prometheus_open food lab

IGP_index for a gastronomy of potential
indice gastronomico potenziale

<IGP is a residency for chefs started by prometheus_ in 2022 and curated by Lorenzo Barbasetti di Prun. It aims to bring local as well as foreign coocks to understand and crack the code of a stagnant tradition to reactivate it in a conversation with anthropologists, farmers, artists and scientists> It happens in the  process that we also open to the public professional kitchens that have been closed for years_

The little pantomime of the mountain requests comfortable food. Earthy, warming, greasy, flavorful, tasty, indulgent. The nutritious food that feed the hard-working women and men of the mountains. Rich in calories but poor in the substance and diversity. Carved from the rocks. And yet healthy, 'natural', genuine, pure as generated in a pristine environment. Ancestral and always faithful to itself. This image of food offers no future, chaining up people to the bare rocky slopes, to the eternal performance of a scripted past. Labels and registered names helped fostering ultra-regionalism and a narration functional to the end user of the mountains, while farmers and artisans are allured to provide the public with what it requests. The index for a potential gastronomy/ of the gastronomic potential brings chefs to explore and elaborate the edible reservoir of landscapes working with farmers, foragers, anthropologists and environmental scientists. Nothing new to prometheus_ practice but the expression of the network built so far.


episode 1_ June2022
canteen (closed/still closed)
campsite_former ENI Village
Corte di Cadore (BL)

chefs in residence:
Alessio De Bona
Francesco Paulon aka Ghigo
Luca Zampa
Antonio Stoico
Lorenzo Barbasetti di Prun

other people involved:
Iolanda Da Deppo
Mauro Olivotto
Sidro Vittoria
Filippo De Martin
Adriano De Martin
Az. Agr. Sanwido
Karin e Lorenzo




We will obviously start from the Boite Valley, in the Venetian Dolomites that have host us for five years now. The occasion will be the 56° Course of Culture in Ecology co-curated by TESAF department of forestry at the University of Padova and Dolomiti Contemporanee. This year topic will be Biodiversity in Practice.
We will explore a cultural as well as a biological biodiversity towards a deeper, more diverse and less standardised idea of mountain ecology and the food this landscape can provide. Biodiversity is a potentially endless reservoir of meanings and solutions that allows human community to adapt to changes. For it to stay healthy we need to keep some cultural tools alive, and this also goes through our idea of food.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkbfPUzJveQ

episode 2_revirginator August2023
Taulà dei Bos (closed/now open)
Cibiana di Cadore (BL)

chefs in residence:
Ultra
Luca Zampa
Lorenzo Barbasetti di Prun

other people involved:
Mauro Olivotto
Sidro Vittoria
Az. Agr. Sanwido
Az. Agr. Le riede
Az. Agr. Paolo Rossa
riso sakè di Nicola Coppe
Trotarium
Karin e Lorenzo
Alex Dalla Vecchia



IGP is again part of the programme of the 57° Course of Culture in Ecology organised by the Centre for Alpine Studies of TESAF department of forestry at the University of Padova and co-curated with Dolomiti Contemporanee.

This year Course will investigate the structure of the so called "old-growth forests" and their role in mitigating climate change within an European scheme of Carbon sequestration. A definition for such forests provided by FAO describes them as primary or secondary forests at a stage where signs of previously-occurred disturbances are negligible. These forests are ment to be preserved in such state for their contribution to fostering biodiversity and storing CO2.
In a continent as Europe, old-growth forests are the closest thing to the mythological pristine, or virgin forests. Preserving re-virginated forests after they have been abandoned or after that traditional uses have been pushed away in some way or another, is controversial from a social, political and economic perspective. The efficiency of ecological services provided by old-growth forests without the involvement of local human activities are under discussion too.

Trough our practice that involves chefs and local, small food companies IGP aims to explore the potential of yet to be known interactions between humans and the landscape they have been shaping for centuries. We believe, as the very fact we will be eating and drinking something on the second night of the Course proves, that integrating and promoting ecological responsibility in critical environments has not only the role of preserving cultural values and traditional knowledge that built the landscape but is instrumental to the development of up-to-date, fast-adapting and fast-applicable solutions for future challenges.



pictures by Matteo De Nardo



pictures by Francesco Marinelli


episode 3_wetlands 28-29 August2024 (upcoming)
Colonia, former Eni Village 
Corte di Cadore (BL)

chefs in residence:
Lucia Gaspari
Alessio De Bona
Lorenzo Barbasetti di Prun

other people involved:
Mauro Olivotto
Sidro Vittoria
Az. Agr. Sanwido
Az. Agr. Le riede
Az. Agr. Paolo Rossa
Trotarium
Karin e Lorenzo
Iolanda Da Deppo
Marco Del Favero
Panificio Marcon




This year topic, suggested by TESAF for the 58th edition of the Course of Culture in Ecolgy is wetlands.

presentation (italian version)