I have been lucky enough to be chosen with 40 other Australians to attend this once in a life time opportunity at the world’s largest sustainable food conference.
More than 5,000 representatives from the worldwide Terra Madre network will meet in Turin, Italy for the fourth time this October - coinciding once again with the international Slow Food fair Salone de Gusto.
The five-day meeting will bring together food communities, cooks, academics, youth and musicians from all over the world, who are united in a desire to promote sustainable local food production in harmony with the environment while respecting knowledge handed down over the generations.
We Australians have been asked to document our daily experiences and send them to the Slow Food Australia website via video, facebook, twitter, photographs or email. They can be viewed instantly on the site and then at a later date compiled and made into a documentary.
A new feature in 2010 will be a focus on cultural and linguistic diversities - in recognition of the need to defend minority ethnic groups and indigenous languages, and with an appreciation of the value of oral traditions and memory.
Aunty Beryl van Oploo (heading Australia’s first Aboriginal delegation) and Slow Food international president Carlo Petrini in Sydney in 2009. Image: Marie Helmsley 2009
A contingent of 6 indigenous Australians will be part of my group, and the opening ceremony, they and other representatives of indigenous communities from all continents across the world will speak to the audience in their native languages.
The six main areas of education at the conference covered are:-
- Sustainability and Food Policies: A policy document from the Advanced School in Sustainability and Food Policies and the Terra Madre food communities
- Marco Polo project at Terra Madre: Presentation of the scientific research along the silk road
- Taste Education: Food and Taste workshops and activities.
- Youth Food Movement: Youth and their role in the world meeting of food communities
- 2010 Earth Workshops: For food growers and producers.
- Sounds of Terra Madre: Musical performances of indigenous and cultural groups
The link between wine and terroir is just one of the many variations on the 2010 Salone del Gusto’s guiding theme of “food += places” to be found in the Taste Workshops program
One of the highlights for me will to be able to attend the Taste Education Workshops. This is how it is described in the programme:-
“Participants will also be able to explore the sensory program “To the Origins of Taste”. Presented in the 8 languages of Terra Madre, it begins with an introductory video explaining basic sensory concepts and terms to describe food products.
It then moves on to a series of tasting games divided into various sections—involving taste, sight, smell, touch and multisensory experience—designed to stimulate the senses.
Finally participants use a pre-recorded lesson to guide them through a tasting of chocolate and apples.
The information learned in the first two sections is reviewed in a comparison and evaluation of three varieties of apple and bitter chocolate, in order to discover which samples are the crispiest, sweetest, juiciest, most acidic, and most bitter or have the most intense aroma.”
I can taste the apples and chocolate now!!!
On at the same time as the Terra Mardre conference is the Salone del Gusto. It is available for everyone around the world to attend who cares deeply about food.
The Salone del Gusto offers perhaps the only place in the world where peasants and artisan producers, academics and chefs, wine connoisseurs and novice food lovers can come together in a spirit of exchange and friendship.
A dense network of relationships is created here on behalf of food that is sustainable and can still transmit joy, food restored to its true value.
The Salone del Gusto is educational, because it is about learning, knowing, comparing and discovering, but always in the name of a right to responsible and fully shared pleasure.
The Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre are above all a festival, celebrating what we eat and the people who make it.
Oysters from Brittany will be cooked 3 ways by a French chef and paired with Champagne
There are 128 bookable events on over the 4 days, I will probably only have time for 2 or 3 so how do I decide. These are some the things on my short list:-
- Oysters from Brittany cooked 3 ways by a French chef paired with Champagne.
- Nordic delicacy of salted and smoked Reindeer with Arctic herbs and wild berries.
- Mexican chocolates and Agave Mezcal spirit.
- The story and tasting of a sixteen year old Italian cheese.
- Making real Italian salamis paired with grapa.
- Michelin stared Spanish chefs cooking their signature dishes.
- Icelandic delicacies of preserved fish and cheeses paired with cider
In a nutshell the message and education of the conference is look after the land, respect traditions and source local grown and seasonal food.
I can’t wait to attend this and upon my return share the information with everyone.
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Stay Tuned
Terri will be emailing The Tamborine Mountain Daily Star with up-to-date reports on what is happening at Salone del Gusto in Turin Italy during the world's largest sustainable food conference. Stay tuned!