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Mountains are unique environments, and their relation to food production and consumption has always differed from valleys and plains.
In this chapter, we start defining mountain foodways and gastronomy in light of the definitions of mountain activities provided by the CAI (Italian Alpine Club) and Slow Food.
Moreover, we explore existing literature in this area.
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According to the Michigan State University,
foodways are “all of the traditional activities, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours associated with the food in your daily life. Foodways include customs of food production, preservation, preparation, presentation, gathering, marketing (both buying and selling), uses of food products other than for eating and food folklore.”1
food·ways ˈfüd-ˌwāz, according to Merriam-Webster, are the eating habits and culinary practices of a people, region, or historical period.
The meanings we attribute to food are shaped by our interactions with others and the cultural context in which we live. We assign specific meanings to foods in particular situations through our daily behaviours, beliefs, and practices related to food selection, sharing, and culinary traditions2.
Food holds diverse symbolic significance for various individuals based on the context.
Mountain Foodways and Foodscapes
At the heart of the mountain foodscape is the belief that agricultural activities should enhance the landscape's beauty and functionality and contribute to individual well-being, social progress, and environmental conservation.
Farmers are advocating for agriculture that preserves traditional methods and products while prioritising the protection of Alpine's natural and cultural heritage.
Economic viability is paramount, and product prices should accurately reflect their production costs. However, it is of utmost importance to educate consumers about the value of mountain products and their positive environmental impact.
This task is urgent and necessary.
It's vital to garner more robust community support for agriculture, revamp subsidies to reflect the ecosystem services provided by mountain agriculture, and streamline political and bureaucratic requirements.
Food Production
Globalisation has proven to have a detrimental impact on food production in mountainous areas, threatening it with competition: industries located in the valleys compete for price and offer against limited productions at high prices in more challenging areas.
Farming in mountainous areas is incredibly challenging due to various environmental factors. The harsh weather and poor soil conditions result in short growing seasons. Additionally, labour costs are higher in these areas, and the steep terrain makes it hard to use traditional farming machinery.
Therefore, anonymous, mass-produced vegetables, grains, meats, and cheeses, among other products, often travel to mountain restaurants to produce meals for hikers and tourists, mindful of costs and keeping prices affordable.
At the same time, closer-by productions are channelled to specialised, high-end boutique shops where affluent customers can satisfy their need for locally produced, healthy, tasty, and “natural” food.
This current division of the food system into "food from nowhere" and "food from somewhere" has intrinsic potential not only for producing high-quality mountain food products for local and global markets but also for marketing such products back to the mountains, cutting off cheap, industrial, and mass-produced food and thus reverting capital and income into the mountain itself, in a double virtuous circle.
Supply-chain and environmental crises highlight the need to strengthen local production of essential staple foods. This requires leveraging local, traditional agricultural knowledge and practices and blending them with innovation and applied research for the sustainable management of mountain commons and biodiversity conservation.
A desired transition to a more sustainable economy is the precursor for new competitive arrangements between the production of food, energy, and raw materials for industry, with specific implications for the resilience of mountainous areas.
Food Consumption
Mountain foodscapes present unique specificities.
Although mountain farming is so much more laborious and far less productive for the communities that inhabit the mountains, agriculture and animal herding, have always been central to life and can now find new meaning as a values-based food supply chain that opposes phenomena such as climate change, outmigration, and difficulties of market integration for small-scale value chains.
From a consumer's point of view, mountain produce is generally associated with high environmental compatibility and exceptional product quality. The average consumer links mountain produce with purity and traditional value, making it highly marketable.
Future Challenges
Mountain foodscapes are experiencing rapid and significant changes due to climate change, migration to and from rural areas, urbanisation, and market integration.
These changes, with their potential to either intensify pressure on local livelihoods and ecosystems or to promote more environmentally friendly and fair management, underscore the importance of understanding the key drivers behind the shift towards greater sustainability and fairness in mountain foodscapes.
In this context, mountain foodscapes encompass the social-ecological landscapes of food production, involving actors within these mountain regions and urban and lowland areas.
Valuation of mountain nature and its ecosystems, especially agroecosystems, has most frequently been conducted in terms of their monetary value only. However, the values of mountain food environments are diverse and beyond purely monetary consideration; they include instrumental, relational, and intrinsic value types.
The rich food traditions of mountain cultures are rapidly disappearing due to the relentless influence of the food industry, globalisation, and the standardisation of culinary preferences. This shift significantly moves towards consuming packaged and processed foods within these communities.
Mountain Gastronomies
What are the potential contributions of mountain cooking to global sustainability? How can chefs promote the protection of the areas in which they operate, and what might the future hold for mountain cuisine?
These and other questions are on the table - quite literally - with some illustrious Chefs.
For example, Norbert Niederkoefler argues that Chefs and customers must closely study the interplay between production, products, territory, and consumption to redefine economic and social development. He believes cooking should be the cornerstone for instigating this change, functioning as a "catalyst for cultural processes" to propagate a sustainable development model. In this context, chefs must become "emotional educators" capable of championing a new lifestyle3.
Similarly, Chef Alessandro Gilmozzi’s culinary philosophy is rooted in the Dolomites, “his” mountains and their essence is infused into every dish. He argues that his cuisine is an innovative and respectful tribute to Alpine traditions, incorporating ancient recipes in a contemporary context, with a philological recovery of recipes from ancient subsistence cuisine, interpreted with contemporary sensitivity4.
Beyond fine dining, the boundaries of high mountain gastronomy are being redefined, for example, at the Everest Base Camp: Around 2014, Chef Sarah Macnab started cooking at the Camp, and documented her foodways into practices for the need for storage, even more than preparing food that is affordable at very high altitude: tin goods, dry goods, food that is specific for the climbers on the mountain5.
And high altitude cooks are not just juggling stoves: as Carlo Budel, baker and manager of the Punta Penia Hut in the Dolomites says, “up above you must above all be able to go to the mountains, climb over a crevasse, know the area very well, certainly not suffer from loneliness because it is easy to find yourself even two or three days without seeing anyone”.6
Mountains are places that are simultaneously communal and collective, solitary and individual. For this reason, every month, I offer you a reading by someone other than me who writes about mountain food and foodways.
I propose Comfort Food by Valentina Raffaelli, author of "Salads for a Year": "Bitter is also the taste that, one bite after another, I felt finishing a dinner that should have been for two but instead I found myself eating alone . Baked sardines with breadcrumbs, orange peel and raisins (similar to the famous Sicilian sardines alla beccafico, but not rolled), fennel, hazelnut and bergamot salad, crostoni with creamed cod, one of my absolute favorite things. The more pleased I was with what I had cooked, the more angry I became for that evening which shouldn't have gone like this. It was all delicious too.”
C. Fjellström, Y. Mattsson Sydner, in Food for the Aging Population, 2017
https://norbertniederkofler.com/en/i-m-cook-the-mountain
https://www.alessandrogilmozzi.com/#sostenibilità
https://adventureconsultantsblog.com/everest-base-camp-kitchen/
https://www.ilrifugista.it/carlo-budel/