Cheese 2013
True to tradition, the University of Gastronomic Sciences will be present at Cheese 2013 with a number of initiatives. At the University’s large stand in Piazza XX Settembre, it will be possible not only to receive information about courses and meet lecturers and staff, but also to take part in educational activities over the four days of the Cheese event.
The University itself will also stay open for the duration of Cheese. Activities and meetings will be staged at its prestigious Pollenzo campus in conjunction with the Bra event, and it will be possible to visit every day from 10am to 4pm.
Here is the UNISG day-by-day calendar of events in both Bra and Pollenzo.
@ POLLENZO
Thursday September 19 2013
7 pm – “Cheese Premiere” Stand-up dinner at the Albergo dell’Agenzia hotel, the UNISG “Academic Tables” cafeteria and the Wine Bank (free admission, pay as you eat). Tastings of bread, butter and anchovies; Slow Food Presidium Roccaverano cheese; risotto with burrata from Puglia; dishes by the young chefs of the Academic Tables; pizza by Renato Bosco’s Pizzeria Saporé in San Martino Buon Albergo (Verona); a selection of wines courtesy of the Wine Bank. All to the Balcan-Mediterranean sound of the Kachupa Folk Band.
Friday September 20 2013
8.30 am – Academic Tables cafeteria - “Breakfast at the UNISG”
10 am – guided tour of the UNISG with meeting and departure point under the main Agenzia di Pollenzo entrance archway.
3 pm – Wine Bank - “Valtellina Vertical” Taste Workshop. With Paolo Ciapparelli, head of the Bitto Storico cheese protection consortium and Michele Forni, head of the Valtellina wine consortium. Slow Food Presidium Bitto Storico, a mountain cheese, served at five different degrees of maturation with Valtellina Superiore and Sforzato wine from five of the valley’s historic cellars.
4pm – guided tour of the UNISG with meeting and departure point under the main Agenzia di Pollenzo entrance archway.
8pm – Academic Tables cafeteria, “Dinner Date – Purely Academic”. Dinner with the chefs of the Academic Tables dedicated to popular cheese-related stereotypes and clichés.
Saturday September 21 2013
10 am – guided tour of the UNISG with meeting and departure point under the main Agenzia di Pollenzo entrance archway.
1 pm – Wine Bank - “Fattorie Fiandino, butter since 1889” Taste Workshop. Fattorie Fiandino, a farm situated between Cuneo and Saluzzo, not only produces raw-milk cheese, but has also been famous for its butter— since 1889. Under the expert guidance of Beppe “Gepis” Barbero, chef of the Cooperativa i Tarocchi, now head of the Academic Tables, a tasting of traditional and salted butter, accompanied by the new Contratto spumantes of Andrea and Giorgio Rivetti.
3 pm – Aula Miroglio, UNISG Cascina Albertina - “The Vine, the Cow and the Moon”, a Taste Workshop organized by the UNISG Alumni Association. A chance to find out more about biodynamic cheese and natural wine. Tastings of Italian dairy products made according to Rudolf Steiner’s theory of anthroposophy, among which the cheeses of Cascina degli Ulivi in Novi Ligure (Alessandria) and the Slow Food Presidium Tuma di pecora delle Langhe, a sheep’s cheese, made by Anna Maria Trombetta in Paroldo (Cuneo). The workshop is organized by the Alumni Association of the University of Gastronomic Sciences, through which students keep alive the precious network of contacts built up during their years of study in Pollenzo.
4 pm – guided tour of the UNISG with meeting and departure point under the main Agenzia di Pollenzo entrance archway.
8 pm – Albergo dell’Agenzia hotel - “Dinner Date – The Cooks-Slow Food Presidia Alliance discovers world flavors”. Italian, Dutch and Moroccan chefs committed to the everyday defense of biodiversity and sustainable agriculture will explain how to save world flavors with their dishes. Doing the honors, chef Pierpaolo Livorno. Wines courtesy of the Consortium for the protection of Franciacorta and the Abruzzo-based cellar Citra.
