The Municipal Library of Dénia has hosted the reading act of the Final Degree Projects of the students of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts of the UA. This first promotion has presented before the court that valued their work and the attending public the result of four investigations focused on themes that analyze the history, evolution and current situation of various fields of gastronomy.
Among the attendees was the mayor of Dénia, Vicent Grimalt and representatives of the Office of Innovation and Creativity, Dénia Creative City of UNESCO. The act began with the reading of the TFG carried out by Kinga Aleksandra Borkowska, who focused her study on carrying out an analysis of the sustainable certification and eco-labels of sea products.
The student stated that "consumer information is lacking regarding what some certifications represent and imply." Concluding that "sustainability certifications are a useful tool when it comes to identifying what types of products are environmentally friendly, but there is the problem that any company cannot obtain this type of seal, despite having a respectful production process. . The licenses for the implementation and use of these certificates entail an expense that small companies cannot assume, posing the problem that instead of enhancing the value of companies that are respectful, what they do is revalue those that have a large share of market and displace small productions”.
Student Nancy Jajaira Asencio then read her work, analyzing how Covid-19 has transformed take-away and delivery forms of consumption in Spain. He spoke of the phenomenon of dark kitchens, of QR codes and analyzed the incorporation of restaurants into social networks and the use that customers make of mobile phones to make their reservations, thus outlining the new consumption habits that have been established after the pandemic.
For her part, Marta Gómez Navarrete, presented a research whose objective was to apply sensory analysis, through a panel of tasters, as a tool for evaluating the effect of adding pineapple extract to prolong the shelf life of meat.
Finally, it was the turn of Alba Gomis Román, who analyzed the influence on household nutrition of the incorporation of women into the world of work and made an appeal about the progressive loss of gastronomic heritage, due, in her opinion, to the fact that "the Women continue to be the main responsible for culinary planning in the home, but they have stopped transmitting that knowledge to later generations. So the culinary and gastronomic heritage of towns and cities is slowly being lost.
The jury was made up of the UA professors Vicente Montiel Leguey and Rafael José Chinchilla Cruz and the professor and director of the GASTERRA UA-Dénia Mediterranean Gastronomy Center, Juana Jordá Guijarro. The chemical engineer Julia Moltó Berenguer acted as a substitute.
The professional future of graduates in Gastronomy
The number of new students enrolled in the Degree in Gastronomy and Culinary Arts has been increasing from the first academic year 2018-19, with 67, to the current academic year 2020-21 with a total of 76 students. This course will be the first graduation course and 75 places have been offered for the next course.
The academic coordinator of this Degree, Professor Arantzazu Valdés, was satisfied with the works presented by this first class, stating that "this academic year a total of 23 TFGs on different topics have been presented, which reflect the multidisciplinary nature of the Degree. ”, to which he added that “graduates in Gastronomy will be professionals capable of performing various job profiles since the training received integrates a multidisciplinary vision with extensive knowledge of all areas related to gastronomy in general and culinary activity in particular.
To this end, the student body has been trained in various branches related to knowledge of food, the management of specialized companies, marketing, tourism, social skills, human resources, health and human nutrition, being in the future capable of "carrying out various job profiles".
