Diekirch, June 2010 N°2/2010

Dear AEHT Members

On their return from their marathon business meetingin Silvi Marina in the Teramo province of Italy, the AEHT Presidium would like to pass on to you someimportant pieces of news, and to share with you their most recent professional, gastronomic, cultural and social impressions and emotions.

The Presidium photographed after their visit of the Atri Cathedral –a gem of 13

century religious art

We are delighted to tell you that the organizers have just agreed to another extension of the deadline for registering at the advantageous ‘early-bird’ rate for the

Annual Conference

to July 16

2010. In order toregister, please follow carefully the instructions givenin the previous newsletter, which have been sent to youby e-mail. A new type of competition will take place for the first time in Lisbon: the

Hospitality Management competition.

This year the competition will beconducted only in English, and will therefore beavailable only to Higher Education students aged 18and over. Registration is now open at http://www.aehtlisboa2010.eu. One of the unique features of this competition is that the performance of the teams is assessed not only by a panel of professionals, but also by the competing teams.Our Vice-President Annie Collinet, Director of theFrançois Bise hotel school in Bonneville, has just decided to retire from her post on November 5

2010;we must therefore arrange elections to select a newVice-President with responsibility for Higher Educationand for relations with the International Association of Francophone Countries. The election will take place at the next meeting of the Executive Board at the AnnualConference in Lisbon. A call for candidates was sent out by e-mail on June 8

to the National Representatives – any representative who has not received the relevant documents is kindly requested tocontact the AEHT Head Office. The deadline for submitting candidacies is September 1

2010, and wehope to receive many expressions of interest.The Poznan school has just decided not to go ahead with organising the

2011 Annual Conference

. ThePresidium will give priority to the future organisers, Maastricht and Ankara, to fill this gap, before possiblyaccepting the offer from the Teramo school to organisethe event in Silvi Marina. The region has an extremelyrich heritage and could be of interest to many of our member schools.

Magnificent frescos by Andrea de Litio (late 15

century) adornthe choir of the dell’Assunta Cathedral in Atri.

The province of Teramo enjoys an exceptionalgeographic location: to the north is the Marchesregion, to the east the Adriatic sea, to the south theProvince of Pescara, and to the west the naturereserves which protect the Gran Sasso mountain chain(reaching a height of 2912 metres) and the Monti della Laga chain (reaching 2458 metres) – both of themvisible throughout the Province. This geographiclocation has had a strong influence on localgastronomy and culture. It is rare to find so manymenus and recipes which combine produce from boththe mountains and the sea. We discovered this for ourselves

in situ

on Friday June 4

and Saturday June5

when we took part in the examinations for 3

year food preparation and food service classes. At the end of this Newsletter we have reproduced the menu whichwas served to us on Friday evening – you can easilytranslate it (here’s a useful reminder!) into other languages using the Restolingua software. The second dinner was part of a project intended to promote localsea produce, entitled ‘Products of the Sea as a Tourist and Cultural Attraction in Europe – Authenticity and Identity in the Field of Tourism’. This project succeeded in bringing together representatives from a

Diekirch, June 2010 N°2/2010

large number of public bodies to discuss a shared preoccupation – the conservation and promotion of local sea produce with a view to preserving atraditional territorial cultural identity and to creatingan attractive selling point for tourism.

Symposium on ‘Produce of the sea as a Tourist and Cultural Attraction in Europe’

Congratulations to the organisers who successfullybrought together such a number of important peoplearound a table to debate this pressing problem as wellas other future challenges. Those who took an activerole in the debates were: Anna Paola Mazzone, tourismadviser and chair of the round-table meeting; GaetanoVallescura, mayor of Silvi; Luciana Di Marco, adviser on cultural matters to the Silvi town council; Mauro Di Dalmazio, tourism adviser and Paolo Gatti, stateeducation adviser (both representing the Abruzzeregion); Valter Catarra, President of Teramo province; Luigi Valentini, director of the ‘IIS Di Poppa-Rozzi’hotel and tourism school; and two lecturers fromTeramo university: Prof. Pietro Giorgio Tiscar from theFaculty of Veterinary Medicine and Prof. Consuelo Diodati from the University of Tourism Science. Thedebates which took place at this highly interesting and productive symposium concentrated among other subjects on the conservation of natural resources, particularly marine resources, on the protection of anauthentic cultural and gastronomic heritage, on theimportance of a return to exploiting the resources of thesea, and on building housing that is more in harmonywith nature and living creatures in general, and withhumans in particular – all of this with the aim of improving tourism development in the region.

