Italia!

I got a scholarship to attend the Spannocchia Foundation Farmer to farmer exchange – 5 days of talking with amazing farmers, chefs and advocates from New England and Tuscany. Totally fascinating. I would have thought that Italy was much further along in the “local food movement” than the US – after all, it always seemed that Italians loved food, and still had a much more highly developed and maintained food culture. They wouldn’t be heating up T.V. dinners and going through the McDonald’s drive thru.

I was somewhat shocked. The Italians do of course have a deeply rooted food culture, which much more identification of “terroir”, or regional products. However, most of the markets in the city centers are now wholesale markets (like Haymarket in Boston) – they are largely NOT farmers from that area selling their products directly to the customer. CSA’s a pretty much unheard of. and perhaps most shocking to me was that in driving along the Tuscan countryside, the vast majority of the rowcrops were planted with an orientation uphill/downhill, instead of following the horizontal contour like we would over here. This uphill orientation creates such a huge risk of severe erosion. After talking with the Tuscan farmers, it sounds like it shifted around the 1950’s, as farmers transitioned from using animal power (mostly oxen) to tractors. Tractors were much more likely to tip when driving across a hillside. And Tuscany, like New England, is almost all hills, with few flat plains.

Spannocchia is an estate that takes in conferences and runs an apprenticeship program to introduce more young peole to farming. They specialize in continuing to raise heritage breeds of swine and cows, and they smoke and cure their own pork products to make prosciutto, lardo, and all other kinds of salumi.

February was about the perfect time for me to go – although it wasn’t that warm in italy, it was in the 50-60’s so much warming than upstate new york! And I had a pretty much unsatiable appetite after walking on the farm, so I could eat tons of Italian food, from the salumi and desserts at the Spannocchia (my favorite was a Pear and Chocolate torte on a crust based on chestnut flour), to the Gelato and endless espressos in Florence. I spent an extra couple of days in Florence at the beginning of the trip, and on top of eating amazing food went to see the incredible statue of David at the Accademia, to visit the Uffizi, to put a coin under the tongue of this boar in one of the marketplaces, and to climb up to the top of the Duomo.

On the way to Italy, I overheard a bunch of folks at the Frankfurt airport talking about farming. In English. I finally went up to them and asked if they farmed. “yes – we farm at the Farm School, in Athol, MA”. I had no idea at that point that I would go on to work there but it was a lovely way to watch the whole winter come full circle.