María Fernanda Di Giacobbe on the power of chocolate

María Fernanda Di Giacobbe Basque World Culinary Prize chocolate

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Winner of the Basque Culinary World Prize 2016, María Fernanda Di Giacobbe, works to empower disadvantaged women in Venezuela through chocolate production. As the 2017 prize approaches its deadline for nominations, we caught up with her to understand its impact, and see how gastronomy can change lives

Why is the Basque Culinary World Prize an important competition for chefs such as yourself?

So many reasons. For us, it represented international recognition for thousands of female entrepreneurs from different regions in Venezuela, who have spent years working with chocolates and sweets, and it brought energy to the work that we do. It has given us even stronger conviction that we are on the right path.

What have you been doing since winning specifically?

Since the prize winning, Venezuela has celebrated many events and activities related to cocoa and chocolate. We have been powerfully involved in spreading the idea that our culture is intrinsically related to this fruit, and that it is a magnificent resource for our present and future.

Many people have become involved with the movement, even from afar, and we have been able to call on associations, institutions and other people to help. It has opened new doors. We are happy and inspired. Every day, new groups of female entrepreneurs are forming in communities that just one year ago had abandoned plantations. Young people are returning to the countryside with renewed energy and becoming leaders, spreading their energy to their neighbours.

How has winning the prize helped you improve your ‘mission’ of using chocolate to help people in Venezuela? What has it helped you do that you wouldn’t have been able to otherwise?

It has taken us to another dimension. Now, we have been seen by other places, and we want to make quality products now more than ever.

Thanks to the resources that the prize brought, we are building a new school that will allow us to house better equipment and machines, and offer better technology to more entrepreneurs.

News of the prize means that more people in the country can see what we’re doing, and they all want to taste the cacao and the chocolate. We are also working towards it being a topic of deep study in schools and national universities, and this recognition means that chocolatiers and world experts on the issue want to come and share experiences in our country.

Why was it important to you to work mainly with women in business?

They weren’t businesswomen already, but women with limited resources. Many of them are in rural communities or are unemployed, and they see making chocolate as an escape from the situation and the crisis that is happening in the country.

Women with children can transform their houses into their workspace, or connect with other women to create mini businesses, and they are now entrepreneurs who can motivate young people to study and become chocolatiers and cacao producers.

Women have improved their economic situation through this work and have included their families, achieving benefits for everyone. They have transformed themselves into masters of the trade and can now create their own courses and teach classes.

The Basque Culinary World Prize: Changing society through food 

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(Photo: María Fernanda Di Giacobbe accepts her prize from Arantza Tapia, director of economic development for the Basque Government) 

The Basque World Culinary Prize seeks to recognise chefs around the world who are ‘changing society through gastronomy’. Chefs hoping to enter need to be nominated by another professional currently working in the industry, via the competition website.

Alberto Crisci, founder of The Clink Charity and Restaurants training scheme that teaches hospitality skills to prisoners across the UK, was a runner-up in the 2016 contest.

The winner receives a prize of 100,000 (£84,554) to devote to a project that reflects the prize’s values, and will be announced on Sunday 16 July 2017 at the meeting of the International Committee of the Basque Culinary Center in Mexico City.

The judging process includes a first round selection by the Prize Committee, a group of academics from the Basque Culinary Center and other universities, plus special guests including Elena Arzak, Spanish chef and operator of Ametsa with Arzak Instruction in London.

The ten finalists will then be judged by a panel of high­profile chefs who make up the International Council of the Basque Culinary Center, including chair Joan Roca (Spain), Massimo Bottura (Italy), Dominique Crenn (France), Ferran Adrià (Spain), Dan Barber (US), René Redzepi (Denmark) and Heston Blumenthal (UK).

What would your advice be for chefs who want to nominate, or be nominated, for the Basque Culinary World Prize 2017?

The important thing is to give. If our work in gastronomy has been good and has brought us benefits, we should share the wellbeing that it can offer, while helping and teaching others. We can generate wealth to transform difficult realities into successful experiences, and show how we can change ingredients into products, and the countryside into resources. We can, from the kitchen, make a real impact.

Today, for example, we see cacao producers who are changing attitudes towards their work and exchanging their precarious conditions for a feeling of pride in what they’re doing, and what they learned from their ancestors. Many of them were cacao producers by birth, and they are now also chocolate producers.

Which chefs or work in the gastronomic community do you most admire right now?

Gastronomy today is looking around itself and understanding its responsibility towards the planet. As chefs dedicated to food, we must make enormous compromises and find a balance between what we make, and the sustainability of resources. Today we understand our work as a profession that can change many people’s lives.

I saw all the chefs that were nominated for the prize, and I deeply admire what they were doing. In many countries, there are culinary schools that are rescuing old ingredients and ancient techniques, forgotten recipes and culinary traditions.

I really admire these educational spaces, their efforts to preserve methods of food that have existed for years, and their marvellous work in risky countries.

Work done at local level is fundamental for many communities that have lost their identity and their health due to globalisation, and it is inspirational and valuable to all of humanity.

Translated from the original Spanish by Hannah Thompson. The Spanish version of this interview is available on request.

The Basque World Culinary Prize 2017 is still open for nominations, via its website here​. 

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