From left to right: Luigi Valentini – our host - Alfonso Benvenuto and PietroGiorgio Tiscar Valter Catarra – President of Teramo Province

One of the priorities is to promote the authenticity and identity of the Abruzze region by improving the way theresources of the land are exploited and by improvingthe quality of life in the region. To achieve these aimswe need on the one hand to identify the interesting places which are likely to attract the flows of tourists,and on the other hand to plan the appropriate trainingof staff in the tourism sector, particularly the type of training which will promote gastronomy based on local produce and encourage restaurants to introduce typicalregional dishes in their menus.

Brodetto alla silvarola

Given the Abruzze region’s geographical location, itsabundant nature and its historical heritage, it has great potential to develop beach tourism, mountain tourism,rural tourism, as well as cultural and religious tourism. It is vital that all the organisations mentioned aboveshould work together, coordinating projects carried out in the field of tourism, in order to preserve theauthenticity and identity of the region and to transformtoday’s seasonal tourism into year-round tourism.

Diekirch, June 2010 N°2/2010

Also taking part in the lecture were representatives of the AEHT: Klaus Enengl, the Association’s president,and a member of the Council of Elders, Alfonso Benvenuto. Alfonso emphasised that tourism is certainlynot a game, not something to be approached lightly, but something that is of vital importance given itsconsiderable impact on the economy, on theenvironment, on culture and on social life; each of usmust shoulder our share of responsibility, aresponsibility he hoped that the official bodies present at the event would willingly take on in order to ensurethe most harmonious possible development of thisbeautiful region.

Villeroy & Boch isdonating 100 sets of tableware to the L’Aquila school Domenico Evangelista thanks the community of AEHT member schools for their solidarity:€14,500 EUR was donated for his school in L’Aquila

In the course of the symposium Klaus Enengl handed acheque for €2,636 to the director of the L’Aquila hotelschool. This donation is in addition to theapproximately €12,000 paid directly to the school by AEHT member schools as part of the 2009-2010 versionof ’Gastronomy for Peace’ – funds intended to pay for the reconstruction and improvement of the school’sstructure which was damaged by the earthquake on April 6

2009. Villeroy et Boch (www.villeroy-boch.com

), one of the AEHT’s privileged professional partners and a world-famous international companydesigning, manufacturing and distributing ceramic and other high-quality products, has also promised todonate a batch of 100 porcelain table sets. These arecomplete table settings for 100 people, consisting of around 1000 items. The goods will be delivered via theVilleroy & Boch representative in Italy, ABERT SPA,division BROGGI 1818 in Passirano (Brescia)(www.abert.it )and will be handed over personally to the L’Aquila school director on July 6

, in the presenceof the press, by a delegation consisting of representatives of Villeroy & Boch Luxembourg, BROGGI and the AEHT.We should like to take this opportunity to remind youthat Villeroy & Boch Luxembourg offers all AEHT member schools a discount of 50% on their professional porcelain, on condition that they use this brand as their main tableware supplier. Contact: Mr GeorgesSCHMITZ (schmitz.georges@villeroy-boch.com

Cups being glazed at Villeroy & BochPorcelain is heated in the kiln toa maximum of 1230 °C

Words cannot adequately describe the ‘Cooking-show’ provided the following day at 13.00 in the Hermitage Hotel by the budding chefs from the Teramo hotelschool. Quite unbelievable from start to finish – a finishwhich moreover the members of the Presidium never reached, having surrendered before the amazingquantity of delicious dishes of exceptionally highquality – and also because the previous day they had been treated to a dinner that was of similar size and quality – the examination dinner at the IIS "Di Poppa- Rozzi".

Buffet : les delights of the Adriatic Sea

Here are some of the dishes you must remember if you plan to spend a few days in this region: delizie del mare Adriatico, chitarra alle vongole, gnocchetti freschimazzancole e zucchine, mezze maniche agli scampi (for your fist course), brodetto alla silvarola, rana pescatrice al forno con patate e olive nere (for your main course), torta alla frutta, mousse al limone, pannacotta, cannoli di sfoglia, bavarese alla fragole, crêpessuzettes.