Slow Food Perth convivium co-leader Pauline Tresise recollects the inspirational activity at Slow Food’s Salone del gusto and Terra Madre 2008 in Turin, Italy.
AMAZING, overpowering, immense, complex, brilliant, emotional, inspiring. Step into another world. Where to start? One is bowled over with the complexity of it all, hard to grasp and difficult to imagine the size of this biennial Salone del gusto, which in 2008 combined successfully with Terra Madre.
Every two years it never ceases to amaze. What a piece of brilliance and organisation. The gathering of so much of interest, so much of the world of food and farming, Slow Food praesidia, film, lectures, workshops with the powerful voices of people such as Vandana Shiva, food workshops, seasonal information, children’s educational and tasting areas, Citta Slow, the Enoteca with wines from every corner of the world, Italian regional food areas, the Italian national parks organisations, lanes of olive oil, meat, cheese, sweet lanes, world food, local, seasonal food, displayed in the market areas, all this and more under the umbrella of Slow Food. This year recycling companies also had products on show, from those making unique seats from rolled newspaper clamped together with metal bands for stools, to others making extraordinary lounge chairs out of wine barrels and colourful shopping baskets out of recycled cardboard. (Unless you saw someone resting on one of the paper stools you were not so sure as to their purpose.) Then there was the Saint Gobain glass company with its strong message of glass preserving food’s ‘tastiness, because it is natural, safe, hygienic, elegant, reusable, recyclable, practical and unique’.
The gathering of all this under the Slow Food umbrella is inspiring; it is hard to visualize, perhaps five segments of a great umbrella. On entry, you are first confronted with the first food halls, three segments, each the size of football stadiums, all lined with lanes and lanes of food producers. These segmented halls lie side by side, linked only by an open entrance between each part. Then in the last hall there is a lined passage encompassed by a food market that leads us through and out into an open expansive area, and there in front is the fourth segment of the umbrella – the Terra Madre and praesidia, the heart of it all. It is here where delegates from all corners of the globe gather; here lies the opportunity for the delegates to meet others, listen to speakers, communicate and network.
It is here that all the praesidia products are exhibited, too. This is, for me, one of the most fascinating segments of Slow Food’s work, the saving of food products that have been threatened with extinction. One can talk to the farmers and producers and taste all their products, from the wonderfully scented, sweet-tasting late harvest, yellow-coloured, red-striped leonforte peaches of Sicily to the Mauritanian nomadic Imraguen fisherwomen of mullet roe – called bottarga. From Afghan Herat there is the delicious abjosh raisin, a unique local variety of dried grape; from Friuli Venezia Giulia the formadi frant cheese which is salvage from mountain cheeses that were flawed or could not be aged; to Madagascar’s mananara vanilla, conserved because of its remote production environment, and Spain’s jiloca saffron, said to be among the best in the world but threatened with substitution by low quality imitations.
In the Terra Madre-praesidia area there is an earth market, to which delegates from the developing world can bring their crafts, and we can talk and admire and be overwhelmed by our world becoming smaller.
One is overcome by the unique opportunity to mingle, talk and meet people whose cultures are ancient – and here we are sharing it all. The earth market means more to them than farmers’ markets to us because, for them, a farmers’ market is their daily shared experience. It is how they exchange and buy their food; their earth market encompasses both their food and their craft. It is here where their culture is shared; where their stories are exchanged and where they proudly display a colourful array of traditional handicrafts, clothes, scarves, jewellery, shoes and artefacts.
Retracing our steps back through the market lane, many frequent stops allow us to enjoy the flavours and smells of foods such as freekeh, a roasted green wheat, an Arab specialty that the Lebanese Farmers’ Market stand was displaying, and truffled butter, along with its haunting smell that wafted in waves as the people flowed past the stand. We eventually find ourselves in the final, smaller segment of the umbrella which is nestled close to but separated from the main pavilions. Here are the food workshops.
Halfway through the days spent at Salone del Gusto, I sat and listened to one of the workshops, ‘Meeting with the makers’ – memory workshops with Fabrizio Picci, the founder of the famous Florentine restaurant Il Cibreo. It brought hidden smiles as I listened to his story of food memories, the encouragement his parents showed for family meals, often dining out at restaurants, only for him to discover in later life that being dropped at restaurants was more a need of his parents having time alone while the children were comfortably and safely ensconced eating their favourite foods at local restaurants. When asked for a recipe to give to the audience – sudden excited movements and a rustle of bags, and all poised in readiness with pens and paper to record the details – he told us of how he knew of his mother’s love: she would always take the butter out of the fridge an hour before he returned home from school, his bread was so beautifully prepared with the soft flavoursome butter – that to him was the most powerful recipe, a loving act from his mother.
To arrive at Salone del gusto on the first day is to join already small queues of people starting to appear well before the opening time of 11am, so a good idea is to buy your entrance ticket via the internet before arriving in Turin. One enters Salone del gusto in the Lingotto Fiere complex from Via Nizza, a long straight street that travels almost five kilometres from the main Porta Nuova railway station to Lingotto, the former Fiat factory which now serves as a conference centre. It is easy to reach from the bus stop in front of the Porta Nuova station; one catches either one of the three tram-buses that travel in the Lingotto Fiere direction (numbers 1, 18 or 35). They stop just outside the Lingotto and the journey takes about 20 minutes. Tickets for buses can be bought at any tobacconist or newsagent. At the end of 2009 there will be an underground metro directly linking the heart of Turin with the Lingotto..
At the front of the central segment, inside the complex, not far after entering, is a circular information desk. Here you can pick up information about the daily activities. There is also a large map with list of all exhibitors on the reverse side. An informative booklet is also available that explains about all that can be done and seen during the five days of the event. As much as this map and information booklet is comprehensive, nothing can prepare you for the overwhelming variety of activities and things to see, taste, do and hear. The sensual overload will leave you excited and overwhelmed at the end of each day.
And what about the time for seeing Turin itself? Well, that depends if you are into early rising and experiencing a quiet stroll around Turin while most of the city sleeps. It can all be done; the adrenaline will keep you moving, along with the beauty of the historic heart of Turin, the beautiful food shops, famous chocolatiers, piazzas on a regal scale, arcaded streets, magnificent museums, pleasant helpful people and the original reason for your visit – all this will make October’s visit to Turin for Slow Food’s Salone del gusto and Terra Madre an unforgettable experience
Be warned if venturing to this event: do your research, decide on your main interests and even with five days it is almost impossible to do it all.
The closing ceremony was a finale to beat all finales, a magical journey around the world of folk music and song, a presentation of divine magnificence, overpowering in its beauty and mesmerisingly captured by the haunting human spirit. Thank you, Carlo Petrini, for your powerful message and your warmth and passion in uniting so many of us, and thank you to all of you who worked so hard to bring this to us.
Pauline Tresise
Co-leader
Slow Food Perth
19 Nov 2008