What's Your Major? EcoGastronomy

Colleges have issued worse graduation requirements: Students signing up for the new EcoGastronomy dual major at the University of New Hampshire will have to spend one semester in Italy studying sustainable food systems.

By Christine LaFave, Associate Editor -- Restaurants and Institutions, 9/22/2008 11:07:00 AM

Colleges have issued worse graduation requirements: Students signing up for the new EcoGastronomy dual major at the University of New Hampshire in Durham will have to spend one semester in Italy studying sustainable food systems at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo.

It’s a requirement that reflects the international, interdisciplinary nature of a focused study of food production and consumption, says Dan Winans, faculty coordinator for the EcoGastronomy program. In development since UNH awarded an honorary degree to Slow Food International founder Carlo Petrini in 2006, the EcoGastronomy program—the first of its kind in the United States—aims to give students interested in a career in foodservice, nutrition sciences, food policy and other related fields a comprehensive understanding of local, regional and global food systems.

UNH will offer an Introduction to EcoGastronomy course for the first time in spring 2009. Other required classes for the program will include Food and Society and Sustainable Food Production. “Each student that comes to this major is ultimately going to help to tailor their experience to something that they want to apply it to,” Winans says.