Salone del Gusto: Slow Food Fair
The northern Italian city Turin will be hosting the slow food fair this weekend.
Turin is currently hosting the Salone del Gusto fair and it is dubbed the world’s biggest gourmet food and wine fair. Running until September 26, the fair will feature tasting sessions, workshops and street food parties. It is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Organised by the Slow Food movement and Terra Madre network of food communities, the fair is now in its 30th year. Founded by food critic and sociologist Carlo Petrini, the fair was created in response to the first fast-food restaurants in Italy. Visitors to the North Italian city can enjoy food trucks from around the world, themed tours while 7,000 delegates from 143 countries visit the fair.
The association aims to educate the public on different tastes, defend biodiversity and promote a food production model that is respectful of the environment and cultural identities.
Today the movement has 100,000 members in 160 countries.
As well as cooking lessons and dinner dates, this year’s fair offers dozens of taste workshops, where international dishes are paired with world class vintages, and an enormous market where visitors can meet farmers and artisans.
Horticulturalists will be on hand to offer would-be gardeners tips on starting their own vegetable patches as part of the Slow Food movement’s drive to encourage as many people as possible to start growing their own food again.
Russian identical twins Sergey and Ivan Berezutskiy, chefs who have taken Moscow by storm, will show off their modern take on pre-Soviet cuisine, while Xavier Pellicer from Barcelona transforms meat and fish into side dishes alongside a rich main of vegetables.
More than 900 exhibitors of gourmet specialities will also be present, along with 310 producers of traditional or endangered products protected by the Slow Food label, from Mexico’s Serrano peppers to Peru’s Amaranth flake.
“The most important battle for the future is the right to food for all, on the mitigation of climate change, protection of biodiversity, and man’s relationship with food production and with the earth,” Petrini said before the fair opened.
“All together, with our everyday choices, we have an extraordinary potential”.
He said the movement aims to “mobilise the greatest number of people, to tell them what we do and involve them in what we do, because it’s time for concrete action.”
