Celebrate Terra Madre Day 2010 in Italy !

For Terra Madre Day 2010, where in Italy would you like to be ?

Terra Madre Day, December 10, is a worldwide occasion that promotes sustainable food and eating locally.  In a simulataneous party celebrated in many ways across the world,  farmers, consumers, restaurateurs, cooks, food producers and others who support Slow Food — including many children ! — gather for workshops, parties, farm visits and dinners. This year, 321 events took place across Italy, close to one third of Europe’s total Terra Madre Day festivities.

So many of you are Slow Food supporters, and nearly everyone of you asks us for non-touristy, completely local eating opportunities.  Terra Madre Day offers an embarasment of riches, from sampling ice creams made from locally-sourced ingredients (including the world’s best pistachios) to tastings of new season olive oil to organized dinners.  These latter, attended nearly exclusively by locals but to which you will be made very welcome, are a rare opportunity to join a local community for a congenial and enlightening evening spent in the shared celebration of remarkable ingredients and cuisine.  And what you will be eating you will not find 50 miles away. Most likely another Terra Madre Day party, with completely different local products, is ongoing there.

Our own Terra Madre menu, in Trento’s charming Slow Food Osteria Old Bar and Food,  was a celebration of the traditional flavors of the Trentino, and we began with one of Italy’s single best cheeses, Casolet from the Val di Sole served with thinly sliced apples from the Val di Non. Bread gnocchi sauced with a delicate combination of crisp cabbage and another great local cheese, Puzzone, were followed by a superb locally produced polenta served with veal scallopine in a sauce of sage and wine.  A holiday cake you’ll find only in Trentino ended this meal, and with it we had what we feel is Trentino’s single best wine, the dreamy Vigneto delle Dolomiti 2007 produced just a few kilometers from our restaurant.

For 2010, let us include in your December itineraries an Italian Terra Madre Day celebration of your own !