The meeting began with a welcome ceremony. Later, together with the other participating teachers we analyzed divided into groups the research and work carried out by our students. Then we developed proposals for the curricula of our institutes, planned the tasks to be carried out in the following months, evaluated the opportunity to use methodologies such as flipped classroom and prepared an online meeting for the students.
The cultural activities were very interesting: we understood how economy based on environmental sustainability can bring many benefits to a territory in terms of tourism.
Alijo is located in a wonderful setting, along the Douro River. Demarcated in 1756, the Douro is one of the oldest wine regions in the world and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to the strong human influence that has impacted its development. In this area, the production of fine grapes for the production of muscatel and bread-making has been carried on according to traditional techniques and using local cereals. Our guests organized visits to Favaios (Social cellar and museum of bread and bread-making) and to the Fos Tua dam to enhance our knowledge of water conservation.
In this area, which is so special in terms of landscape and the food/wine supply chain, it was necessary to insert a dam and this led to an engineering work of great beauty. The dam was designed by architect Eduardo Souto de Mura, an exponent of the Portuguese school that reinterprets tradition as a challenge to innovation.
During the visit, some professionals illustrated us the impressive redevelopment works of the landscape surrounding the dam and the 19 ten-year measures of natural regeneration: they raise clams that purify the water, restore ecological corridors which constituted for centuries the historical routes of the animals, implemented the nesting of birds of prey.
The experience ended with a trip to the mouth of the Douro in Porto, to bookshops, bars and historic markets and with the tasting of typical dishes of the valley.
It was a 360-degree experience which combined job shadowing at an educational and professional level (cooking and oenology), art, knowledge of good practices in terms of environmental sustainability.
See you in Bari in two months! In the meantime, connections will be organized in the Majorana kitchens with pupils from partner schools to show typical Apulian recipes. To recycle/recover cooking and food preparation water and enrich the experience begun in Portuguese bakeries, Prof. Colazzo, bread-making expert and cooking teacher at our Palese branch, will propose the preparation of bread and rolls and other tasty recipes by reusing cooking water from turnips and other vegetables, revisiting traditional preparation methods.
The recipes prepared in Palese’s kitchens: orecchiette and turnips, sandwiches prepared with vegetable cooking water:
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