Gastronomy Valley

Born of President François Hollande’s territorial reforms, the new administrative entity constituted by the region Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne has been promoted to the rank of “world valley of gastronomy” through a series of initiatives developed by the city of Lyon. While its goal is to renew our views on food, to enrich them, and give them back a geographic substance erased by industrial activity, organizing an alimentary territorial project cannot be done within a productivity-driven agricultural economy. Therefore, we see emerging in this context the concept of new forms of eating that are better connected to territories. Nowadays, food represents a connection with the world articulated through geographic symbols, connecting those who eat with those who produce. It is meant to be a medium that puts in our bodies (in-corporates) what best constitutes the values of the space we live in. Hence the attachment to “regional” products and dishes that become aspects of our personality. Every wine-producing region today has its own oenotourism routes that allow for the discovery of their landscapes, technical and sensory ecosystems, social imaginary, as well as a whole ensemble of ancestral practices that have been cunningly manipulated through the invention of “traditions.” Their exploration thus becomes a chance to re-appropriate a way of eating that has been taken away from eaters by industrial production

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