IF YOU REALLY LOVE THE EARTH
Hilary Biller joins some gastronomic activists and eats crickets at a Slow Food Festival in Turin
DID you know that crickets (the insects) need only 17% of the food and less than 1% of the water and land resources of livestock for the same amount of protein?
I discovered this only after I was offered a taste of Chaco bar — an everyday peanut buttery chocolate bar — when I was told it was made with cricket protein powder.
As I gagged the producer urged me to “expand my mind and taste buds”. Well, I tried, while he explained that cricket protein powder base was inspired by the Aztec and Native American cultures, who discovered that insects were good to eat.
“Insects are healthy, delicious and a sustainable form of protein with 15% more iron than spinach and double the protein found in meat,” he explained with great enthusiasm. Give me spinach any day!
That was one of the many surprises of Terra Madre, an exhibition spread across the beautiful northern Italian city of Turin, capital of the Piedmont region.
The event took place over five days and was divided into many facets. The more serious series of conferences was hosted in the historic Carignano theatre and featured experts whose focus was on the central theme of “loving the earth”. They encouraged attendees to discover how, for better or worse, the way we produce food can change the planet.
At a more informal level there were forums that allowed delegates from the Terra Madre network to debate and discuss problems relating to the food world.
Throughout the city exhibitions and other cultural events in museums, art galleries, courtyards and squares allowed one to discover the world of food from multiple points of view.
By far the most impressive was Valentino Park, a green belt on the banks of the Po River, which was turned into a white tented camp that stretched for miles and hosted more than 800 exhibitors, including Terra Madre food communities and Slow Food Presidia from 55 countries.
It was a culinary adventure that took days, sampling and learning about products and produce — many of which I’d never seen or tasted before — and allowed me to speak to small producers from around the globe.
I was inspired by the vast community whose common goal was to save traditional foods from extinction, preserve ancient knowledge and recipes and celebrate seasonal and sustainable foods.
I tasted some weird and wonderful things, among them the finest handmade mangalica sausage from Hungary.
I watched as cocoa farmers from the Ivory Coast made natural chocolate from cocoa nibs in front of me, ate some of the sweetest bananas from Uganda, tasted the ancient pozegaca plum slatko (meaning sweet) from Bosnia Herzegovina and drank the finest and purest apple juice from an ancient orchard in Poland.
I was inspired by a group of women from Mauritania who, together with Tuscan slow fooders, were working to support the local small-scale fishing industry. They produced mullet botargo, where the eggs are extracted from the mullet, rinsed, salted and dried to the traditional botargo — salted fish eggs. An acquired taste.
Italian products included top-quality “grassy” extra virgin olive oils, cured meats, cheeses, aged authentic balsamic vinegars and some of the best freshly roasted hot hazelnuts sold in paper cones.
At the South African stand some “Ark of Taste” products were promoted — Baleni salt from ancient salt pans in Limpopo, traditionally harvested by women; marmalade from the endangered Rex Union orange and Suid Bokkeveld Rooibos tea. There were tasting of marula jellies handmade by Hazel Roskelly in Haenertsburg, Limpopo; free-range beef biltong and droewors produced at Braeside Butchery in Joburg; a selection of South African raw-milk cheeses from and boerewors made by a local Italian chef using a traditional recipe and South African spices.