“Teramo a Tavola. An Italian cuisine”, on display the history and characteristics of local gastronomy – Virtù Quotidiane

TERAMO – Just over a year after the presentation event, the project promoted by Italia Nostra – Teramo Section, “Teramo a Tavola. Una Cucina Italiana” is ready to enter the second phase of its journey.

The specific objective of the project and of the exhibition which summarizes its results is to illustrate the history and distinctive characteristics of Teramo gastronomy: sustainability, rural origin, bourgeois elaboration. The intention is to highlight points of contact and divergences with respect to the history of Italian gastronomy and to frame the gastronomic elements from time to time in a local and national perspective, in order to evoke the events of material culture, the cultural scenario and more generally the history of Teramo province.

The project is the ground on which to demonstrate that the city is capable of directly producing high-level culture and that it can do so by setting up a collaborative team that brings together local intelligence and skills with internationally renowned professionals: the two curators of the exhibition, the Teramo Fernando Filipponi chargé de recherche at the Louvre Museum in Paris, and professor Massimo Montanari of the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, in collaboration with Marta Severo of the University of Paris Nanterre, Luciana D’Annunzio And Valentina Carola of the State Archives of Teramo, just to mention a few names.

After having passed the first step, with the work carried out in the Archive and on the Participatory Platform (with important support from the citizens), the project continues with the second step: the final exhibition will take place in the Sant’Agostino headquarters of the State Archives of Teramo in the summer period between 24 June and 24 August, with inauguration next Monday, 24 June at 5.00 pm.

The results of the historical research of Professor Massimo Montanari, of the archival investigations of Dr. Luciana D’Annunzio will be exhibited, as well as the outcome of the long campaign of data collection in the area. Everything will be presented together with kitchen objects and works of art that will help the viewer understand and experience the centuries-old history of Teramo gastronomy.

In addition to the exhibition, there will be collateral events organized by local associations and bodies, which will decorate the exhibition calendar on a weekly basis. The digital archive of the Teramano Gastronomic Heritage will be made available for the entire duration of the exhibition event and will remain open to public use even after its conclusion, as an essential work tool for any future investigation into the cuisine of our territory.

Such a project allows you to achieve strategic objectives that can be placed on three different levels.

First of all, there is knowledge of gastronomic history, an indispensable basis on which to build a brand useful for growing local businesses that nowadays promote and therefore export Teramo cuisine. The second objective is to place such a cultural action in the group of pilot projects of this kind, guaranteeing national and European visibility, as Valentina Carola, director of the State Archives, and Massimo Montanari intelligently underlined during the presentation of the Platform.

Thirdly, on an even different front, the Italian perspective is placed, to paraphrase the title of the project: Massimo Montanari intends to open the gastronomic history of the city and the province to the national stage. This means making Teramo cuisine grow to a broader level of interest, following the path of what happened in the past for other cuisines on the peninsula, on which a similar operation of knowledge and valorisation has already been carried out for some time (this is the case of Parma and Bologna for example, to name just a few).