“Cous Cous Fest,” the universal language of the table crowns the Israeli-Palestinian team
When food becomes a tool for peace, encounter, dialogue, and integration, even a culinary competition can become a symbol of possible dialogue.
The competition pitted delegations from Algeria, Brazil, France, Italy, Morocco, Senegal, Spain, and Cous Cous Fest United against each other. A technical jury chaired by Angelo Mellone, Director of Rai Daytime Entertainment, and composed of journalists and food and wine experts Marco Colognese, Paola Pellai, Perla Tortora, Giusi Battaglia, Carola Santopaolo, and San Vito chefs Peppe Alongi and Giovanni Torrente, judged the preparations, assisted by a public vote. On stage, the winners were awarded the prizes by Mayor Francesco La Sala and Manfredi Cusmano, CEO of Bia Cous Cous, a company based in Argenta, near Ferrara, and a world leader in organic couscous production. The festival closed with a record attendance thanks to 10 days of music, culture, food and wine, and international participation, with guests such as singers Sal Da Vinci, Ditonellapiaga, and Stadio. "The Cous Cous Fest confirms itself not only as a great gastronomic event, but also as a celebration capable of bringing together diverse people through the universal language of food, music, and conviviality," said the mayor of San Vito Lo Capo, Francesco La Sala. "This is the spirit we want to continue cultivating: making San Vito Lo Capo a place of encounter, dialogue, and integration."
Special prizes were also awarded by the technical jury: the Conad "Value of Ingredients" Award went to Italy, with chef Enrico Figuccia (Lo Stagnone Ristorante) from San Vito, joined by chef Daniele Tantucci and Alessia Groppuso, a student at the Danilo Dolci Hotel and Catering Institute in Partinico (Palermo); the Maniva "Balance & Wellbeing" Award went to Brazil, with chef Paulo Ricardo Souza Aires (founder of the Reserva restaurant, a project born in Rome with the aim of narrating and promoting the gastronomic culture of South America and the Caribbean) and his chef comis Antonio Goncalo De Brito Neto for their "Brazilian Northeast Couscous"; France, led by chefs Elio Genualdo (executive chef for Sodexo) and Guillaume Pierre Arnaud Heckmann (executive chef for several restaurants), was awarded the Food Network “Wow” prize for the greatest visual and narrative strength by Giusi Battaglia and Fabrizio Nonis, faces of Food Network; Morocco, led by Badr Benjelloun (chef and owner of Casbah del Moro, a gastropub in Catania dedicated to North African and Mediterranean fusion cuisine) received the Amadori “Taste & Wellbeing” prize, presented by Flavio Amadori, president of Amadori, for his “Seksu Medfouna dell'Alto Atlante”; finally, the UniCredit Special Prize for Sustainable Cuisine was awarded to Senegal, represented by Fatima Diagne (owner of Gastronomia Mouba Gastro Food, in Madone, Bergamo) and her son Mouhametd Babou, for his “Khadija Senegalese Couscous,” an interpretation of North African tradition reinterpreted through Senegalese gastronomic culture.
