I was interested (and I must admit a bit surprised) to read recently that Italy is the European leader in organic farming. Living here in Tuscany, it’s clear that there is definitely a growing culture of farming and eating more organic food, but somehow I expected wealthier and seemingly more “progressive” countries (like Germany) to rank higher. Well, with over a million hectares of land under organic management and just under 45,000 organic farms in operation, Italy tops the list, followed by Germany and Spain (www.organic-europe.net). Tuscany alone has more than 2,300 organic farms producing mainly olive oil, but also top-notch wines, cheeses, cereals, legumes, and meat.
Some of these farms, known as “agriturismi”, rent out rooms, so you can enjoy a quiet stay and watch things being grown. Many allow their guests to pick fruit from their orchards, so you may be able to try varieties of pears and apples that you’d never find in your local Italian supermarkets, let alone in the UK. For the more adventurous, WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) offers people the chance to stay and work on organic and biodynamic farms. In general, for half a day’s work a day, you get room and board and you can imagine how delicious the food is! Thick cannellini bean soups with Parmesan shavings, schiacciata: a flatbread pizza baked with no toppings other than salt, rosemary, and green olive oil, castagnaccio: a smoked chestnut flour cake, best enjoyed with fresh ricotta from sheep’s milk and honey. yum.
Many Italian moms still go to the market every day and cook fresh, healthy and tasty meals from scratch for their families. But in recent decades, families in which both members of a couple work outside the home have become the norm, so ready-to-use bottled pasta sauces, pre-cooked rice and frozen pizzas have easily become the norm. available in supermarkets. The Slow Food movement was founded in Italy in 1986, as a response to this rapidly expanding culture of fast food (and “fast life”). It is now an international movement involving 80,000 people around the world. It promotes the “right to pleasure”, especially, but not exclusively, the pleasures of the table. Through its events, publications, special projects, and fairs, it champions and publicizes local food and drink traditions, celebrating local specialties, promoting artisans who produce tasty, real food, and fighting mass-produced blandness of all kinds. The Slow Food movement defends biodiversity, and it is in this spirit that farmers, particularly organic ones, have returned to raising the Cinta Senese pig. This is a local Tuscan breed that was rejected a few decades ago in favor of the pink pig (which is easier and quicker to fatten). There are now amazing Cinta Senese hams and salamis that are produced on organic farms all around Tuscany.
The ubiquitous but charming Jamie Oliver is a big proponent of both organic food and Italy. “It should have been Italian,” he says in his sixth book “Jamie’s Italy,” in which he explores regional Italian cuisine, often adding his own twists, while frequently using and promoting organic ingredients. He is correct that Italians treat all aspects of food with the love and attention it deserves. Italy boasts a wide variety of distinctive regional cuisines, all with their own traditional recipes and local ingredients, such as “cavolo nero” (black cabbage, much better than it sounds!) and the flavorful “farro” (spelt) flavored nutty, both from Tuscany. Some ingredients are so local that they only have dialect names and are not even known in neighboring regions, such as “stridoli” (a delicious spinach or arugula-shaped vegetable) used in Romagna, northern Tuscany. And thanks in part to campaigns by the Slow Food movement, local varieties like the Ligurian Rocchetta squash are being returned to small farms and the market, and will not be lost forever.
I have been told by friends (both in the UK and here in Italy) that they would definitely buy more organic food if it was cheaper. I was pleasantly surprised to find that here in Tuscany, buying local organic produce at farm stores is, in many cases, cheaper than buying equivalent conventionally grown food at the supermarket. Anyone who lives in the less prosperous countries of the euro zone will tell you that the cost of living has risen considerably since the euro was introduced. Many previously cheap items have doubled in price.
The rise in prices has been compounded by a domino effect of everyone in the production chain adding a little more to make up for the extra they have had to pay for raw materials etc. Talking to organic and biodynamic growers, whose prices appear to have remained relatively stable, I came to the conclusion that since many of these farms are fairly self-sufficient, their costs have not increased much and, as a consequence, they have not had to raise their prices much. prices. Of course, this is only true if you buy products directly from the producer: as soon as someone else transports, packages and distributes them, the cost inevitably increases. So once again, the bottom line is: whether you’re in Tuscany or Tyne and Wear, take the time to go slow, buy locally grown food, and savor what you cook and eat.
