It's time to start thinking about the mysticism of the Swiss Goetheanum, the conviviality of eating, and sensory taste studies in Italy!

This is our eighth year for the program, which to date has hosted over 100 student. We are taking just 11 more this year.

Pre-departure session dates: June 11-14, 2017 This is our eighth year for the program, which to date has hosted over 100 student. We are taking just 11 more this year.

Pre-departure session dates: June 11-14, 2017

Travel dates:

• Optional Switzerland excursion: June 15 – 17, 2017
• Florence: June 18 - July 9, 2017

Program Details

This food studies program begins with culinary intensives in Bellingham, then moves to Florence, Italy, where students study heritage food cultures. Students also study in the prestigious University of Florence sensory taste sciences department, with the renowned gastronomy/sensory taste scientists, Caterina Dinnella and Erminio Monteleone.  Italian family home stays, Tuscan countryside excursions, cultural tours, and hikes. Museum visits included. The cost of this program provides most meals in Italy, including country and palazzo-dining in the Tuscan countryside, as well as conversational Italian and introductory art history as part of the food culture experience.

Additional credits are available through independent study.

Enrollment is limited to 11. 

• Experience Italian farm- and home-cooking with Italian families and in hands-on culinary intensives in Italy, the home of the “Slow Food” movement
• Visit Fiesole (with its Etruscan sites and ruins)
• Visit San Gimingiano (Tuscan countryside)
• Visit Il Palagio (Tuscan countryside)
• Italian cooking classes
• Museum visits included, e.g., The Uffizi (the Louvre of Italy)
• Study sensory taste science with European experts at the University of Florence (4 days)
• Study natural animal breeding and biodynamic farming
• Observe cheesemaking
• Participate in carbon-offsetting 
• The cost of this program provides most meals in Italy, including country and palazzo-dining in the Tuscan countryside, as well as conversational Italian and introductory art history as part of the food culture experience

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Our classroom in Switzerland

Pre-departure cooking

One of our classrooms in Florence

One of our cooking classes in Florence

Italian culture, etiquette, language

Under the Tuscan Sun -- last day reflections on our university, language, and travel studies

Last meal in Italy, at Il Palagio

Return to the U.S., more meals

Instructor

Gigi with Slow Food founder, Carlo Petrini

Gigi Berardi, Huxley professor, received her B.A. in Biology from John Muir College, University of California San Diego and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Natural Resources, Policy, and Planning from Cornell University. She holds an M.A. in dance from UCLA.

Gigi has held four tenure-track positions and has taught at over a dozen colleges and universities – but she has saved the best for last: Western Washington University. Gigi’s research focus is on community vulnerabilities and food. In addition, she is an avid cook, gardener, student-of-languages, and fitness/dance enthusiast!

Gigi co-founded and served as interim director of the Resilience Institute at Huxley and currently serves as Resilient Farms Project co-director. Her current book projects are entitled Food! and A Cultivated Life.