Taste of Identity: Food Heritage Between History and Tourism

Curso de Formação

Ano Letivo 2025/2026

The BIP "Taste of Identity: Food Heritage Between History and Tourism" is designed to explore food as a central dimension of cultural heritage, focusing on its historical roots, contemporary expressions, and tourism potential. Through a multidisciplinary and intercultural approach, the program examines how food practices shape collective identities, contribute to regional development, and interact with sustainability challenges.
The program takes the interior Alentejo region (Southern Portugal) as its starting point ? a living laboratory where food heritage, landscape, and traditional knowledge intersect. Local products, culinary techniques, and food-related rituals will be analyzed as expressions of long-term historical processes such as agricultural systems, land-use patterns, migratory flows, and socio-economic transitions. Particular emphasis will be placed on the Mediterranean Diet, not only as a UNESCO-recognized heritage, but also as a dynamic cultural system.
This perspective will be enriched by thematic approaches and contributions from partner universities in Italy and Ireland, expanding the analytical framework to other European contexts and allowing students to compare how different regions interpret, preserve and promote their heritage.