{"id":3159448,"date":"2021-07-21T17:09:28","date_gmt":"2021-07-21T17:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webalkans.eu\/local-flavours-meet-global-clients\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T11:08:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:08:27","slug":"local-flavours-meet-global-clients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webalkans.eu\/en\/local-flavours-meet-global-clients\/","title":{"rendered":"Local flavours meet global clients"},"content":{"rendered":"\nAn EU-funded project supports Albania and Montenegro in promoting local cuisine internationally\r\n\r\nIvana Babovi\u0107 lives in the picturesque village of Konjuhe near Andrijevica in northern Montenegro.\u00a0The village is far from the coast and other places for which Montenegro is known among visitors. Agriculture had been the main source of income for Ivana, her four children and her husband until five years ago when representatives of the Regional Development Agency for Bjelasica, Komovi and Prokletije visited their village. They had come to talk about the villagers\u2019 possible involvement in business through an EU-funded project. Ivana says this was a shock for her and her friends from the village, as their village was rarely visited by anyone, let alone by people inviting them to become businesswomen.\r\n\r\nApart from its natural beauties and traditional architecture, Ivana\u2019s area is also rich in traditional cuisine. This is a result of the abundance of organic fruit and vegetables which have inspired a variety of traditional recipes which were very little known by outsiders until the start of this project. Delicacies include porridge prepared from corn, ground in the traditional way in the village mill; pies made with sorrel and homemade cheese; dishes with organic meat; and home-made rakija.\r\n\r\n<h2><strong>\u201cWhen we started the first training, we were not very optimistic about the outcome, and the other people from the village were sceptical and to some degree making fun of us, saying \u2018you are going to school\u2019. But when the first visitor came, things changed.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<h3><strong>A journey from a village to international clients <\/strong><\/h3>\nIvana was one of the first women to agree to become part of the project. She had been used to cooking for her family and hosting family and friends, but cooking and hosting strangers in return for financial compensation was a totally new game for her. \u201cUntil then I was a housewife. I didn\u2019t have any idea about business, and the decision to embark on entrepreneurship was not an easy one,\u201d she says. However, the project provided full support with skills related to professional hosting such as behaviour with visitors, food presentation and offering activities for tourists.\n\n\u201cBelieve me, when we started the first training, we were not very optimistic about the outcome, and the other people from the village were sceptical and to some degree making fun of us, saying \u2018you are going to school\u2019. But when the first visitor came, things changed,\u201d says Ivana. Her first visitor was a young woman from Belgium who stayed for three days, living and cooking with the family.\n\nFive years later, Ivana and her family regularly host visitors from around the world, and tourism has become the main income for her family. One of her daughters is now even studying tourism and thinking of further increasing the business.\n\nThe EU-funded Cross-Border Cooperation (CBC) project on local cuisine as a tourism offer of the cross-border regionhas two major components. Ivana and her family benefited from the component on gastronomy routes which included support to village families and connecting villages in Albania and Montenegro with one another to offer an integrated route-based concept of tourism focused on gastronomy.\n\nAn equally important project component was including the traditional local recipes in the tourist offer by researching and preserving regional dishes and using these dishes in local restaurants and gastronomy routes including the development of tasting points at rural homes. The aim was to revive some of the forgotten dishes and train local chefs and cooks to prepare them, so that these dishes could find their place in the menus of local hotels and restaurants.\r\n\r\n<h2><strong>\u201cWe are very proud of the success of our cookbook as this is success not only for our project but also for the countries featured in this project.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n\r\n<strong>About the project <\/strong>\n\nThe EU-funded \u201cLocal Cuisine as a Tourism Offer in the Cross-Border Region\u201d project started in 2018 and ended in 2020. The aim of the project was to enhance the competitiveness of the tourism sector by including local gastronomy in the overall tourism offer of the cross-border area. The project was implemented by RDA Bjelasica, Komovi i Prokletije and the National Tourism Organisation from Montenegro in cooperation with Eco-Partners for Sustainable Development and Puk\u00eb Municipality in Albania.\r\n\r\nJelena explains that the food is similar on both sides of the border yet has distinctive tastes and features. This important cross-border element has enriched the project and the tourism offer of the region.\n\nThe <a href=\"http:\/\/montegastro.me\/en\/traditional-meals\/#1\">cookbook<\/a> produced by the project won the first\u00a0place in the food tourism category in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cookbookfair.com\/index.php\/gourmand-awards\/winners-2021\/food-culture-best-in-the-world-2021\">Food Culture 2021<\/a>competition in June 2021. From June to September\u00a0the book is on display at the Alfred Nobel Museum in Sweden. \u201cWe are very proud of the success of our cookbook as this is success not only for our project but also for the countries featured in this CBC project,\u201d says Jelena Kriv\u010devi\u0107, the project manager.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An EU-funded project supports Albania and Montenegro in promoting local cuisine internationally<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3159449,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[694],"tags":[],"area-of-cooperation":[419,483],"country":[245,248],"opportunity-type":[],"class_list":["post-3159448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","area-of-cooperation-competitiveness-and-growth","area-of-cooperation-cross-border-cooperation","country-albania","country-montenegro"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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