TRIMED - A Culture 2000 project: a common tool to revaluate the Mediterranean trilogy

The culture of the bread, oil and wine project is framed in the CULTURE 2000 programme of the European Union and will last for three years (2005-2007). It is a project of cooperation among 6 Mediterranean islands (Mallorca, Corsica, Sicily, Naxos, Cyprus and Malta) that was born with the intention to share knowledge and experiences relative to the Mediterranean trilogy culture as a tool for its revaluation. The named “Mediterranean diet” traditionally has been based on the products of the “Mediterranean trilogy”: wheat, olive and grape. These food products and those derived from them (the bread, the oil and the wine) are one of the food and culture symbols of the Mediterranean coast countries. The traditional agricultural and production systems of these food products have permitted the configuration of cultural landscapes that enclose an important natural, material and immaterial, heritage. Regarding the natural heritage, the nature’s transformation as consequence of the human action, has provoked the forming of a constructed agricultural landscape that has indubitable natural, cultural and ethnological value. In the same way, the manufacturing of bread, oil and wine in the pre-industrial period was developed using techniques and tools that have given place to the progressive configuration of a material heritage – movable and immovable – characteristic of the Mediterranean countries’ rural areas . All these elements (agricultural landscape and movable and immovable property) have contributed towards an important popular and traditional cultural background of an immaterial character.

The island situation is one of the factors that has contributed to a slow transformation of these cultural landscapes caused by the continuation of an economic model based, eminently, on the primary sector and on a secondary one of agricultural product transformation. Nevertheless, the economic and social transformations that have taken place in the Mediterranean area as from the second half of the 20th Century, have provoked this heritage to deteriorate and be under permanent risk of disappearing. For this reason, it is urgent to develop actions towards the conservation, interpretation and promotion of this Mediterranean cultural heritage.

Project's Objectives

The bread, oil and wine culture project has as an aim the safeguard, interpretation and promotion of this common cultural heritage derived from the cultivation,manufacture and consumption of the Mediterranean trilogy products through investigation,restoration, promotion and cooperation actions.

As an aim to fulfil this global purpose the following general objectives have been formulated:

- Recover the collective memory of the immaterial heritage linked to the activities of the wheat, olive and grape production, and the traditional bread , oil and wine elaboration in the pre-industrial period.

- Compile and study the techniques and utensils used in the cultivation and traditional manufacturing of these products from their historic origins.

- Promote the knowledge, conservation and protection of the natural, architectonic and movable heritage arisen from the production and manufacturing of the Mediterranean diet’s basic products.

- Study and promote the restoring techniques of these inherited properties based on the procedures used and traditional materials.

- Promoting the material and immaterial heritage related to the Mediterranean trilogy.

- Strengthen in the current market the culture of the natural manufacturing processes of these products and encourage their consumption.

- Promote the mobility of the participating countries’ professionals.

- Use the new technologies as means of cultural promotion and cooperation among the countries.

- And, finally, transfer the results of the project to other countries of the European Union.

Project's Partners

Consell de Mallorca. Mallorca (Spain) - Lead Partner

Heritage Malta (Malta)

Cyprus Architectural Heritage Organization (Cyprus)

Office de l’Environnement de la Corse (OEC) Corsica (France)

Municipality of Drymalia. Naxos (Greece)

Comune di Noto. Sicily (Italy)

The last co-ordination meeting was held in Mallorca where all the partners' representatives were welcomed by the Executive Counseller of Mallorca, Catalina Julve Caldentey.

Further details about this project can be obtained by logging into the project's website: