Acronym

MountainTaste

NUMBER

PBU2/0802/18

Project type

Micro-project

STATUS

Completed

THEMATIC OBJECTIVE

HERITAGE

PRIORITY

1.1 Promotion of local culture and history

PARTNERSHIP

PL-UA

LEAD BENEFICIARY

Mountains Guides Association "ROVIN" (Lviv Oblast, Ukraine)

BENEFICIARY

Local Tourist Organisation in Przemyśl (Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Poland)

Project description

Mountain landscapes look spectacular, but how do they taste like? What are the flavours traditionally associated with Ukrainian and Polish Carpathians? What was on the table of the people, who resided here ages ago, such as Boyko ethnic group on the territory of Skole Beskydy in Ukraine and Bieszczady in Poland? Forced resettlement, two world wars and large-scale migration in 20^th century had irretrievably changed this quiet area. Fortunately, Boyko cultural heritage has survived these turbulent times. Recent decade showed inflow of tourists in these areas along with growing interest in local traditions.

The MountainTaste project was designed to reveal local culinary secrets, attract people with mouth-watering dishes and inspire for culinary experiments. Its aim was to revive and preserve the culinary heritage of mountain regions of Ukraine and Poland. The project team collected the materials about Boyko cuisine, including ethnography, people’s stories, old recipes from Lviv oblast and Podkarpackie voivodeship. The findings were used for a publication of the cookbook (gourmet catalogue) and a food blog on Facebook. Moreover, two workshops on traditional Boyko cuisine have been held in Dovhe and Ustrzyki Górne in Poland, where local housewives were sharing their priceless knowledge and treating the guests to traditional knysh, machanka, oshchypok, kyselytsia, etc... Also, the premises in Dovhe have been adopted and equipped for the needs of cooking workshops.

The project grew extremely popular, which became possible thanks to strong involvement of journalists, trendy food bloggers and tour operators. Project events and publications draw the attention of the public, encouraged people to discover the forgotten culinary heritage, to share their own family recipes and to explore Boyko traditions. It also fostered further initiatives in the area. Ultimately, the project helped to attract more visitors to the objects of natural and cultural heritage of Polish-Ukrainian borderland through more diverse, authentic tourist products and high quality services.

Project results

PUBLICATIONS

Ethnographic expeditions to the Boyko land resulted in a bilingual book of recipes entitled 'Boyko cuisine'.

The book was met with great interest and was downloaded more than 1500 times in just five months after its publication online.

        'Boyko cuisine'

COOPERATION OF PARTNERS

The project partners from Poland and Ukraine organised 2 expert meetings and on-line conference, during which they discussed the results of the ethnographic expeditions and presented assumptions for promoting the cultural heritage of Boyko cuisine. The meetings were also attended by representatives of the tourism industry, scientific researchers, ethnographers and historians.

Round table of ethnographers and historians in Ustrzyki Górne (PL) 

During the conference with the participation of ethnographers, the results of ethnographic expeditions and materials collected on the culture and traditions of the Boykos were presented.

        Conference ‘Boyko cuisine: history, modernity, perspectives’

CULINARY WORKSHOPS

The project partner, the Local Tourist Organisation in Przemyśl, created a series of online culinary workshops on Boyko cuisine with Agnieszka Wereszczyńska, a culinary instructor.

      Culinary workshops - day 1

      Culinary workshops - day 2

      Culinary workshops - day 3

FESTIVAL OF BOYKO CUISINE IN UKRAINE

On 11^th October 2020, as part of the Boyko Cuisine Festival in the village of Dovhe-Rovin (Lviv oblast, UA), the partners organised a culinary workshop. Their participants were able to learn how to prepare traditional dishes of the region, as well as taste the ones already prepared by housewives. The culinary workshops organised during the Festival were met with great interest, with 20 housewives and more than 200 participants, including representatives of local authorities, the tourism industry and the media.

        Reports from the Boyko Cuisine Festival

COOKING WORKSHOPS AS PART OF THE BOYKO CUISINE FESTIVAL