This year the competition, “Dolcissimo: from Rome to Shanghai via Paris,” sponsored by the Institute of World Languages UVA, was in collaboration with the French Department and the Chinese Program. More than 50 students were involved in the event as chefs, video reporters and journalists of various newsletters, including La Vendemmia.
Food is one of the staples of Italian, Chinese and French cultures. Social cooking is now frequently and successfully used to promote cross-cultural encounters and exchanges, creating alternative settings and goals for second language acquisition and performance. “Dolcissimo” combines social cooking and second language acquisition by way of a group competition where second year students of Italian, Chinese and French at UVa communicate exclusively in the targeted language while baking Italian, Chinese and French cakes and cookies.
The Chinese Team, 杨承浩 Dennis Yang, 严加恩 Ha Eun Um,康太瑛 Shannon Gang and 鲍艺维 Eva Bogdewic prepared two desserts: 烤年糕Sweet rice cakes and 椰蓉芝麻糯米糍coconut sesame sticky rice balls. The top spot in the competition was given to coconut sesame sticky rice balls. Congratulations, team and team coaches, Ying Gao and Xingguo Huang, for winning the first place!
