Barge, a launch pad for Torino
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
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Trip End
Nov 13, 2008
Torino - Accommodation as rare as hens teethOur stay in Torino (Turin) was eventful before we even got here! You see before we left on our trip we learnt a major food festival was going to take place in there from 23-27 October. It was two festivals in fact, Slowfood and Terra Medre. The common thread for both was sustainable agriculture and consumption of local produce, things both Shellie and I care about. So a stay in Turin was always going to be part of our trip, we even knew exactly when we had to be there unlike other parts of our trip to date.Despite this we didn't book any accommodation. So imagine my surprise when four days ago I started trying to find some accommodation and kept getting ``sorry we are full due to Terra Medre''. Who would have thought having two major food festivals which brings suppliers from all of the the world and where each individually have brought in more than 200,000 spectators each would have used up all of the available accommodation; everything within 100km of Turin!As as result, we booked ahead our stay in Nice and Aix En Provence; leaving two days in hope we could find something. As luck would have it, on the morning of our departure from South Tryol, I had a reply ``yes, we have room'', at a town called Barge, about 50km south of Turin. We leapt at it of course.We ended up spending two nights at a lovely B&B. Our first night we had dinner with the hosts and two ladies who are participants in Terre Medre; one an educator the other a cook and farmer; both from the USA. The dinner was a delicious Italian Risotto, a lovely quiche, a pastry style desert and a wine; all made by the hosts (including the wine) from produce from their garden. It was another demonstration of the Italian passion for food. Conversations over dinner spanned renewable energy, farming, bee keeping, politics etc. The farmer mentioned that while they are organic, they to had suffered from catastrophic hive failure, loosing 13 of their 17 hives! Such things highlight to me just how much we don't know or understand about our complex environmental systems.We were also fortunate for our host to provide us with a tour of his gallery as he is an artist as well, responsible for most of the building work at the B&B and most of the art pieces.Our apartment was the Sunflower room; rich in earthy colours and wonderfully comfortable. The breakfasts were delicious, comprised of home made cake, bread and biscuits. The biscuits were wood fired by a bakery just down the road. Supplied jams were again made by the hosts (Fig, Apricot and Apple and Peach); apple juice was also home made although the yogurt was not! During the breakfast Shellie had a wood fired oven at her back; so getting moving after breakfast was a bit of a challenge. Eating home produced food was inspiring me to continue with my experiments with making preserves when I return; as well as increasing the capacity of the vegetable patch to provide a supply of ingredients.We made our way from Barge to Pinerrello to catch a train to Turin to visit Terra Medre, passing by a town with an interesting name - None! Terra Medre is a gathering of global food producing countries. The official languages of the event are English, Italian, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Portugese and Russian. The lack of Asian languages (such as Chinese and Indian) perhaps reflecting the European focus; it is developed western counties which have lost their cultural connection to food!It was interesting also that Turin was hosting the event; the city is surrounded by a heavy smog! That was initially a little off putting for me as we drove into Turin, making the stay in Barge nicer (even through it was still affected by the smog). Our hosts mentioned the smog is caused by Heavy Industry (that is Turin's background) and, at this time of year, people burn heating oil and wood. The B&B is about 50km from Turin and about 500m above sea-level, which made the smog a little thinner. Given the smog situation in Turin, as it recently hosted the Winter Olympics I wondered whether the Western Media kicked up such a stink over air quality as they did for China!The venue is huge! It is the old Olympic village and its supporting infrastructure. Turin are using the buildings for the same sort of things that Sydney does with Homebush. Within the event there were stalls from all over the world; but we couldn't find Australia! Perhaps we simply couldn't locate it, or we were not there, which is perhaps a function of our location (as part of Asia whose participation was limited) and Australia would only be able to contribute indigenous food seeing as we do not really have ``Australian'' cuisine.It was a wonderful to spend the day, tasting our way through the cultures of the world. Samples included savouries (too many salamis to count), breads, olive products, cheeses. Boy there were cheeses, some aromas were so potent you felt you may pass out. Desserts included chocolates and nougat, and preserves such as jams and jellies. All in all it was a culinary treat. At the end of the day we treated ourselves to another Gelato; which was better value for money and tasted better than our previous tastings in Verona and Lake Garda.In terms of the organisation itself Salon de Gusto and Terre Medre must be massive trade shows behind the scenes. Despite to 20 euro entry fee per person and the 7 euro prices on some items there musn't be enough cash flow to sustain the businesses, even with the 200,000 plus attendees. The complex was well organised, although toilet facilities were at a premium (even the blokes had to queue, which a few of them took exception to!)Aside from the food, there was also plenty of educational displays, explaining to the common folk (us) why you should think about food supply as a system and, therefore, why it is better to eat locally produced food!It was a great day, inspiring me to increase the quantity (and quality) of the food we get from our little vegetable patch. Tomorrow we leave Italy and head for Nice to experience the French Riveriaria; travelling by way of the French Alps.
