[students’ journal] June 2016

24 June 2016

What is it like to be a student at BBS? Here is where they have their say on campus life, tips of Bologna, and much more. Written by and for the Students.

Read here the other posts published.


 

Life in Bologna

I still remember the day when I first heard about the MBA Food and Wine at the Bologna Business School. I found it so interesting that I decided it was time to make some changes!

It’s been almost 9 months since I moved to Bologna and became one of my favorite cities. It is the Perfect fusion of historical and modern environment: amazing old buildings, little streets followed by various piazzas, happy faces all around – all these details made me start falling in love with the city. Bologna is where you walk a lot and never get bored. Pieces of history, art, colors and just beautiful places all around the area. Walking and thinking, that history merged with modern graffiti can be so attractive. The culture of Food, Wine, Coffee, “aperitivos” – impossible not to fall in love. The environment is so relaxing and amazing that even preparing for exams becomes pleasant; amazing historical libraries raise the desire to study.

When you wake up with a travel mood, get ticket to Venice, Verona, Florence or another beautiful city and enjoy the day, relax and be back to school with new energy. It is something so easy to do from Bologna. At school it is about meeting with new people from around the world with a lot of interesting life experiences, getting used to cultural differences… And making new amazing friends – one of the most important things in my life.

I am glad to share my personal experience about Bologna, especially if it is useful to new students who are still doubtful about enrolling to BBS’ Global MBA. This is a real life experience which is impossible to read or watch somewhere else. I don’t know how life will go on, but these emotions, these pictures of life, the new friends, new dreams and possibilities will stay with me forever.

Yes, life is full of pleasant surprises and for me, Bologna is one them.

 

 

Salome Mosidze – Georgia
Global MBA in Food and Wine, class 2015/2016


June 17, 2016

 

Festa Vico: a Christmas lunch in May

Vico Equense is a district of approximatively 20,000 inhabitants near the Naples province. A small picturesque village sheltered by the cliffs of the Amalfi Coast, from were you can enjoy a marvelous view to Mount Vesuvious. A “very Italian” location where you can easily imagine splendid summer vacations. Especially for the lucky Neapolitan people who can reach Vico in half an hour for a day at the beach. Less easy to imagine, unless you have participated in this event, the transformation that occurs one weekend a year because of Festa Vico.

On the 29th and 30th of May, twelve of my colleagues from around the world and I left enthusiatically the city of Bologna for this festa. We could never have imagined how this small city could close down its streets for two full days and transform them into one big kitchen that gathers 130 chef with one common objective: conviviality and solidarity.
The atmorsphere in this place is quite peculiar, seems like an unsusual Christmas lunch, shared with a very large family…

…With some slight differences:
– It’s not December, but May
– Instead of having Fake Fish, we are served the “Exotic Tuna” from Salvatore Accietto (a tuna tartare served with papaya, mango and physalis).
– Grandma Lella’s panettone with mascarpone cream is substituted by the “Pann di Bufala” from Anna Chiavazzo (an artigianal panettone with a bufala’s milk based cream in conjuction with: papaccella, Vesuvian tomatoes and Alife onions.)

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…But also, there are some similarities:
– There is role division: the organizer, the host, the cook and the one grateful passerby admired by every bite.
– Just like when you chat with a relative that you haven’t met in a long time, all chefs are ready and willing to share their own experiences, motivations and little cullinary secrets with great passion and conveyance.
– And especially: a huge smile!

 

 

Isabella Vitali – Italy
Global MBA in Food and Wine, class 2015/2016


June 10, 2016

 

Festa Vico: A Chef’s point of view

Within the “Management and Creativity in the Restaurant Industry” course, part of the last term of the Global MBA Food and Wine, I had the opportunity to attend the Festa Vico. This event is a gathering of some of the most talented chefs, both established veteran and budding youth, of Italy and abroad. The “festa” is a one-of-a-kind event where the shopkeepers of the small town of Vico Equense, on the bay of Naples across from Mount Vesuvius, open their doors to these gifted chefs, for an evening, to create dishes to serve to the public, combining Italy’s rich culinary traditions of the past with the innovative techniques that look into the future.

As a student at BBS, I interviewed some of these chef, asking them mostly about the comradery created by this event, that just had its 12th edition. I also asked about their inspirations for the dishes that they created à la minute for the public. Personally, as a chef, it inspired me to think about the numerous approaches, some more successful than others, that a chef can take to match the ingredients of a specific territory with heritage, tradition and innovation. The dishes that I preferred where not inherently the ones that were fancy and utilized luxury ingredients, but rather those that were more metaphoric, that had a specific story to them of a typical regional plate or specific region. It was refreshing to hear from the chefs that they were there not to compete but to be together.

 

 

Laine Steelman – USA
Global MBA in Food and Wine, class 2015/2016


June 03, 2016

 

I’ve got a recipe

For the last 8 years of my life I lived and worked in the Middle East as a humanitarian worker. Back there I could not find anything more motivating and making me more passionate than what I was doing: working for Bedouin communities, children, hospital patients and refugees. But for many important reasons I missed home. Back in Italy, I decided to put my dedication and energy to transform my identity into the food and wine industry. The idea was to find the same authenticity in a simple dish of “cacio e pepe” pasta or a glass of Brunello, as I had in Jordan and Palestine.

 

This is why I chose the Food and Wine track of BBS’ Global MBA. For me studying food and wine means learning about the inspiring examples of innovation and technology, sharing views with classmates from different backgrounds. It means having a field trip to the most famous “culatello” producer; going to a wine shop to find “the” wine bottle our wine-tasting professor suggested just a few hours before, and dining over a Biryani rice and Vietnamese chicken curry with my foreign friends. Then, the particular Italian settings and the cultural diversity of the BBS “family” enhanced the whole flavor of this adventure.

 

Now that the master is coming to an end, if I were asked what the Food and Wine track “tasted” like, I’d say that it was absolutely worth having it! It was an important experience and helped me make a “recipe” for my new life in Italy.

 

 

Francesca Bianchini – Italy
Global MBA in Food and Wine, class 2015/2016



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