You can easily enjoy delicious Italian food while never leaving the city nowadays, but is what you eat really authentic Italian cuisine?

Recently, a ‘Masterclass’ was held to provide the participants with deep insights on the authentic and certified Italian food & wine products at the LN Garden Hotel in Guangzhou on May 28th, 2019. An Italian chef was invited to stage a professional cooking show using only DOP and IGP certified Italian products.

A chef makes Italian dish at the event. [Photo: CICC]

DOP (Denominazione di Origine Protetta) refers to ‘Protected Designation of Origin’ and IGP (Indicazione Geografica Protetta) ‘Protected geographical Indication’. Both marks are based on a legal framework provided by the European Parliament defining quality criteria for agri-food production.

These labels can be found on the packaging of authentic Italian products, indicating an extraordinary combination of variety, high quality, healthy raw materials and amazing flavours.

Guests included the Consul General of Italy in Guangzhou Ms. Lucia Pasqualini, the Secretary General of China-Italy Chamber of Commerce (CICC) Ms. Giulia Gallarati, representatives form F&B industry, KOL and influencers, as well as journalists, who had the chance to taste a real Italian dish and Italian wines during the event.

Ms. Lucia Pasqualini, Consul General of Italy in Guangzhou [Photo: CICC]

Ms. Giulia Gallarati, Secretary General of China-Italy Chamber of Commerce [Photo: CICC]

The event is part of the project “True Italian Taste”, promoted and funded by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development (MiSE) and carried out by Assocamerestero (the Association of the Italian Chambers of Commerce Worldwide) in cooperation with the Italian Chambers of Commerce abroad. “True Italian Taste” is part of the program "The Extraordinary Italian Taste".

It is aimed to support and promote the authentic Italian agricultural food products in China to hinder the issue of the “Italian sounding” phenomenon, products with an Italian appearance, but not considered an authentic Made in Italy product.

Authors: Monica Liu, Xu Le

Editor: Hu Nan