Sunday September 22 2013
10am – guided tour of the UNISG with meeting and departure point under the main Agenzia di Pollenzo entrance archway.
4pm – guided tour of the UNISG with meeting and departure point under the main Agenzia di Pollenzo entrance archway.
4pm – Wine Bank - “From Po to Oltrepò, no agriculture for old men” Taste Workshop. In the province of Cremona area, more and more young farmer-entrepreneurs are banking on the local area to produce fine foods. Luca Grasselli runs the Lagoscuro farm with his family, producing organic cow’s cheeses, growing fruit and vegetables and also running a restaurant. Nearby, Carlo Fiorani has taken over the reins of his family’s farm to produce cereals, which he uses to make fantastic bread, and to breed pigs for excellent cured meats. Luca and Carlo are both former UNISG students. Cantina Monsupello will lay on the wines.
Monday September 23 2013
10am – guided tour of the UNISG with meeting and departure point under the main Agenzia di Pollenzo entrance archway.
@ BRA
Friday September 20 2013
12 noon - UNISG stand – Presentation of the new “High Apprenticeship” courses. Meeting the artisans. “The job of the affineur: a profession for the future”. A meeting, followed by a tasting, with Giovanni Guffanti Fiori, a member of the fifth generation of affineurs at Guffanti-Fiori, founded in Arona in 1876, a firm specialized in sourcing and aging the finest Italian and foreign cheeses. For years they have also promoted and protected raw milk mountain cheeses and small-scale craft cheeses.
3pm – UNISG stand – “Granaries of Memory: Open Discovery Space – Recovering and discovering the flavors of cheese” conference and tasting. A meeting organized in collaboration with the University of Trieste in which Piercarlo Grimaldi, dean and lecturer at the UNISG, and Dott. Michele Fontefrancesco, anthropologist and UNISG postdoctoral fellow, will present the “Granaries of Memory”, a partner on the European Open Discovery Space project, explaining how they are a resource for the study, promotion and teaching of the theory and practice of cheese production. A cheese tasting will follow.
5pm – UNISG stand – Sensory Analysis Workshop. Under the expert guidance of Dottoressa Luisa Torri, a lecturer on the Gastronomic Measurement Workshop course, and Dottoressa Maria Piochi, a UNISG postdoctoral fellow, a chance to find out more about the principal sensory evaluation techniques applied to different foods as a means of comparing them and judging their quality.
7pm –UNISG stand – “Blue cheeses on either side of the Channel”, a lecture by Cristiano De Riccardis, a UNISG Master course lecturer, with a tasting of four blue cheeses from Italy, France and the United Kingdom.
Saturday September 21 2013
12 noon – UNISG stand –“Alpine shepherds and affineurs in the land of red-tape” conference and tasting. With cheesemonger and affineur Franco Parola and Avvocato Massimo Tribolo. Moderator Prof. Michele Fino, lecturer in EU Food Law and Institutions at the UNISG.
3 pm - UNISG stand – Presentation of the new “High Apprenticeship” courses. Meeting the artisans. “The job of the affineur: a profession for the future”. Meeting, followed by a tasting, with Laurent Mons, maître affineur, and Susan Sturman, a lecturer at Opus Caseus Concept, a vocational training centre for dairy workers and cheesemakers founded in 2001 by Laurent and his brother Hervé. The Mons family have been making and aging cheese in the Auvergne since 1964, and Laurent and Hervé are carrying on the tradition with great passion and commitment. In 2000 Hervé was nominated Meilleur Ouvrier de France, a prestigious recognition reserved for distinguished artisans.
5 pm – UNISG stand – Sensory Analysis Workshop. Under the expert guidance of Dottoressa Luisa Torri, a lecturer on the Gastronomic Measurement Workshop course, and Dottoressa Maria Piochi, a UNISG postdoctoral fellow, a chance to find out more about the principal sensory evaluation techniques applied to different foods as a means of comparing them and judging their quality.
7pm – UNISG stand – “Blue cheeses on either side of the Channel”, a lecture by Cristiano De Riccardis, UNISG Master courses lecturer, with a tasting of four blue cheeses from Italy, France and the United Kingdom.
