Six-month world food event held to celebrate local food traditions

Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, an six-month event dedicated to good, clean, fair food and small-scale agriculture in the world, has begun with every continent, where health and safety allows, participating to fortify the international community of sustainable food producers and mindful consumers. The event has three themes of thinking about, tasting and changing the world with the month of November dedicated to the theme of biodiversity where Ark of Taste products, an international catalogue of endangered heritage foods, will be explored. Terra Madre Salone del Gusto is organized by Slow Food, a global grassroots organization preventing the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, the city of Turin, the region of Piedmont, the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies and the Italian Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea. It includes a range of experiences from farm visits to conferences, educational activities, farmers’ markets, tastings, earth markets and school gardens. Paola Nano, spokesperson for Slow Food International, says in Poland things kicked off on 8 October with a Slow Food Masterclass Dinner in Kraków, by the convivium to spread the word about the Ark of Taste and the Cooks’ Alliance nationwide. He says the Slow Food Central Poland Culinary Heritage Promotion Community will hold a traveling tasting in which participants explore local Ark of Taste products in the dishes of a number of restaurants as part of the Dobrego Smaku Lodzkie Festival in Lodz from 6 to 11 November.

“On 16 October the Slow Food Vodno Consortium in Macedonia organized the first Food Film Festival in Skopje with the patronage of the government and the Food and Agriculture Organization. This festival focused on local producers, their role in the community and the institutions’ capacity to support them as custodians of tradition and biodiversity,” says Nano. Mexico celebrated the biodiversity of corn in the district of La Resurreción on 20 October with a conference entitled ‘What Our Earth Gives Us’ by the Slow Food Academia Puebla Community and the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla. Switzerland will begin with a Slow Food Market part of the Food Zurich event on 24 October where producers, authors of the Slow Wine guide and Zurich-based members of the Slow Food Cooks’ Alliance will serve menus made with Presidium and Ark of Taste produce. Nano says Brazil will host an artistic and cultural program including debates, screenings of films, an interactive map of Slow Food Communities educational activities, guided tastings and an installation depicting the world of manioca and the production of its flour from 17 to 22 November. He says the event will also host cooks whose work demonstrates the importance of Brazilian ecosystems and they will have representatives of rural communities committed to protecting Ark of Taste products. “Food Wise 2020 is being organized in Uganda on 27 November where guests will explore traditional food heritage in various ways from a Terra Madre Kitchen to tastings, lectures, debates and workshops and will be able to see with their own eyes how food travels from farm to fork. It is an opportunity to promote food culture, celebrate small producers who work for good, clean and fair food, and to reflect upon the close link between our food and the climate,” says the spokesperson.

According to Nano, in Kobe, Japan, Slow Food Nippon will organize ‘We Feed The Planet’ on 21 and 22 November. He says through conferences and workshops, the Japanese take on Terra Madre will address the themes of seeds, sustainable fishing, supporting coastal communities and animal welfare on livestock farms.

“Many events have been organized in Azerbaijan as part of the Community-based Value Chain Enhancement in the Greater Caucasus Mountains project funded by the EU and coordinated by Slow Food. There will be taste workshops to discover local specialties, ‘slow’ cooking with Ark of Taste ingredients and the launch of the Slow Food Chefs’ Alliance in the country,” says Nano.