The International Olive Council (IOC), and The Culinary Institute of America (CIA), in association with the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative (MCURC) have recently launched the digital media aspect of the project “Olive Oil and the Plant-Forward Kitchen: Research, Education, and Digital Media.”
This 2021 initiative builds on the framework of The Culinary Institute of America’s recent (2019) white paper, titled “Olive Oil and the Plant-Forward Kitchen: Inspiration from the Mediterranean Diet for Contemporary American Cooking” focusing on technical and culinary insights to advance plant-forward menu trends in American cooking.
For this new initiative, the CIA is once again collaborating with the International Olive Council (IOC) to flesh out possibilities around a key element of the above-mentioned white paper: The culinary heritage of Mediterranean olive oil-based sauce-making traditions that leverage various ingredients in the plant-sourced market basket of the region, including vegetables, nuts and seeds, herbs, spices and other aromatics.
About the CIA
The Culinary Institute of America is one of the most important culinary colleges in the world, founded in the US in 1946 as a non-profit corporation specializing in master’s, bachelor’s, associate degrees, graduate certificate programs, and professional development programs in, various culinary arts, baking and pastry, culinary science, food business management, hospitality management, applied food studies, wine and beverage studies, and entrepreneurial and innovation studies.
The IOC and its objectives
The International Olive Council (IOC) is an international, non-profit intergovernmental organisation dedicated to olive oil and table olives created in 1959 under the auspices of the United Nations to administer the succession of International Agreements on Olive Oil and Table Olives concluded since then. The Council contributes to the responsible, sustainable development of olive growing and serves as a world forum for discussing policymaking issues and tackling present and future challenges. Among its areas of focus are setting technical standards for the sector, advancing research around quality in both in olive cultivation and in the processing of olive oil, and education about olive oil and the Mediterranean Diet.