Special Issue: Traditional foods: from culture, ecology and diversity, to human health and potential for exploitation

This special issueof the JournaloftheScience ofFoodandAgriculture publishes a set of contributions presented at the International conference ‘Traditional Food International (TFI-2012). Traditional foods: from culture, ecology, diversity, to human health and potential for exploitation’ which was held in Cesena, Italy, on 4–5 October 2012, and at the conjoined ‘Street Food Seminar: an international forum on street food aspects and perspectives’ held on 5 October 2012. The two events were organized to coincide with the final meeting of the BaSeFood project. BaSeFood (sustainable exploitation of bioactive compounds from the Black sea area traditional foods; http://www.basefood-fp7.eu) was a European FP7 project that focused on studying traditional foods of the Black Sea region, with a particular interest in their composition of bioactive substances from plants (phytochemicals) and their potential to provide health benefits. Already in the project’s background, however, itwasacknowledged that the consideration of a vast array of traditional food characteristics and consumer issues was needed, besides studying bioactive compounds by means of analytical and biological assays. The final project’s dissemination event was therefore taken as an occasion to present the project’s results in a wider context – that of a forum – where the state of the art of traditional food knowledge and definitions was set, and different approaches and disciplines for the study of all aspects of traditional foods were presented. Traditional foods are increasingly attracting the interest of consumers and manufacturers. Recently, an effort has been made for an objective definition of ‘traditional foods’, aimed at setting a scientificandregulatory approach to their studyandmanagement. From a semantic point of view, however, tradition is a complex of uses, habits and ways of life that are maintained in time, often through oral transmission. Dealing with traditional foods from a scientific point of view is therefore a challenge: it is dealing with a subject related not only to nutrition and health, but also to environmental, human ecology and cultural issues. All these aspectswere covered to some degree at the Traditional Foods International conference, which was broadly organized into the following sections: traditional food systems, general aspects anddefinitions;analytical characterizationof foodsandrawmaterials; nutritional andhealth-promoting effects;processing, including effects on retention of specific components; socio-economic and consumer issues. Internationally renowned invited speakers contributed to each session with plenary lectures; other oral contributionswereprovidedbythe coordinator andwork-package leaders from the BaSeFood project, and the coordinators of previous EU-fundedprojects dealingwithdifferent aspectsof traditional foods. Eighteen invited speakers contributed to the oral sessions. The Street Food Seminar was a specific session, aimed at highlighting the role of these types of foods and the links between traditional and street foods. In addition, it provided a connection between the TFI-2012 scientific sessions and the Cesena Street Food Fair. Different aspects of street foods were covered by very engaging presentations from six invited speakers. Overall, over 100 posters from more than 250 contributing authors were presented. This special issue of the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture contains a selection of presented papers, from both invited lectures and posters, representing the whole range of topics dealt with at the congress.