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2010 Study-Tour to Thailand | About our International Cuisine and Culture Tours
Secchia Institute for Culinary Education at GRCC | CA 280 International Cuisine and Culture
Since 1984, the Secchia Institute for Culinary Education at Grand Rapids Community College has been leading food and beverage study-tours to foreign destinations. Starting with a trip to the Internationale Kochkunst-Ausstellung (world culinary Olympics) in Frankfurt, Germany coupled with a side tour of Paris and La Varenne cooking school with 27 hospitality faculty, culinary students and local food service professionals, Grand Rapids Community College has visited the world's most important culinary capitals.
The goal of the tours is to help our participants greatly expand their understanding of the relationship between a country's cuisine and its culture. We use our time-tested formula of dividing the tour itinerary into three balanced pursuits. The first goal is to visit cultural landmarks, such as cathedrals, temples, museums, and ancient ruins to capture the historical influences on a country's earliest and modern cuisine. The next focus is on the food itself. We visit farms and fisheries, meet with cheese mongers and sausage makers, shop the marketplaces and street food vendors, and we sample the unique distilled beverages that reflect the passion of the people. Our third element involves the freedom to explore a country on your own terms. After getting your bearings with our city tours, you are given a few partial and whole days to investigate your surroundings to your own taste. Whether choosing to shop, swim, sightsee, or savor, the chance to wander among the people and places of another culture is life changing.
We invite you to enroll in CA 280 International Cuisine and Culture, and to join us as we explore the food and cultural flavors of the world.
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