In a recent article in Time Magazine, Caitlin Thompson does a short piece on how Andrew Zimmerman “Eats His Way Around The World”. It’s a great read about “experiential eating”. We have been including the creation of innovative cuisine experiences as a key teaching piece within our workshops at GMIST’s popular Edge of the Wedge program, as well as on Best Practice Missions, and in various Tourism Café experiential tourism workshops that we have been crafting and delivering all over Canada.
I like Andrew’s quote, “Three or four years ago, I would’ve said we need to get snout-to-tail eating out of high-end restaurants and back out amongst the population at large, where it belongs. I think because of the economic downturn, we have more people turning to those things on their own. What is luckily happening is that in a lot of these smaller countries there are locals who are saying,….We have a really viable product here in culinary tourism, and if we pave over and plow under our indigenous culture, we’re going to be missing out.”
We have many opportunities to dip into our local Canadian inventory or local “menu” of traditions in collecting and preparing local foods that we can share with the world. What we consider “grandma’s recipe” is extra-ordinary dining for the “come from away” traveler. Putting these elements together into a seamless, comfortable, and easily delivered culinary experience is an exercise in tourism craftsmanship that takes deliberate and intentional effort. It is well worth it, as the price becomes higher, the experience more valued, and the “word of fork” well-marketed.
