The event “La Festa del Cuoco” (The Chef’s Festival, ed.) organized in Brussels by the Association of Italian Chefs in Belgium and of which I Love Italian Food was a partner, was held on 10 and 11 October, involving some Italian excellences in support of the initiative.
The modern setting of the Excellis FoodLab building, where the Association led by President Pino Nacci has its headquarters, hosted the two-day event dedicated to the celebration of chefs and above all to the restart of the industry, after a year and a half of standstill due to the pandemic.
Sponsored by the Italian Embassy in Belgium, the Festa del Cuoco was an opportunity to highlight Italy’s culinary tradition as an essential part of the country’s culture and as a distinctive sign of Italian lifestyle, promoting the quality of our agri-food products, with a strong focus on the fight against counterfeiting of Made in Italy products. The event involved more than 400 guests and a large number of chefs who are members of the Italian Chefs Association in Belgium, who talked about and promoted Italian food and wine products.
There were moments of show cooking, tasting and training seminars to share the riches of our land with the operators of the Belgian market. Among the excellences promoted for the occasion by I Love Italian Food, Mortadella Bologna PGI, Cotechino Modena PGI and Salame Cacciatore PDO in collaboration with the Consortia of protection. The three PDO and PGI products were in fact among the protagonists of “La Festa del Cuoco”, with educational moments by I Love Italian Food’s 100per100 Italian Academy, which involved for the occasion the Italian food expert Sara Rania, trainer of Cuisine Italienne Paris, who told the history, characteristics and possible uses in the kitchen of the three Italian deli meats.
The presentation and tasting of the products was instead carried out by Chef Giampaolo Bernardi, a member of the FIC in Belgium, who created three original dishes describing Mortadella Bologna, Cotechino Modena and Salamini Italiani alla cacciatora.
Scroll through the gallery to discover the photos of the event in Bruxelles:
