Promoting gastronomy through Chef's recipes.

Abstract

Gastronomy is considered patrimony of the Portuguese culture. Portuguese traditional recipes are important in several aspects, such as its history, ethnography, ancientness, authenticity and unique characteristics which allowed the designation of national patrimony by law. INATEL is a public institute, which holds 14 hotel units spread across the country, serving more than 2.5 million meals per year and for the past years has been concerned with gastronomy and health promotion. The aim of this paper was to describe the process of promoting Portuguese regional gastronomy within INATEL, through the dissemination of traditional recipes. "The Chef suggests" project was launched in 2002, aiming to promote the hotels and their regional gastronomy. It consists of 1-2 pages in the INATEL's monthly magazine (around 200 000 copies), composed by regional recipes with their respective ingredients, photos and nutritional composition. Information texts about each recipe are provided according to its history, tradition and/or nutritional content. The project included until now soups (9), meat (21) and fish and seafood dishes (40) as well as desserts (31). Recipes were selected if considered to be regional, to use local ingredients and/or considered to be typically Portuguese. Chefs of each hotel were invited to suggest recipes with the identified characteristics, popular and well accepted amongst customers. Each recipe is subject to the nutritionist's approval which includes assessment of its nutritional value and gastronomic history. With this initiative, both the institution and the chefs are promoted. The published recipes can also be used to attract customers to the hotel, in order to taste the local gastronomy but they are also a useful source of nutritional information. Being cultural patrimony, our gastronomy must be used as an important agent to attract tourism. By investing in the quality of Portuguese cuisine using traditional recipes, INATEL wants to contribute to the aim of combining the promotion of Portuguese gastronomy, healthy choices and the tourism economical activity. Keywords: gastronomy, recipes, Portugal, hotels.