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Second Week of Italian Cuisine in the USA, November 13 – 19, 2017

The World Week of Italian Cuisine reaches its second edition with the aim of promoting Italian culinary traditions and food-and-wine connoisseurship as a distinctive trait of Italian identity and culture. In the USA the second edition will take place from November 13 to November 19, 2017 under the sign of quality, sustainability, culture, food security, the right to food, education, identity, territory, and biodiversity. Another objective of the Week is to enhance tourist destinations, territories, culinary art itineraries and the Mediterranean Diet, one of the elements that make Italy the healthiest Country in the world. Crucial are also the activities aimed at disseminating and internationalizing the training programs offered in this sector, in order to attract talents from abroad and to strengthen customer retention for high-quality Italian products.

Key points of the second edition are:

• combining high-quality cuisine and wine;
• protecting and leveraging the controlled and protected designation of origin of products and promoting actions to disseminate Italian brand-protection methods, in order to launch initiatives to fight the so called Italian sounding
• promoting regional and food-and-wine tourist itineraries;
• focusing attention on training in the hotel sector, to develop long-term cooperation between Italian and international chefs;
• supporting the candidacy of the art of the Neapolitan pizza chefs and of the “Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Valdobbiadene” site to be included in the UNESCO world heritage list;
• supporting the traditional products of the Regions struck by the earthquake.

The Week is organized through a cooperative effort of all the public and private actors representing Italy and the Italian cuisine in the world. This year the Italian networks of Consulates, Cultural Institutes and Trade Commissions in the United States will organize almost 50 events across the country with a focus on Sicilian cuisine. Workshops and conferences, meetings with the chefs, food-and-wine tasting and dinners, commercial promotion programs and cooking classes are some of the foreseen activities. The Italian cuisine will also be narrated through cultural events, such as the screening of food related films and documentaries, conferences, concerts, language courses, and photography exhibitions.

Please find below the program of events in Washington DC and click here to learn more about the overall program in the US.

  • Monday, November 13, 6:00pm – Screening of “La pizza, il cuore di Napoli
    Followed by pizza tasting, at the Embassy of Italy.
  • Tuesday, November 14, 6:00pm – Conference “Sicilian Flavors: Traditional Farming and Eating in a Modern World. A conversation with Fabrizia Lanza and Ann Yonkers
    Followed by winetasting in collaboration with Tasca D’Almerita wineries, at the Embassy of Italy.
  • Wednesday, November 15, 6:30pm – Conference “Health And Nutrition: Challenges And Solutions” at Georgetown University.
  • Thursday, November 16, 9:30am – 1:30pm – General meeting on the agriculture and food sector, in collaboration of the New York Office of the Italian Trade Agency, with the participation of Italian companies and sector operators working in the US (closed doors event).
  • Thursday, November 16, 6:00pm – Opening ceremony of photography exhibit “Discover the #ItalianTaste
    Followed by Italian Street Food Festival, a Sicilian food and wine tasting at the Embassy of Italy in collaboration with Regione Sicilia.
  • Saturday, November 18, 7:30pm – Gala dinner dedicated to the Sicilian culinary art by Sicilian chef Roberto Toro, who will reinterpret the menu prepared for the Taormina G7 Summit in May 2017. The dinner will be at Villa Firenze, residence of the Ambassador of Italy to the United States and it is organized in collaboration with Regione Sicilia and Tasca D’Almerita wineries. Closed doors event.