Buzau County is renowned because of its
\ntourist assets, but mostly because of its wine cellars. Slow Food Travel offers
\na new model of tourism, made of encounters with farmers, cheese makers,
\nshepherds, bakers and vine growers who, jointly with the cooks who cook their
\nproduce, will be the narrators of their local areas and sole guides for the
\nlocal traditions. Our guide for today’s journey is Thorsten Kirschner, a founding
\nmember of Buzau Slow Food Community, the realm of legends and savors. Thorsten
\narrived in Romania 13 years ago. He spent two years in Bucharest, then he
\nretired to Buzau. There he bought a mansion and founded an association
\npromoting traditional craft produce.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Thorsten Kirschner:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Slow food is a global
\nmovement that has been gaining ground in more than 160 countries, providing
\naccess to healthy food. It is an alternative to fast-food, created in Italy in
\nthe 1980s. As we speak, it is very active in Transylvania, in Brasov, Sibiu, Cluj, and Buz\u0103u. We’re more like an NGO, bringing
\ntogether farmers, food producers, agro-tourism guesthouses, restaurants and
\nlovers of healthy and sustainable food. The idea we have come up with what that
\nof creating a platform for the promotion of craft products, of the quality food
\nin Buzau County. To give you an example of that, we have a honey producer with
\nan innovative technology. He mixes fresh fruit into the honey and creates a new
\nproduce you can have for breakfast. Tourists
\ncan also find the produce in the souvenir shop and can thus go back home with
\nsomething new. Furthermore, we also have craft beer. We have a young entrepreneur
\nwho started up with mead. It is a honey-based beverage, with a low percentage of
\nalcohol. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Buzau Land Geopark has
\nbeen a UNESCO site since 2022. It comprises 18 communes, with 40,000 inhabitants
\nand lots of tourist assets, one-of-a-kind around the world. As for the visit to
\nthe tourist assets, that can be combined with gastronomic experiences, says the
\nfounding member of Slow Food Community Buz\u0103u, Thorsten
\nKirschner.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For instance, the tourist
\narrives in the commune of Berca and finds himself in front of the tourist info
\ncenter. There he can find out what he can visit in the Buzau land. He can go to the Muddy Volcanoes or to the cave
\nsettlements in Bozioru and after that, the tourist can have a stopover at a guesthouse,
\na restaurant or a local producer where he can have a tasting of this and that. We
\nfor instance, offer cheese tasting as well. We make goat cheese made of raw
\nmilk, which best goes with a Dealu mare sort of wine, for tasting. It is a network,
\nbasically. We do not promote our products alone. Also, in the area we have growers
\nof bio wine. You can go to them, you can visit their cellars, you can see for
\nyourself how the wine is made and then a tasting follows, of three wine sorts. Another
\nevent we stage in Buz\u0103u is the truffle hunting. We go into the forest with
\nspecially trained dogs, we look for truffles, and, on our way back, we have an
\nall-truffle tasting menu. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Slow Food Buz\u0103u targets
\nanxious and responsible travellers who are eager to know for real the Buzau
\narea’s local cuisine culture, without overlooking food sustainability and
\nbiodiversity. For instance, after one such trip, you can get to know the Babik
\nand its story. It is a spicy salami, presented as one of the best salamis according
\nto the TasteAtlas, and being 15th-placed according
\nto a world ranking. You can also find the
\nbabik on a traditional produce map, created by Thorsten
\nKirschner. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You can access our platform at slowfoodbuzau.com, in Romanian and
\nEnglish. There you can get all the info on local producers, restaurants and tourist
\nguesthouses, in Romanian and English. You can find all the info you need about
\nlocal producers, about restaurants and tourist guesthouses that are part of our
\nnetwork. We also have a visiting hours schedule. Our work on the platform is
\nstill in progress and we hope that, until the nest season, in 2024, we can have
\na much more generous offer. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An event in the area has come to an end, recently.
\nIt was a celebration of good food, being also an excellent opportunity to socialize,
\nfor the participants. Also presented as part of the event were the most recent
\nrural and adventure tourism offers. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Thorsten Kirschner:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We staged the third edition
\nof the events titled the Craftsmen’s Market. It is an innovative concept, by
\nmeans of which we get the consumer come closer to the farmers and the local
\nfood producers in the Buzau Land UNESCO Geopark
\nIt is Romania’s first such project by means of which the small local producers
\nand tourism services providers collaborate, in a bid to create such a fair. For
\nexample, all the stands were made from recycled material. We call all the
\nproducers, urging them to collect woos and we worked on the stands. In two days
\nalone, we had more than 2,000 visitors from all over Romania. It is a mix of a
\ncraft and farm produce, street-food, live cooking
\nshow, a craftsmen fair and creative and educational workshops for children. The
\nfeedback-ul we had was a very good one. It is a festival-fair, staged with the
\npurpose of socialization. Foreign tourists came as well. 90% of them were surprised and said they did not know
\nwhat they would come across in Buzau. They only heard about the Muddy Volcanoes
\nbut they did not know anything about Geopark, about the culinary offer. So
\npromotion has not been efficient enough, just as yet. We, through the slow-food,
\nprovided some sort of marketing through collaboration, with no budget whatsoever.
\nWe did everything through the socializing platforms. Those who participated
\nshared their experience and that is how we managed to have 300,000 views a
\nweek. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You may not have reached the craftsmen’s annual event, yet socializing
\nopportunities do exist. The founding member of Buzau Slow Food Community Buz\u0103u,
\nThorsten Kirschner, says that, if you schedule a visit
\nto the UNESCO Buzau Land Geopark, you can have the chance to find the legends
\nof the people, of the culinary recipes, but also those of the numerous tourist
\nassets in the region.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Apart from the Muddy Volcanoes we’re all
\ntoo familiar with, we have cave settlements, a salt mountain, the Amber Museum,
\nwe have old monasteries. Then there is also an offer for active tourism, such
\nas rafting or cycling with electric bikes. Also, we have two interesting areas.
\nIn Dealu Mare there are interesting wine cellars and there also is this slow
\nfood network, comprising producers of craft beer of honey. You can have a taste
\nof the produce and you can take them home. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One of the targets the Slow
\nFood movement has set for itself is that of preventing cultures and traditions
\nfrom disappearing. Furthermore, opting for that kind of tourism also means we can
\nenhance the interest in the food we eat, in its origin and in the way our food
\nchoice impacts the world around us. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new concept of cooking and its impact on Romanian tourism<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":288699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43423],"tags":[116792,42706,116791,36546,34784,38546,116790],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-150315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travellers-guide","tag-beer","tag-cooking","tag-craft","tag-food","tag-honey","tag-produce","tag-trip"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n