Culinary Salon Dinner with Marc Millon – Italy: The Taste of History
Tuesday, April 30 2024, 7pm - 10.30pm, at Academy Restaurant, Ulster University, York Street, Belfast
The Oxford Cultural Collective and Ulster University are staging a Culinary Salon: a series of dinners hosted by some of the UK and Ireland’s most admired chefs, food and wine writers. The events, which are held in the Academy restaurant in central Belfast, celebrate the cultural diversity that characterises our contemporary hospitality scene, shine a light on Northern Ireland as a leading food and drink destination and provide outstanding learning opportunities for students.
This creative initiative has been made possible through generous funding from the Savoy Educational Trust.
Italy: the Taste of History will be an Academy Culinary Salon evening with Marc Millon, author of Italy in a Wineglass – the taste of history, a book that tells the story of Italy through its wines. The menu brings together foods and a carefully curated selection of wines from across Italy, north to south, and it takes diners across eras, linking ancient Rome to the Venetian Republic, Risorgimento to the renaissance of Italian wine, and the complex history of Sicily encapsulated in a single, crunchy bite, accompanied by a wine made by a method of production unchanged over the past 2,500 years.
MENU
Canapés
Franciacorta sparkling (Made in Italy)
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Maccù
Fiano di Avellino (Slaking the thirst of an empire)
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Sfogi or sgombro in saor
Ribolla Gialla (Merchants of Venice)
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Brasato al Barolo
polenta morbida
Barolo (Risorgimento and Unification)
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Cannolo
Passito di Pantelleria (Across Wine-dark Seas)
Marc Millon is the author of fourteen books on wine, food and travel. His latest is Italy in a Wineglass: The Taste of History. He is a certified Italian wine ambassador and host of the hugely successful weekly podcast, Wine, Food & Travel with Marc Millon. A Patron of the Oxford Cultural Collective, alongside renowned figures including Ken Hom, Madhur Jaffrey, Michael Caines and Jessica Harris, he considers himself an educator and regularly hosts gastronomic tours to Italy and France.
“The story of Italy has been entwined, since its earliest days, with the story wine. Throughout centuries and millennia, it has been a celebratory libation at great events in Italian history; it has lubricated moments of triumph and offered solace in times of despair; and it has been a constant feature of quotidian life for tyrants, emperors, kings, popes, Holy Roman emperors, aristocrats, nobles, abbots and monks, as well as for the common man and woman. In short, wine has been and continues to be an essential element of Italian civilisation. It seems an obvious and enjoyable pursuit, then, to explore the story of Italy through its wines, naturally with a glass in hand.” Marc Millon