Category Archives: food

Inside Salone del Gusto, Italy’s Artisanal Foodie Mecca

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Clockwise: whole prosciutto from San Daniele on display; a band of two accordions, a guitar and a hurdy-gurdy (the bearded man on the right was making animal puppets out of a hankerchief to entertain the kids); a self-service milk truck parked outside Salone del Gusto; Puglian women stringing cherry tomatoes by hand

After a long morning of seminars, I was sipping a glass of Left Hand beer, when the sound of drums and horn began thundering down the hall. It was Macedonian folk ensemble Akud Mirce Acev, beating a lively rhythm and whipping a crowd of Asians into a frenzied dance. Heads bobbed, cameras flashed, women in hanbok dresses waved their arms in the air. Just another day at Salone del Gusto.

Salone del Gusto is an international food fair and celebration of the artisanal producer, on a decidedly not small scale. In the exhibition rooms of Torino’s Lingotto Fiere, 65.000 m² of space will encompass 910 exhibitors from 17 Italian regions and 46 countries. In 2008, the fair attracted 180.000 visitors and I would guess that this year’s show attracted just as many, if not more attendees. The event is a combined effort of Slow Food and the city of Torino, and as you might expect, the environmental impact is minimized through the use of ecofriendly materials. For instance, the flooring for the stalls is made from Ecomat material, made from the residual pulp left from olive oil pressing mixed with new and recycled polypropylene.

In these grand halls, traditional food products and wines are showcased from all over the world. Grass-green newly-pressed olive oil from Umbria. Perfumed Madagascar vanilla beans. Hot, crackling Tuscan porchetta. Cold glasses of Dogfish Head beer. Wait a minute, that’s not international, it’s American! As it turns out, the only American products at Salone del Gusto were beers at the American Craft Brewers Association stand. I spent some time chatting with “beer wench” Ron from Lagunitas Brewery, and it was nice to see familiar names and bottles for a change.

Of course, the bulk of the fair featured Italian products, some of which are highlighted below:
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Recipe: Banana and Chestnut Bread, or a Celebration of Baking Powder in Italy

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One of the (many) ironies of living in Italy is that I barely twitch my eyebrows at the products that gourmets fantasize about (white truffles, Barolo wine) because they are here in abundance, while my pulse races at certain items that would be staples in every American supermarket, yet are nearly impossible to find in Italy. This phenomenon is not limited to only me; one of the highlights of our class trip to France was the discovery of a vendor stocked with cilantro at the Dijon market. The ensuing stampede of students who each snapped up two or four bunches must have left that vendor shaking his head in confusion as to what was causing the run on cilantro. When in Bra, we covertly swap info on where to find cilantro as if we are Soviet spies. (Tip: you must ask for it to be brought out, but there is a particular butcher who sells cilantro on Fridays and Saturdays. Who knew.)

What exactly is in this set of verging-on-unicorn-mystique goods? Well, cilantro, for starters, but in general any sort of Asian or Latin American product is in hot demand. Thankfully, the back corner of the Ortobra on Corso Novembre IV has a section that is dedicated to carrying international products. There are no words that can really capture the twist of joy and confusion I felt when I discovered peanut butter placed in the ethnic section. You can also take a trip to Torino and find a good selection of Asian groceries just west of Piazza della Repubblica on Corso Regina Margherita. Prices can be exorbitant compared to the US, but hey, there’s nothing like the taste of home. Latin goods are even more difficult to find. There is an upscale Mexican store in Torino that mostly carries furniture and household items, but does have some canned and dried food products. I nearly wept when I saw the €5 package of tortillas. In Chicago, they would have cost a quarter and still been steaming. What I would give for a plate of Big Star tacos right now…

Then there are the items that I didn’t even realize were unusual, but have now acquired a magnetic attraction: oatmeal, sharp cheddar cheese, sour cream, canned pumpkin, hummus, brown sugar, black beans, bagels, sourdough bread, baking powder…the list goes on and on. Baking powder? Yes, that magical white powder that you use to make pancakes and pumpkin breads without the hassle of rising time. Much to my surprise, it is nearly impossible to find this in Italy. Hence, while in a Brussels Carrefour, when Danielle barreled toward me holding a box of baking powder, I jumped about a mile and shrieked with giddiness.

