Culin-Air specialises in international culinary heritage tours for food professionals and advanced food travellers. We create mind-blowing memories by bringing you to the finest culinary heritage at exclusive gourmet hot spots with a story in every bite. In this blog about food & travel we will share our own experiences in traveling the world of culinary heritage. But first,
A brief introduction to a passionate journey
I am Roy Voogd, passionate about good food and inspirational arts and cultures. I travel the world in search of local culinary heritage that tells the stories of a culture. To bring you to gourmet hot spots that even the extremest foodie give new memories that will last a lifetime. I visited over 30 countries on all continents and gathered great experience in cultural & culinary heritage.
My original professions are choral conductor and marketing consultant. I am a life-time hobby chef. My story of Culin-Air started when I sold my marketing and communications agency in 2016 after 22 years of inspirational creative art direction. As author and photographer of this blog, I love to invite you to travel with us in our new and passionate journey of food, art and culture.
I decided to fill the second half of my working life with my three passions. As a professional choral conductor, music is one of them. I have always kept my practice as a choral conductor active after my conservatory education. Besides that, cooking and gastronomy in general has also been a passion all my life. And my third passion is travelling. When I am in another country, I always get very excited by all the new impulses a new culture has to offer. I want to see, hear, taste, smell, feel what a culture has to offer. What moves the people there.
Together with my wife, I started a new and unique opera organisation and produced outdoor opera on rual locations in The Netherlands. My second passion, gastronomy, started with a year-round project on cooking in four seasons on the Big Green Egg. On this project a book was published and my very succesfull catering and workshop company BBQ52 started.
To fulfil my third passion, I decided to combine and share my first two passions in travelling around culinary and cultural heritage. In 2019, I start to prepare Culin-Air Incentive Travel. But corona delayed the first introduction with more the two years. The entire travel business came to a standstill and collapsed. Travelling became almost impossible and, with all the forced quarantine measures, was no longer something you did for fun either.
But sitting still is not quite my thing and so I started to explore the travel world, which turned out to be much more complex. So I visited international travel conferences and trade fairs to find inspiration and, of course, built new memories to share on the socials.
From Culin-Air, we travel the world in search of the hot spots for extreme foodies and experienced international food travellers. From European destinations like the Italian Food Valley to gastronomic Spanish paradises to intercontinental tours to the culinary hearts of Asia, Africa, Australia and the America’s. And all with only one goal: to bring you to international influensive culinary heritage and leading gastronomic developments with great global influence.
The first programmes are starting to take shape. In 2024, we will start with mouthwatering pilots. They will be unique journeys. Tours that all explore the triangle of arts/culture, culinary heritage and gastronomic development. In our firm belief, the only way to experience good food and truly understand its regional culinary heritage.
Our very first Italian tour will not lead to Tuscany or Sicily, loaded with tourists. We bring you to Abruzzo, the hidden treasure of Italy. An astonishing region where you still can find traditional Italy as if time has stood still for the past century. And all you’ll experience will be translated to your own cooking skills on a Big Green Egg.
ABRUZZO – Harvest of Culinary Treasures – October 2024
CULINARY HERITAGE | NATURE | ARTS & CULTURE | BBQ WORKSHOPS
Translating the Abruzzo culinary heritage to your Big Green Egg under professional guidance of local top chefs.See how the delicate Aquila safron (the best in the world!) is harvested. Experience the pressing of the freshest olives right after harvest. Join us on a hunt for wild white truffles in ancient forests. Taste the culinary heritage of the people of the mountains and the sea, enriched by the influential Medici family who brought mass sheep farming to the valleys of Abruzzo. And of course the wooden bridges of a Trabocco, the unique wooden fishermen’s houses on the beautiful Adriatic coast, to catch the treasures of the sea as they have been caught for centuries.
And amidst breath taking fortresses and ancient castles, mystical eremos and and old village piazzas where the clock stopped ticking, eight Big Green Eggs are waiting for you to learn how to prepare the most amazing Abruzzo food products. You’ll work under the guidance of two chefs: a local top topchef and certified Big Green Egg workshop leader Roy Voogd.
Mail us for more information and all details of this unique tour!
In this food and travel blog, I will tell you stories about our adventures in travelling the world of culinary heritage. I will start with my latest inspiration that was given by amazing Abruzzo, an absolute hidden treasure in Italy. Stories in words, stunishing pictures and -of course- in recipies.
From Abruzzo I’ll take you to other places that have amazed me. In Europe. And far beyond. In the hope that I can inspire you with my stories.
So come with me and let’s create new memories!
