It was a real pleasure to finally meet Paolo Giulierini in person yesterday at Università Federico II – Reggia di Portici. As former director of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN) and now Director of the MAEC Cortona, Paolo was the person who originally authorized my research permit several years ago to study the extraordinary carbonised breads held in the MANN laboratories.

That opportunity became an important part of my ongoing work on Roman bread and food archaeology, so it was especially meaningful to meet face to face after all these years. A wonderful moment of connection, conversation, and shared passion for the ancient Mediterranean at the beautiful Reggia di Portici. 🙏

#Napoli #Pane #Museo #Università #cultura ...

Today, Raffaele and I had the privilege of visiting the magnificent Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II campus at the historic Reggia di Portici in Ercolano, where we warmly accompanied by Professors Mariangela Bianco and Marco Bottigliero. They guided us through the Department of Mediterranean Gastronomic Sciences, introducing us to the extraordinary projects currently underway by the students: work that beautifully bridges food, science, history, sustainability, and culture. We also visited the library, whose atmosphere and scent of old books nearly made my knees buckle… one of those rare spaces where scholarship feels almost sacred. 😍

The Federico II program in Scienze Gastronomiche Mediterranee is especially known for its interdisciplinary approach to food studies, combining agricultural science, food technology, history, communication, nutrition, and Mediterranean culinary heritage within one of the most historically significant academic settings in southern Italy. Housed within the Bourbon-era Reggia di Portici, the program reflects a remarkable union of historical legacy and forward-thinking research into the future of food cultivation and culture.

Thank you for an incredible day, Marco and Mariangela!

#Ercolano #federicoii #gastronomy #food #italy ...

I love Italy for many reasons. One of them is that Italians still read. They love books. There are bookshelves in every apartment and bookstores on every corner, with teetering piles of books on every weird and wonderful topic known to man. And these bookstores never shut down or disappear because Italians still buy books and read them. Phones down, books up. 💪 Lead the way, Italy. Lead the way! 📚 ❤️
.
.
#books #reading #bookstore #phones #nophones ...

FAO visit afterthought: Emma and Simona are elegantly normal-height humans. And then there’s me. 😂 Guess which one of us will NEVER be getting a call from the Rockettes? (Hint: it’s the one blocking the signage.)🦒🤣
.
#tallgirlproblems #FAO #rockettes ...

A walk along the Tiber river in Rome doesn’t just burn off last night’s amatriciana, it reveals some of the river’s grain milling history and archaeology of bread production… right on the footpath! Along the river beneath Ponte Sublicio, a few reminders still survive of one of Rome’s oldest industries: grain milling. Floating mills operated on the river from at least the 6th century AD, when the general Belisarius famously turned to the Tiber for water power after Rome’s aqueducts were cut during the Gothic siege of 537 AD. For centuries afterward, the riverbanks were lined with mills that ground grain into flour for the city’s daily bread supply. The large basalt millstones resting today beside the footpath are likely later examples, probably dating between the 18th and 19th centuries, when dozens of floating mills still worked the river before the great embankment walls transformed the Tiber in the late 1800s. Worn by water, grain, and time, these millstones tell the story of the labour that once fed Rome its daily bread. 😍
.
.
#Rome #Bread #Engineering #Archaeology #Food ...

When in Naples… 😋
.
.
#pastry #naples #napoli #pasticceria #foodgasm ...