Background/profile:
Cyprus Food and Nutrition Museum is a non profit Cultural and Research Institute which aims at conducting and undertaking initiatives and activities to promote knowledge and practice of traditional foods , as part of the intangible cultural heritage.
Research, study and training activities mainly cover the traditional forms of the following: food, nutrition, diet (with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean diet), utensils, tools and places for food production and preservation. Food is approached via various perspectives: folklore, history, museology, food science and nutrition. Also emphasis is given to the relationship and traditional health food and nutrition, and health impact of adherence to the Mediterranean diet, and traditional Cypriot food. The ultimate aim is recording, preservation, promotion and dissemination of cultural heritage of traditional foods.

They have recently developed an electronic depository of data related to food history and culture: The Cyprus Food Virtual Museum. This is a database where information on the use of Cypriot traditional foods, associated everyday practices and meals, recipes, tools, and processing techniques (along with visual representations/photos) have been digitalized. The material presented covers a period from the prehistoric till the current time and so far, includes 1600 documents. In its present edition, The Cyprus Virtual Food Museum is in Greek; however one can still have a taste of its structure and contents by visiting its website, and using Google Translator http://foodmuseum.cs.ucy.ac.cy/web/guest/home

Under this project several review papers have been published or are under publication. They’ve also done a lot of original research in Med Diet and traditional foods and as an outcome of this, more than 50 papers on Med Diet have been published.

Team expertise: Members of their team come from various disciplines and areas: Historians, Food Scientists, Nutritionists, Food Editors in newspapers, Food Journalists, Computer Scientists, Museologists, Museum Educators, Educators, Teachers, Chefs.

Contact: Dr Chrystalleni Lazarou
E: stalolaz@logosnet.cy.net, stalo_laz@yahoo.com