Salone del Gusto
Last weekend we go to go to the Slow Food fair in Torino! The Acetaia had a booth and we went for the weekend to help-although we ended up spending our time looking at all the different booths. There was a whole area with foods and people from all corners of the world with their traditional foods. These included Tibetan Yak cheese, French black turnips (very good), Parmigiano Reggiano made from red cows, special salts, vinegars, fruits, wines, lentils…(Note to Mom: we got some really beautiful French lentils for you!)

Here we are at the Acetaia’s booth in our new slow foods sweatshirts!




We also met up with Lonnie and Valerie and Steve (from Fairfield), which was really fun! Lonnie and Valerie met us and we all went to a really good speech given by the founder of Slow Food Carlo Petrini and a really awesome woman Vandana Shiva. She spoke on the importance of food freedom, of the freedom of farmers to produce food for their country, as well as the importance of sharing, that seeds want to be shared, and want to reproduce. I am terrible at recapping speeches, but it was very good and inspiring!

Here we are with Carlo Petrini, Lonnie and Valerie after the speech!



I think that one of our favorite things at the fair was a type of citrus grown in a small area in Sardinia. The edible part of the fruit is the white pith between the pulp and the skin. It is necessary to peel and de-pulp the fruits, and then the pith is soaked in blossom honey and then preserved. This was one of the products that we found in the area of the show that was for all the very small traditional producers. (Presidium area)

We went out for dinner with Lonnie and Valerie and two friends of Steve that Lonnie and Valerie met while waiting in line for the Fair. (There were huge lines and they just happened to be standing next to each other and got to talking and found out they both were connected with Steve!!) Dinner was excellent! We decided it was the best food we have had eating out since we have been here. For dinner we had a leek flan, and gnocchi, red pepper risotto, and for desert, a chestnut pudding like thing with persimmon sauce, and chocolate shavings.