By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Relais & Châteaux and Slow Food, a Non-governmental organisation in France is set to embark on a global campaign to raise awareness about absolute importance of the health of local areas and their economies and quality of food.
The organisation disclosed this on its website on Thursday.
Through physical events and virtual initiatives, Relais & Châteaux chefs will: illustrate the importance of the products they have nominated within the local culinary heritage; explain how to cook them; raise awareness of the right way to harvest them that respects the environment; and preserve the biodiversity of the terroir by either eating more of a product to stimulate its production or in some cases less to allow the species to rest and regenerate.
Telling their stories and supporting local producers are fundamental to rediscovering and protecting the products of the Ark of Taste.
“Biodiversity is not only genetic, but also cultural; it comes from and belongs to the heritage and traditions of the entire planet,” comments Slow Food president Carlo Petrini. “With the industrialization of our food system, we risk losing both the hundreds of corn varieties and the savoir-faire of a small village’s cheese producer.”
While agricultural biodiversity and small-scale, family-based food production systems are under threat around the world, food choices can collectively influence the way food is grown, produced and distributed, and trigger a real change.
It is a belief and a commitment that unites Slow Food and more than 580 Relais & Châteaux members, who are all committed towards making a better world through cuisine and hospitality and supporting farmers who breed and use local products, as pledged at UNESCO in 2014.
For Olivier Roellinger, Vice President of Relais & Châteaux, “What’s the point of eating the same food or drinking the same wine in every country around the world? Relais & Châteaux properties represent the diversity of cuisines; they are guardians of biodiversity, sharing all that is good and beautiful in this world.”
