Suuntana Fiskars – Heading for Fiskars!

Terve kaikille, tässä on Francesca Allievi, uusi kestävän gastronomian lehtori JAMKissa! I am very happy to be part of the team on Tourism and Hospitality Management, carrying with me a PhD in Geography, a background in research and a set of multidisciplinary experiences on food sustainability issues.

This is also a short introduction to some blog posts written by the students of the Food Culture course. In this course the aims include understanding the meaning of food identity, getting familiar with Finnish food culture and the New Nordic Food and also understanding the globalization of food. This year our group of students is very international, gathering 9 different nationalities from all over the globe!

The course started in the beginning of October and already during the first week o 6 Ocober, the students had a study trip to the Slow Food Festival in Fiskars (can be found as an event in Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/slowfoodfestivalinfiskars/ ). This festival was now organized for the 9th time by Slow Food Västnyland. The event is in line with the principles of the international grassroot organization of Slow Food (www.slowfood.com ) and highlights the role of local producers in preserving local resources and traditions. Consequently, it provided both for our Finnish and foreign students a perfect chance for to get a first-hand feeling of what food culture is in the context of this region.

While in Fiskars, the students were divided into teams and were assigned different topics to look into. They tasted different flavors, talked with producers and visitors, asked questions… in the following posts they tell with both words and pictures what they have understood and learned.

As some of the students couldn’t participate in the excursion, they completed a similar task in Jyväskylä, therefore there’ll be a few posts on food culture in Jyväskylä.

We hope that you’ll enjoy the tasty trip with our students!

Text: Francesca Allievi, Lecturer in Sustainable Gastronomy at JAMK