On the occasion of Europe’s Day, Romfilatelia, the company specialized in issuing and trading Romanian postage stamps, is launching a philatelic issue called EUROPA 2005 – Gastronomy.
The first important step in the evolution of gastronomy was taken when, returning from the hunt, the primitive man has cooked the first meal with the help of the recently discovered fire. The first rupestral images illustrating the beginnings of gastronomy may be admired, to this day, in the “Les Trois Freres” (The Three Brothers), from Ariege, in southern France.
Together with the development of human society and with the creation of nations, gastronomy became increasingly diverse according to the region and the cultural background. Each country has added its national particularities, enriching gastronomy and transforming it into an art. Nowadays, the cultivation of the culinary art has reached a special refinement and international contests are being organized throughout the world.
The graphic composition of the two stamps represents a metaphor of the hunt combined with the refinement of the preparation and serving of the food.
Thus, the stamp with a nominal value of ROL 21,000 presents in an original graphic representation a horseback hunting scene and the food obtained from the game, against the background of a map of the ancient Dacia, the territory once inhabited by the “Geto-Dacians”, the ancestors of the Romanians.
In a similar manner, the artist has conceived the illustration of the second stamp with a nominal value of ROL 77,000, representing a hunting hound carrying the game and, next to it, the manner of preparation and presentation of the game.
