Travel

Not sure how this managed to happen, but I’ve only got three more weeks left on the continent. (But wait, I haven’t even gone to Rome yet!) Of course, the UNISG masters students will be going out with a bang—for our last stage, we’ll be taking a 2-week long excursion to Portugal and Spain. We start off in Lisbon, then gradually move toward the Spanish border region of Extremadura, traveling east to Évora, Cáceres, Mérida and finally, Seville. The foodstuffs look quite similar to Italian cuisine, with a lot of olive oil, wine, cheese and cured meats, but we are also making stops to investigate the production of pastéis de Belém (sweet pastries), herb liquors, paprika, and eating lunch at a zero-kilometer restaurant (with locally-sourced products).

SwissMiss pointed me to this gorgeous poster from the Mutato-Archive, a collection of misshapen and irregular fruits, vegetables and roots. With an eye for color and careful selection, Uli Westphal took dozens of photos of gnarly tubers, trident-shaped carrots and Siamese mushrooms. In other words, the set is a stunning display of natural diversity.

Too often, produce is bred to be perfectly uniform, symmetric and well, monotonous. Anything that shows a little too much character is often thrown out at the supermarket. What a shame! At least the EU has finally abandoned a law that bans the sale of irregularly-shaped but still nutritious produce. Maybe it’s not always about looks after all.

This tale is getting published about a month later than I had anticipated, but I figure everyone likes listening to a good yarn of travel woe, so here it is.

Like most disasters, this one started out with a quiet whimper buried amidst the lull of complacency. True, I had checked the BBC the day before, and the headline story was about “severe weather disruptions” and cancelled flights at London’s airports due to snowfall. However, the amount of snow that had fallen (4-5″) was piddling by North American standards, and the article seemed to indicate that everything would be functioning normally by the next day. And so, I happily hopped on a flight out of Turin to London, where I would transfer to a connecting flight to New York. I was returning “home,” whatever that word meant after seven months of expat life in Italy. In Turin, British Airways staff boarded the flight with nary a hint of distress. Naturally, while we were in the air, my connecting flight out of London was cancelled.

I’ve been back in Italy for only a week, which means it’s time for another stage! For our last intranational trip, the Food Culture masters students are traveling to Emilia-Romagna, a region in northern Italy that is credited with having the country’s highest quality of life (and cost of living). Here you will find the grand Renaissance city of Bologna, home of the oldest university in the world, and the cities of Modena and Parma. These latter two are the namesakes of the world-renowned products Modena balsamic vinegar and Parma prosciutto. In addition, we will be exploring and tasting our way through culatello (ham aged in a bladder), salami, cotechino (boiled sausage) and pasta. Good thing there are no vegetarians among us.

It’s that time of the month again; the UNISG masters students are heading out this week for another round of travel. The destination for this stage is Umbria, a region in central Italy, bordering Tuscany and Lazio, where Rome is located. It is the only region of Italy that has no borders with other countries and no coastal access. Over the next few days, we will be exploring Umbria’s famed olive oils, truffles, wines and cured meat products. Best of all, if the weather cooperates, we will be fishing on Lake Trasimeno with a bunch of local fishermen! I am mildly embarrassed to admit that I have never gone fishing before, so this is pretty exciting.

Clockwise: ducks and swans swim through the canals of Bruges; a hot air balloon rises above the city; the Grote Markt belfry dominates the skyline; old advertisement for Trappist-made beef chocolate using raw meat, designed to fight fatigue

Bruges is a quaint little town located in West Flanders, in a Flemish-speaking section of Belgium. The Gothic architecture of the old city center is recognized as a UNESCO Heritage site, and the town is often nicknamed the “Venice of the North,” due to the network of canals traversing the city. Like the center of Brussels, Bruges features a stunning central public square named Grote Markt, which includes the Belfort tower housing a 47-bell carillon. You can climb the 366 steps to reach the top of the 83 m tower for an aerial view of the city. It seems that the carilloneur’s repertoire is as diverse as that of Cornell chimesmasters; all afternoon, the air was filled with the tinkling of baroque and Billy Joel.

You can get a classic moules-frites dinner with mussels, fries and a beer for about €13 in Brussels; Grand Place/Grote Markt is the central square of Brussels and recognized by UNESCO

Several weeks ago, Professor Peter Scholliers of Vrije Universiteit in Brussels stopped by to give our class some lectures on Belgian and European food history of the 19th and 20th centuries. Soon afterwards, one of my roommates noticed that Ryanair flights from Torino to Brussels were quite inexpensive, and there was a four-day weekend coming up, so we made a spontaneous decision to treat ourselves to a weekend in Belgium. After all, isn’t the point of living in Europe that you can fly off at a moment’s notice to another country? I’d like to think we were inspired by class, so this was really a didactic experience anyway.

What’s furry, recalcitrant, and represents a medieval middle-finger? The Alba Palio degli Asini donkey race, of course!

You see, in 1275, the Piedmont towns of Asti and Alba were at war. On August 10, the feast day for Alba’s patron saint San Lorenzo, Asti attacked Alba and laid waste to the fields outside the city walls. To further cement their victory and humiliate the people of Alba, Asti’s army held a horse race around the Alba city walls. According to legend, the residents of Alba simultaneously held a donkey race inside the city walls, as a thumb to the noses of their aggressors.

Just when I feel like I’ve settled in after summer travels, it is time for the UNISG masters students to take off again! This time we are heading to France for a week, to the region of Burgundy, most famous for wines of the same name. We’ll be staying in Lyon for a couple days, then moving to Dijon for the rest of the week. As you can imagine, this week will involve a lot of wine tastings, but there are a lot of breaks for products like cheese and Bresse chicken. Lest you think gastronomy school is all fun and games, I inform you that for this stage I am mandated to write a journalistic producer profile. Then, I need to write a synthetic supplementary document to explain my methods and discursive decisions. Adobe InDesign and infographics await!

Venice. The name inspires wonder and envy from those who have never seen it, but if you start asking about the city with your seasoned traveler friends, they tend to give a dismissive sniff and say with upturned noses, “Oh Venice, it’s totally overrated. Such a tourist trap. And so overpriced. You’re better off spending your time in Florence.”

While there may be some legitimacy to some of the complaints (there are a hella lot of English-speaking tourists, the mosquitoes are wicked), I found Venice to be delightful and full of hidden charms. If you play your cards right, you can escape the heaving masses to areas blessedly free of foot traffic, with only the slow slap of waves to break the silence. It probably helped that I had a few Veneto locals to steer me around. (Valeria, we love you.)