas to their own work to become ambassadors for change.

OBJECTIVES

• Using cuisine to address social, cultural and environmental issues.
• Encouraging cultural exchange and understanding
• Fostering the exchange, preservation and development of skills and knowledge
• Building friendships and a spirit of collaboration between chefs, participants and the host country
• Pushing the creative envelope, and leading the way to a new vision of cuisine and what it can do

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

All experiences are underpinned by our guiding principles, which we believe are essential to making any culinary claim. These guiding principles are based on an interdisciplinary approach and relate to tradition, sustainability, collaboration and creativity.

Tradition: For us tradition is not just a static belief or behavior passed down to the next generation, with origins in the past, but a concept for exploring rituals, exchange, fluidity, adaptation and the evolution of behaviors.

In our experiences we want to discover the evolution of food systems and their historic, social, geographical, economic influence and impact on regional cuisine.

Sustainability:  For us sustainable food systems are collaborative networks that encourage a self-reliant economy with local food production, processing, distribution, consumption and waste management contributing to individual, community and ecological health. A sustainable food system encourages nutritious food being available, accessible and affordable to all with a minimum impact on the environment.

In our experiences we want to explore local food chains and connect with the environment and the provenance of food and experience nature as a space with multiple identities for food production.

Collaboration: We believe that innovation happens through interdisciplinary approach and experiences. We provide an environment where collaboration, inspiration, engagement and sharing happen naturally and intuitively.

In our experiences we bring together farmers, producers, distributors, academics and experts from various disciplines to explore and share past and present thinking on food.

Creativity: Inspiration is the driver of innovation and creativity. We want to provide space and encounters for creative expression.

Through our experiential events, we want to challenge the comfort zone, provide input from creative thinkers and inspirational leaders and work with creative tools to stimulate inspiration.