In the video that follows, see the whole speech (20:21) “The quest of the lost identity in times of globalization | George Pittas | TEDxAthens ”-“ George Pittas at TEDx Athens ”

Dear friends,

I'm glad to be with you, in his world TEDx , to share our concerns, experiences and hopes. I will give you some thoughts on the search for identity in the modern era (personal - collective - national - professional).

I will talk about childhood experiences, memories, visions, the battle to make dreams come true, the adventure of life.

Three are the most important memories I have from my childhood and that I think contributed to the formation of my personality, some stable life and of course some later choices.

My father he was a great furniture maker, with a house above his craft. I spent all my free time with the craftsmen as a child. I was enchanted by the way everyone appropriated and organized their workplace, their workbench, the chest with their tools, the photos from their particular homeland, the artistic and football idols, the pots with the basil, the songs that they sang softly . So from the photos, I learned the world, what Epirus, Crete, Macedonia, Cyclades means, but also the elementary school, the rebetiko, and Kazantzidis. Somehow I met the first microcosms and learned to travel mentally.

Then when we went to deliver the furniture - my father took several EOT competitions for the equipment of CHENIA, the hotels designed by Aris Konstantinidis in the 60's - I traveled with the workshop and met many different places.

I remember the impression -9-year-old child- that the huge, juicy peaches and the tall and beautiful women of Edessa made on me. I wrote in my notebook. To become a beautiful woman you must eat juicy peaches. Somehow I learned to travel and make valid travel responses!

Finally, to end my childhood, we will talk about nobility. I remember him my grandfather Lorenzo, to his refugee in N. Ionia. Kamaroula a stalia, I went every Sunday and ate with him. We ate I remember American aid, a plate of food, with the unique luxury of linen towels and silver-plated rings. The only thing they could get from Constanta when they were forced to leave in 1947. And yet I felt a sense of fullness, I felt like I was eating with lords. Somehow I learned that nobility is to be happy with what you are and not with what you have.

When my grandfather Lorenzos died in 1963, I cried a lot. I wrote in the notebook: This year the most important people in the world died… grandfather and Kennedy…

My estimate was even higher when I learned much later that together with his friend Daniilopoulos (protagonist in Marianna Koromilas's book "Happy to make Odysseus' journey") he was one of the most important Greek merchants of the Greek community in Romania and had expelled by the communists. My grandfather had never told me anything about his lost wealth, because his wealth was by his side, his Ritsa, my grandmother.

Since then it seems that I was subconsciously looking for people with similar nobility!

Many years have passed since then, studies, researches and my involvement in reality and entrepreneurship followed.

In 1980, at a time when everyone in furniture had started importing, a team of young designers and architects built the New Resident with the aim of promoting furniture for Greek homes. In 1995 when everyone made hotels on the beaches I made an alternative hotel in the mountainous Lefkes of Paros, to connect it with the place and the life of the hinterland. These works had their ups and downs, but others had creativity, passion and an obsession with the search for identity. Personal, national, professional.

And of course always against the prevailing trends.

For the last 30 years I have enjoyed traveling and recording the uncharted parts of the Greek territory and especially the daily life, the social life, where the soul of each place was pierced and there its demons were hidden.

The notebook was kept, but enhanced with a laptop and a camera. The material of thirty years of research was gathered at 6 p.m. books (Signs of the Aegean, Festivals in the Aegean, Paros trekking in place and time, Cafes of Greece, Athenian Tavern, Treasures of Greek Gastronomy).

As a hotelier I became involved with the public of the industry. Beyond numbers and statistics My concern was how much Greece our visitors got leaving our country.

The emergence of tourism of interest for travelers claiming cultural experiences, looking for the substance behind the false images and asylum of all inclusive hotels, changed things and helped the development of cultural tourism. In these places I moved especially with my books but also with my participation in conferences and creative meetings.

 

 

 

In its field of gastronomy in Greece, things were difficult, the causes many. The main thing was that the wave of mass internal migration after the civil war - under the circumstances that took place - forced most people to erase the past, and its consequences and eating habits. He was also tempted by the Western way of life and thus the local cuisines were inactivated. For many years the gastronomic image of the country was based on some tourist stereotypes, moussaka, village tzatziki, squid, octopus.

And then came the era of prosperity, parmesan and prosciutto. Because the Greeks considered development and modernization, the consumption of Western products, services and symbols, while the aim was to create structures that would produce our respective products, services and symbols. To make cheeses and cold cuts that acquire the quality and reputation of parmesan and prosciutto.

The Greeks for a while were ashamed of their gastronomic tradition, the trachana, the kasiopita, the bougatsa but even when we were released from the guilt, we made the trachana trahanoto and the barley barley.

Fortunately, from 2000 onwards, things slowly started to change and move around the national gastronomic identity.

In 2010 at XEE (Hotel Chamber of Greece) we created the greekbreakfast.gr (Greek Breakfast) a program aimed at the revolution of the obvious. To connect the hotel with the gastronomic heritage of each place, thus strengthening the local economy and contributing to its tourist identity. The guests of our hotels should taste in their breakfast all the goodies of the place and many of its recipes so that each tourist destination is identified with its delicious experiences. With the program in which I had the pleasure to be in charge, as a member of the Board of Directors of XE, I plowed Greece and we got in touch with producers, cooks, hoteliers trying to shape the breakfast of each place based on the products and recipes of the region.

More than 600 hotels have already joined and their number is growing rapidly, while we have formed more than 30 local Greek Breakfast standards, having traveled to 30 respective regions of the country.

The Greek breakfast took his first steps and even more to come.

Summarizing for this program, apart from the technical issues, the standards, the integration process, the awarding of the mark and the certifications, great emphasis was placed on the recovery of the lost cultural self-confidence and the faith in the gastronomic culture of each place.

I created it a while ago Guide to Greek Gastronomy, a website with the aim of highlighting Greece through the eyes of gastronomy.

In greekgastronomyguide.gr all the values ​​that shape the gastronomic environment of each area are recorded in the form of a mosaic. Places and landscapes, history and tradition, products and producers, cafes and taverns, delicacies and local cuisines, festivals and rituals form a puzzle and thus gastronomy from simple gastronomic pleasure is transformed into a whole world and a unity of life.
At the same time, the Guide is transformed into a network where all the creators of Greek gastronomy are recorded and the gastronomic destinations of the country are displayed.

I am very happy because with this activity I discover it Creative Greece, where in beautiful places I meet hundreds of young entrepreneurs with a view, educated people who set up islands of quality and creation, firmly pressing on tradition, marry it with modern technologies, with innovative actions, with social networks, creating their new identities.

They create an optimism that the environment, agriculture, processing, gastronomy, culture and tourism can become links in a chain and an important pillar that will help the development of the country, but above all it will set a new value system and a new life story

The path of life dear friends is personal and difficult. Struggle to become who you are, look for your experiences, your collective references, identify your uniqueness, defend your diversity and above all enjoy it, share it and try to use it.

Authentic diversity counts because it creates identity. And identity is a great asset of life!

And do not forget that innovation is not necessarily something new, but also a new look at the old!