The art of feeding tourists

Tourism can be a resource for environmental consciousness and conservation, but, on the other hand, high flows of tourists can deeply modify local cultures, altering their own character. If globalization has opened new markets for both tourism and local products, on the other hand it fostered the creation of a global hegemonic culture tending, in the long term, to the creation of touristic standards to which tourist destinations tend to adhere, thus loosing some of their distinctive traits. The worldwide diffusion of standard food habits is a well known phenomenon; a particularly relevant aspect of this trend is the adaptation of local recipes to the uniform preferences of international customers, for the role of foods as symbols of local tradition, and anthropologic means of communication among different cultures. The research here reported was carried out in the frame of the Tuscany regional project OTD, focusing on local gastronomy, to assess the presence of traditional Siena recipes among the dishes proposed by restaurants, the attention of restaurant owners and chefs to the geographic origin of products, and how some typical recipes were modified in passing from home kitchens to restaurant kitchens.