University of Gastronomic Sciences

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!

Hops flowers, a cornerstone ingredient for beer

“I have to start off with a joke, to properly set the tone for this class,” said Mirco Marconi, our lecturer for beer tasting. With a grin, he announced that he would be lecturing on the production process of beer, and that we would be tasting 9 beers today and another 10 beers tomorrow. We were advised to eat a hearty breakfast in the morning.

“You might be too distracted to notice the first time through, but there is actually a lot of food imagery used in the Telephone music video.” And so, for the first time, I scrutinized a Lady Gaga video not for the outrageously skimpy outfits, but for the usage of food items. At the end of the ten minutes, our class was taken aback at the number of product placements in the film short. “It’s just a big ad for Virgin, Honey Buns and Polaroid, isn’t it?” The video makes frequent use of ersatz, convenience products like WonderBread and Miracle Whip. “Lady Gaga is well aware of her status as a highly commercial icon, and makes no pretense of acting otherwise. In a sense, she has tricked you into watching a 10-minute long ad masquerading as music video, one that you will now send to all your friends.” And what’s with the Diet Coke can hair rollers? In modern society, the panopticon of body image compels women to diet and lose weight, even without explicit pressure. She is trapped by both an interior and exterior prison.

Fresh off the heels of a trip to Puglia, we will be away on stage again this week, this time to our home region of Piemonte! Unlike last time though, we will be returning home every night to sleep in our own beds (yay!) and use our own computers (double yay!). So, I expect to not be continuously whining about the lack of internet access.

Piedmont is well known for its rolling mountains, wines (Barolo) and chocolate (in Turin). A sample itinerary (for Thursday July 8th):

Last week, as part of a class on food anthropology, we all had to conduct an ethnographic study of a food production place in town using participant-observation methods (read: hanging out and discreetly taking notes). Rather than choosing one of the town’s many pizzerias or gelato shops, I decided to investigate the one place that has elicited a sort of morbid fascination for me for the last month: The Chinese restaurant in Bra. That’s right, there’s only one, and there isn’t too much other ethnic food in town to speak of, aside from a couple small kebab shops.

Clockwise: Gargoyles on a cathedral in Lecce, the 16th century watchtower of Torre Guaceto, a driver awaits outside a wedding ceremony, the cliffs of Pogliano a Mare

Located in the southeastern part of Italy (the heel of the boot), Puglia is a peninsula of a peninsula, surrounded by sea and just a 12-hour ferry ride across the Adriatic to Greece. Ah, the sea. Having lived in the midwest for several years, it’s been a while since I’ve heard the crash and smelled the sting of saltwater. And as you can imagine, the sea plays a major role in shaping Puglian history. Being first point of entry by sea, Puglia has been conquered by pretty much every major civilization and conquering marauder that has attacked Italy in the past few thousand years. Ergo, it has a rich history of influences from a variety of cultures. As such, the region’s people, places and activities are heavily influenced by the bountiful amounts of sunlight, seafood and historical exchange.

An administrative note from the powers that be: we are traveling to Apulia for a stage (the Italian word for field trip) and will be staying there for the rest of the week. The UNISG program includes about a week’s worth of travel every month or so, where we go to another region of Italy or another country, and spend time learning about local products, meeting producers and sampling the specialties of the region. Puglia is well known for its olive oil, beaches and aggressive men. Ah, my first stint in southern Italy.

In a previous post, I discussed what it was like to have lunch at the Fed, but there was no mention of the food, mostly because the Sodexo-run cafeteria, while competent and better than your average corporate cafeteria, mostly catered to the greatest common denominator and offered nothing of blogworthy interest.

Here at the University of Gastronomic Sciences, you can avail yourself of the midday meal service plan for €1000, and be assured a hot lunch every day that you are at school. For the first week of classes, everyone can dine at the canteen, which gives you a chance to try the food and determine whether or not you want to bring your own lunch instead. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but figured that this would be a nicer, more intimate version of Cornell’s dining halls (which were actually pretty good compared to the institutional slop served at most other universities). I definitely did not expect a 3 or 4 course meal, complete with full table service.

In an effort to uphold my reputation as a crazy cyclist, the first thing I did upon arriving in Bra was to beeline to a second-hand bike shop and pick up a used bike. I am now the proud owner of an old school Atala, decked out with fenders, a bell and a basket. Fast she is not, but for 60 quid I could probably do worse.

The University of Gastronomic Sciences campus is about 6 km away from Bra, which is about the length of my old commute to the Fed. However, biking to class is considerably more difficult/hair-raising than going to the Fed because the route involves riding down a two-lane highway with a very, very steep, winding hill. Unless you are comfortable with biking downhill with lorries whizzing past you on a road with no shoulder, I don’t really recommend biking. As I flew down the hill this morning, I was traveling so quickly that my eyes were watering. To be fair, vehicles are courteous and do try to move to give you enough space, but there’s really not much room for error. Going back is even more hilarious because you now have to tackle going up the hill. Despite my best efforts, the bike slowly ground to a halt about halfway up the hill and I settled with walking the rest of the way up the hill. Perhaps I should have bought a bike with more than one speed.

For an informal pre-start of class get-together, the UNISG May 2010 cohort gathered for beers/aperitivo at the bar on the premises of the Slow Food headquarters. In the courtyard, there is a small restaurant named Baladin, with a small bar outdoors that serves wine and a couple beers on tap. On this particular night, the Isaac and Nora beers were available, the former being similar to a Belgian white beer and the latter an “Egyptian” style lager.