Italy’s heritage of enological and gastronomic products and knowledge is fully recognised by the scientific community as a cultural asset worthy of preservation. The project, “Cultura Gastronomica Italiana”, carried out by Baicr Associationwith the support of the University of Bologna, the Region Emilia Romagna and the Region Piedmont, has the merit of having transformed the theoretical premise into an on-line publication, the only one in Italy that covers objectives, instruments and contents.
The specific aim of this project, from the publication of the first database in 2000 to its complete restyling in 2005, is to bear witness to the cultural value of Italy’s enological and gastronomic legacy by emphasizing its historical perspective, and retracing the places of memory and the means to conserve them.
The web site www.culturagastronomicaitaliana.it , whose contributors are authoritative researchers, is composed of two independent but complementary sections: the database and the Quaderni.
The subject divisions of the database offer an idea of the “places of memory”: archives, libraries, museums, research centers, associations of preservation, wine and food trails, public wine shops, editors and bookshops, in addition to schools, web sites, events, manuscripts and books. The section dedicated to the Italian gastronomic bibliography includes a census of all Italian publications about gastronomy from 1474 up to the present, totalling around 12,000 entries.
The sections
I luoghi della memoria (The places of memory): Archivi/Associazioni/Biblioteche/Consorzi di tutela/Editori/Enoteche pubbliche/Enti ed Istituti di ricerca/Librerie/Musei/Strade del vino/Strade dei sapori (Archives/ Associations/ Libraries/ Associations for preservation/ Editors/ Wine shops/ Research Centers and Organisations/ Bookshops/ Museums/ Wine Trails/ Food Trails)
A scuola di gastronomia (At gastronomy school)
Mostre ed eventi (Exhibitions and Events)
In onda e sugli schermi (On TV and at the cinema)
In rete (On the web)
Libri riviste e CD (Books, magazines and CDs): Bibliografia Gastronomica Italiana (Italian Gastronomic Bibliography)
Manoscritti medievali (Medieval manuscripts)
Le parole della gastronomia (The words of gastronomy): Termini d’uso/Lessici (Technical language and lexicons)
Le leggi (The laws): Normativa comunitaria/Normativa nazionale/Normativa regionale (European community laws/ National laws/ Regional laws) 
Immagini (Photographs, Paintings etc)
The
Quaderni form the core of publications of the
Cultura Gastronomica Italiana and develop specific themes providing also information on events, congresses, national and local promotions, addressing a large community with a deep
interest in themes of gastronomic culture.
Among the Quaderni, the sections
Spazio Scuola (Schools) and
Musei e Archivi d’impresa (Business Museums and Archives) discuss particularly relevant issues. For example, food education, with all its implications for health and culture, is one theme that is currently receiving wide attention from both institutions and public opinion.
The section “
Spazio Scuola” of Cultura Gastronomica (Gastronomic Culture) is dedicated to reporting and proposing events that bring enological and gastronomic themes closer to students and teachers. The section “Musei e Archivi d’impresa” displays the wide variety of cultural events promoted by Italian food industries whose complete census is also contained in the database section.
Interviews with professionals and entrepreneurs of these industries illustrate the most important aspects of business cultural projects; discuss both positive and negative aspects, and refer to models that have been applied on a wider scale. To sum up, this project /publication provides a factual contribution to the valorisation of business culture through the preservation and the sharing of its products, knowledge and history.
The numbers
11.562 books
2.808 events
928 web sites
847 laws
427 gastronomy schools
326 associations
260 photographs
238 associations for preservation
220 magazines
215 museums
155 movies
151 editors
134 prizes
132 exhibitions
101 archives
96 CDs
71 libraries
70 wine trails
60 public wine shops
50 research organisations and centres
41 TV and radio programmes
39 food trails
29 bookshops
Contacts
Consorzio BAICR Sistema Cultura
Via della Dogana Vecchia 5 - 00186 Roma
Tel. 06 6879953 fax 06 68216768
culturagastronomica@baicr.it
www.baicr.it
