Can food mould culture? Tracing the importance of food culture for our common European cultural heritage. This biennial project focuses on searching traces of food culture within our common European cultural heritage. ‘In between need, hunger and satisfaction, humans establish a cultural system – their cuisine. They almost solely satisfy their organic, physical needs by applying passed on cultural methods. Moreover, eating and drinking appears as a social framework which secures and enables orientation and communication among social groups as well as individuals.’ (Ulrich Tolksdorf) Due to this fact, it is possible ‘to obtain an excellent insight into cultural developments of social issues by examining a specific food culture. Food culture thereby serves as a mirror by which not only eating habits, but also socio-political values and hierarchies can be detected.’ Consequently, the question arises, how can traditional food manufacturing processes and eating rituals be presented and experienced in a culture promoting way Europe-wide. Now this question ‘Can food mould culture?’ will be pursued in France, Greece, Italy, Poland and Germany. Our students will trace typical local-specific products and investigate manufacturing processes, while considering their traditional and economic importance. During their activities transnational student groups will visit for example olive and wine growers, shepherds, horse breeders and fishermen and thereby get to know their cultural background. At the end of each project a public closing ceremony will be organised. Similar to a food market, the students will medially and culinary present the product as well as the agricultural farm or enterprise they visited. Finally, the results of all the five different projects will be published in a European cookbook, including information on all the recipes, products and institutions involved. Subordinate goals of this project are: creating awareness for the close link between regional supply chains and a sustainable environment, realizing the link between food culture and social as well as regional identity and last but not least recognizing economic opportunities of regional enterprises. Moreover, the project enables interdisciplinary learning. At the Gymnasium Lappersdorf teachers from all kinds of subjects (history, social studies, economics, biology and geography) are involved. In addition to that the project will further shape the school’s profile as a member of the UNESCO-schools network and so have a long-lasting effect. At each school ten students from year 9 respectively 10 will join the project. They will register for an ERASMUS club and work on the project during regular meetings in preliminary stages. Over the two-year-period, 10-12 teachers at each school will be involved in preparing and organising the event on-site. The students’ search for cultural traces should finally end in recognizing a common European identity and help eliminating prejudices and stereotypes. During their activities in Lappersdorf, Avellino, Plougastel, Larisa and Braniewo, they will develop further, more intense awareness of Europe’s diversity and the importance of its cultural heritage. The participants will create ‘commercial’ product videos about the enterprises and products they dealt with, they will improve their abilities regarding graphic and media design and will organise the public closing ceremony as well as compile the cookbook. Current, daily news about the project will be published in a blog and on social networks. At the final meeting in Larisa the whole project will be evaluated by students and teachers and the European Cookbook will be presented to the public. Besides that, concepts will be developed on how to integrate the topic in the individual curricula. It is expected that the project will have long-lasting positive effects on all people involved: students, parents, teachers and the region they live in. The students will adopt a better understanding of Europe’s cultural heritage and will be concerned about preserving its cultural resources. Additionally, they will establish contacts to European friends as well as enterprises and producers, which could influence their professional future. Teachers will experience a very different approach to work and receive much positive feedback. Last but not least the public’s perception of all the participating schools will be very positive and thereby improve the schools’ status.
Can food mould culture? Tracing the importance of food culture for our common European cultural heritage. The focus of the three-year project was a search for traces of the significance of food culture for the common European cultural heritage. For "between need - hunger - and satisfaction - eating and drinking - man places the whole cultural system of cuisine. He satisfies his organic needs almost exclusively with traditional, i.e. cultural methods. In addition, eating and drinking also appear as a social operational structure that ensures orientation and communication between groups and individuals." (Ulrich Tolksdorf) For this reason, it was possible "to obtain a particularly vivid description of cultural processes in other social spheres as well by examining the respective food culture. Food culture thus became a kind of mirror in which not only eating habits but also sociopolitical values and orders could be revealed." (Gunther Hirschfelder) Thus the question arose to what extent the traditional production processes of food as well as the rituals of eating together can be experienced as culture-forming processes throughout Europe. The question "Can food be culture-forming?" was thus pursued in France, Greece, Italy, Poland and Germany. The students went in search of typical national products and their production processes, always keeping in mind the connection between food, typical national culture and the economic significance of cultural resources. During the activities, transnational groups of students were formed, who were guests of an olive farmer, a shepherd, a horse breeder, a fisherman or a winegrower, for example, and learned about the cultural connections. At the end of the meetings, there was a public closing event in the form of a food fair with a culinary and media presentation of products, farms and participating institutions. At the end of the overall project, a European Cultural Cookbook was published, containing a selection of the country-specific recipes cooked by the participants. The overarching goals were thus to sharpen the respective school profiles around the aspects of cultural heritage, environmental education and sustainability, to create an awareness of the connection between regional value chains and sustainable environmental education, the knowledge of the connection between food culture and identity formation in a European framework and finally the understanding of economic possibilities of regional entrepreneurship in this area. To this end, the project was designed to be interdisciplinary. For example, the subjects of history, sociology, economics, biology and geography were involved at the Gymnasium Lappersdorf. The integration into the UNESCO-Schulprofi as well as into the curricula of the 9th and 10th grade will ensure longer-term benefits for the school communities. Over the three-year duration of the project, approximately 60 students from the 9th, 10th, and 11th grades per school were able to participate and were brought together in the form of an ERASMUS group and worked on the preparation and dissimination of the projects in the school community at regular meetings. During the duration of the project, 10 to 12 teachers per school were involved in the implementation of the overall project or in the on-site activity. All activities served the cultural search for traces - the supporting idea was furthermore the realization of a common European identity and the dismantling of stereotypes and prejudices. The students became aware of the diversity and the importance of the cultural heritage during the activities in Lappersdorf, Plougastel, Larisa, Braniewo and during the digital activity in Avellino. They created image films about each of the businesses, products and recipes visited, trained their skills in graphic and media design, and worked on the final event at the meetings. Despite the challenges posed by the Corona pandemic, which affected the countries in different ways, the great commitment of the teachers, students and parents involved meant that the project could be carried out almost as planned. Participation in the project has had a long-term positive impact on several levels, for students, teachers, school community and region: students deepened their knowledge of European cultural heritage and participated in the preservation of cultural resources. Furthermore, they established contacts with companies and producers in their area and in other European countries, which can also be decisive for their later career choice. The colleagues experienced the value of their work and commitment, gained teaching ideas and external contacts. The schools' external reputation and public perception were increased.