Sunday September 22 2013
12 noon – UNISG stand – Presentation of the new “High Apprenticeship” courses. Meeting the artisans. “The job of the affineur: a profession for the future”. Meeting, followed by a tasting, with Hansi Baumgartner and Marcella De Vita, affineur and marketing manager at DeGust in Alto Adige. A former Michelin-starred chef, one of the first in the region, Baumgartner is nicknamed the “milk goldsmith”. In 1995 he founded DeGust, where he combines cheese with the most unusual ingredients and ages them using both traditional and avant-garde preservation methods.
3 pm – UNISG stand – Conference on “Differentiation and sensory characterization of mountain Parmigiano Reggiano”, the title of the degree thesis of the UNISG graduate Francesca Guastella. The event will be presented by Dottoressa Luisa Torri, a lecturer on the Gastronomic Measurement Workshop course, and Dottoressa Maria Piochi, a UNISG postdoctoral fellow, and will be followed by a tasting of Parmigiano Reggiano.
5 pm – UNISG stand – Sensory Analysis Workshop. Under the expert guidance of Dottoressa Luisa Torri, a lecturer on the Gastronomic Measurement Workshop course, and Dottoressa Maria Piochi, a UNISG postdoctoral fellow, a chance to find out more about the principal sensory evaluation techniques applied to different foods as a means of comparing them and judging their quality.
7 pm – UNISG stand – “The Cascina Lago Scuro project: cultivating, processing and educating. The polyfunctional farm and its relationship with food” conference with tasting. The project will be presented by Luca Grasselli, a graduate from the UNISG Master in Food Culture and Communications course, now the owner of Cascina Lago Scuro, a farm in Stagno Lombardo (Cremona). Converted to organics in 1993 and now certified, it houses a dairy, a vegetable garden, a workshop with kitchen and a crèche. The evening will be rounded off by a tasting of four Lago Scuro cheeses and sourdough bread.
Monday September 23 2013
5pm – UNISG stand – Sensory Analysis Workshop. Under the expert guidance of Dottoressa Luisa Torri, a lecturer on the Gastronomic Measurement Workshop course, and Dottoressa Maria Piochi, a UNISG postdoctoral fellow, a chance to find out more about the principal sensory evaluation techniques applied to different foods as a means of comparing them and judging their quality.
PLUS…
UNISG students and the Ark of Taste
A group of UNISG students, members of the University’s Slow Food convivium, will be working on the Ark of Taste cheese project during the Cheese event. Throughout the event, Piazza Valfré di Bonzo, Bra’s old chicken market, will be used as a space for producers, farmers and visitors to bring cheeses they deem worthy of protecting and have them catalogued and included in the Ark project. Slow Food is currently “loading” endangered cheeses onto the Ark of Taste and the UNISG students will be helping out with this important and symbolic task, one of the highlights of the entire event.
UNISG Students and Food Education
UNISG students are also collaborating in the sector dedicated to food education with the “Be a Knight of the Round Provola” activity, in which they will organize games and tell fables to teach children about cheese and other dairy produce. The activity will be staged in the Area Educa of the Slow Food stand on Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 at 5.30pm. Admission will be free, but to take part it is necessary to register beforehand or directly at the Area Educa. Book now: prenotazioni.educazione@slowfood.it
AN HONORARY DEGREE FOR ERMANNO OLMI
In the course of special ceremony on Monday September 23 2013, at 3.30pm at the Teatro Politeama Boglione in Piazza Carlo Alberto 23, Bra, the film director and screenwriter Ermanno Olmi will be bestowed with an honorary degree in recognition of his years of passionate work on the peasant world, marked by respect for nature and small things and sensitivity towards the themes around which the our University revolves. The ceremony will be opened by Carlo Petrini, president of the University of Gastronomic Sciences, and the laudatio will be delivered by Prof. Piercarlo Grimaldi. After receiving the degree, Ermanno Olmi will hold his Lectio Magistralis.