First and foremost he is a person of taste, who is profoundly sensible to the historical and cultural values of the Italian cuisine and table. He possesses a gastronomical background constructed through personal experience, love for his own roots, and through the participation, investigation and curiosity for the different traditions. His distinct education in taste allows him to appreciate and practice the rules which make the table pleasant. Admission to the Accademia is subordinated to a period of attendance; it is precluded, for obvious reasons, to those who have a direct professional interest in the field of catering and it is executed by co-optation. Admission is decided, upon proposal of the competent Delegate of the correspondent region, by the President of the Accademia, following an attentive scrutiny of the moral and personal requisites of the candidate. It is due to the exceptional qualifications of the Academicians, exceptional because ensured by a thorough and attentive choice of participation, that the Accademia now enjoys the prestige which, in 70 years of existence, it has acquired in Italy and abroad.
THE DECALOGUE
One is an Academician at all times, 24 hours a day, which means that the respect for the principles on which the philosophy of the Accademia is based are to inspire the life, behaviour, and public as well as private activity of every Academician.
The Academician loves culture in general and that of the civilisation of the table in particular and the latter is nourished by studying, researching and participating in the cultural life of the Accademia with proposals, ideas, initiatives.
The Academician is a person of taste, apart from of good taste. He cultivates the latter, refines it, defends and diffuses it, makes it an object of testimony with new generations.
The force of tradition is, for the Academician, a profound knowledge of the roots of his own gastronomical culture, but it is also awareness of its future. This is why he does not regard the traditional values of the civilisation of the table as immutable entities, but knows how to seize their developments, new experiences, and innovative intuitions.
One Academician is not the same as the next. He shies away from the homologation of judgment, preferences, and desires because only in this manner can he give a personal and constructive contribution to the activity of the Accademia. The Academician is able to tie together the knots of his own personal experience, of the tastes enjoyed in his youth and stored in his memory, of every vital moment of his own existence, of the fruit of his own imagination and creativity, of the uses and local traditions of his own land. The Academician offers his individual values, his own internal richness for the enrichment of everyone.
The Academician has a gastronomical background which he has built up through personal experience, through the love for his own roots, the participation, investigation and curiosity for the different traditions. His distinct education in taste allows him to appreciate and practice the rules which make the table pleasant.
The Symposiarchate is a precious duty of the Academician. The Symposium, focal point of academic life, is to be prepared with great care and in harmony with the academic precepts, be it at the probationary lunch, which is an important premise for the planning of an academic menu, or at the convivial reunion itself.
It is the duty of the Academician to continuously work towards divulgating the objectives which the Accademia sets itself among the public.
Conscious of the necessity of preserving a fundamental cultural and civil patrimony, the Academician is available for a prompt work of education in taste and for the creation of a higher awareness among the new generations of the cultural values of the civilisation of the table.
Characteristic of the Academician are those moral and behavioural requisites which, on every occasion, mark his activities. The rigorous respect for the engagements assumed, the presence at meetings and convivial encounters, punctuality, courtesy, availability, and the testimony of civilisation are the indispensable endowments of every Academician.