The first Week of Italian Cuisine in Kosovo featured a rich programme of events jointly organized by the Tirana offices of the Italian Trade Agency – ICE, and the Italian Cultural Institute in Tirana with the coordination and support of the Italian Embassy in Prishtina. Tthe Week’s highlights included promotional activities involving the country’s major food retail chains and the participation of a large network of restaurants, cafeterias and commercial activities, which offered their customers menus featuring Italian dishes, wines and drinks.
Representatives of Kosovo’s most important institutions, the media and cultural and business communities were invited to attend the opening dinner which was hosted at a very trendy place in Prishtina. The evening was made even more special by the presence of Kosovo’s Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj. Three famous Chefs, Italian Christian Broglia, Kosovan Bekim Jashari and Albanian Bleri Dervishi, crafted together the evening’s menu featuring Italian recipes and fusion cuisine with a pinch of personal creativity, preparing every single dish with Italian products that each Chef interpreted according to his own vision.
Chef Broglia also held a full-day technical training session for the students of an Agronomic and Technology Institute and a Hotel School of Prishtina. He also delivered a lecture to an audience of students from the Italian Language and Literature Study Programme at the Faculty of Philology of the Prishtina University on the measures developed by the EU to protect agricultural produce and food products (Controlled Designation of Origin and Protected Geographical Indication) and on the way labels ‘should be read’ in order to contribute to a healty and balanced diet.
The First Week of Italian Cuisine in Kosovo was well covered thanks to the participation of several media representatives, the setting up of an ad-hoc website (http://italiantastekosovo.com/) and the concomitance with the Italian Language Week in the World, which turned out to be beneficial for both initiatives.