And so, I celebrated my newly purchased baking powder with the following banana bread. I still had to make a few ingredient substitutions, so feel free to use the more commonly found “ethnic” American ingredients noted parenthetically.
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Bruges: In Flanders Fields, the Chocolates Grow

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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.
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Mussels in Brussels and Other Carbtastic Adventures

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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.

Some logistical information: Ryanair flights from Torino land in Charleroi, a small airport about 60 km south of Brussels that serves a number of budget airlines. To get from Charleroi airport to Brussels proper, you can either take the Autocars l’Elan shuttle bus to Gare du Midi (€13/22 rt, tickets sold on board), or you can hop on a bus (€2,70) to the Charleroi train station and then take a train from there to Brussels (€8,60). The shuttle is slightly more expensive and takes less time, while the bus + train combo allows you to go to any of Brussels’ three main train stations (Midi, Centraal, Nord). This was also my first time flying Ryanair, and that is an experience in itself. Luckily, I was too tired to notice much of my surroundings, but the flight was essentially a 90-minute long informercial, as the airline attendants hawked food, credit cards, lottery tickets, something or another to save the children…At the end of the flight, they played a trumpet reveille to announce that the plane had landed on time. Thank god, because I was ready to jump out the window.
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A Flight of Fancy: France’s Poulet de Bresse

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A month has passed since I was last in France (my how time flies!), but I’m still milking those experiences for class projects. Our trip to a Bresse chicken farm was particularly memorable, so I converted that into a magazine-style piece that I will submit for evaluation.

A Flight of Fancy: France’s Poulet de Bresse (727 kb)

French Cuisine Triptych: Terrible, Traditional and Avant-Garde

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The other day, my aunt asked me, “So you keep raving about how delicious everything is, but are there any bad meals?” Yes, of course there are. Though I generally travel with boatloads of research and a good sense of intuition, I do get stuck with bland, uninspired meals like everyone else. While in France, the quality of the food was (unsurprisingly) very good, but no country is fail-proof. Here is a glimpse into how our class of well-traveled and knowledgeable students critiques meals:

Meal #1: Paul Bocuse – Brasserie Le Nord, Lyon



“Paul Bocuse? The Paul Bocuse‽” When we heard that we would be dining at one of Paul Bocuse’s brasseries while on stage, the excitement exploded. After all, Paul Bocuse is one of the godfathers of French nouvelle cuisine, and is the namesake for the prestigious Bocuse d’Or prize, a cooking competition commonly referred to as the Olympics of the culinary world. Expectations were running quite high, as we wanted to see what the man hailed for changing the direction of French gastronomy could do in his restaurants.

Alas, Brasserie Le Nord left us feeling more than underwhelmed. Whether it was an off night, or Bocuse simply doesn’t spend enough time managing his less-prestigious properties, it was clear that little thought had gone into the composition and presentation of the dinner. We began with a classic French onion soup, thickly laden with cheese, sweet onions and bread. The rich soup was then followed by quenelle de brochet, a whipped fish, bread and egg mixture, poached in an oval shape and served with cream sauce. Other than a few spongy mushrooms, there was nary a sign of vegetables and nothing to balance the heavy cream. For dessert, there was (you guessed it) more cream, a slice of whipped cream and egg whites (?), studded with nuts and candied fruit. “It was all brown!” exclaimed one student. “This meal was made without love,” another person declared. Throughout the evening, our servers were mostly absent, did not interact with us and provided no explanations about what we were having that evening. We were left to guess and rely on our French-raised comrades to provide information. All in all, this meal exemplified the worst of French cuisine stereotypes; it was rich, heavy and the servers didn’t give us the time of day.
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