Food Bubbles

Today was the first day of class after a two week holiday. As the norm is, you meet your classmates and ask about the holiday. One of my classmates said that she had a realization. One that she shared with me and I one that I think sums up my experience so far at UNISG.

Read into the statement as much or as little as you like but the comment "We live in a food bubble" says a lot. I cannot begin to tell you about everything that goes on or even sum up most of the experiences. UNISG has a great blog which gives an insight into the lives of the students and what goes on behind the scenes. Take a look, I'm sure you will enjoy it. I posted an article on the blog today entitled,  "Eating my Mutupo".

The UNISG blog can be found at www.ergolabcom-unisg.it/blog/

A Bittersweet Symphony

A bittersweet symphony. Rather poetic is it not? But what is bittersweet? In the past few weeks I have learned that these are two of the five flavours that one can experience when tasting food and drink. It is a desired taste combination especially with regards to chocolate. I speak from first-hand experience since yesterday I had a four hour chocolate lesson. In the class we flew through the basics of the technology behind chocolate, slightly brushed the political economic side of it but did not have time to discuss much about the technology of chocolate.

The actual tasting was quite rushed as well. My preconceptions were that tasting chocolate would be a simple process and rather enjoyable. After eighteen different types of chocolate in the space of an hour I beg to differ. It is hard work and not for the faint hearted, or anyone who really despises chocolate. There are proper ways of tasting chocolate, and then there is the way I had my first chocolate tasting.

Basic steps for a successful chocolate tasting as a UNISG student: 

Have an exam on cured meat in which you taste three types of Salame di Felino and be in desperate need of something to cleanse your palate from the meaty, humid, animal, peppery and umami persistent flavours and taste of Salame di Felino.

Have looming at the back of your mind that you have a chocolate exam in exactly two weeks and you have to pass the exam, so you need to grasp the concepts.

Have at hand: two paper plates with nine pieces of dark chocolate in each plate (some of the finest world class chocolate to be exact and some ‘artistic’ inventions as well) a glass of water to cleanse you palate after each nibble.

Have a great professor with a passion for his subject. Twenty- six classmates all with different levels of appreciation and knowledge of chocolate: a Belgian, a professional chocolatier, some students clueless about chocolate (that would be me).

Have a piece of paper to write down all your taste and flavour sensations.

Now begin: Pick up the little piece of chocolate, probably about 4grams. Observe the colour and the texture and the smell. Now bite into about half of that piece. Concentrate on the way the chocolate melts or does not melt in your mouth. Consider the texture, is it smooth and silky and does it melt in your mouth or grainy and almost a sand like texture. Now what do you taste: bitter, sweet, umami, sour, salt? And the aromas, do you sense the fruity notes, floral ones: maybe raisin, cranberry. Note that as you are tasting all of these chocolates the classroom is not silent, rather everyone is blurting out what they taste, and the aromas they sense and do not sense, the occasional shout of sweet, cauliflower, bitter, and avocado! Compliments are given to those who have deciphered the general idea of the tastes.

Have a sip of water and wash out your mouth.

Repeat this another seventeen times and then have a craving for something extremely umami afterwards. The best way to deal with this is having some of your classmates make dinner for you- well that’s how I fixed my umami craving problem!

Essential for the tasting lesson: An open mind, and a sense of humour.

Umami dinner: Bistecca, Polenta and Burrata

Just incase you do not have all the above mentioned components (especially a dynamic group of classmates) to have a classic UNISG tasting of your own you could always have a tasting in a more traditional way. A great resource for this is www.allchocolate.com.

Enjoy!

I live in Italy

So here goes nothing. My first blog post. I hope not to bore you too much, but rather keep you somewhat entertained, intrigued and confused. Apparently being confused is a good thing according to Carlo Petrini. For those who don’t know Carlo, he is the founder of Slow Food. Slow who?... you ask. Slow Food promotes food to be Good, Clean and Fair or buono, pulito, e giusto in Italian. What does that have to do with me. I’m currently a Masters student in Food Culture and Communications at the University of Gastronomic Sciences (UNISG) in Italy. The aim is to approach food in a more holistic manner, and it is supported by Slow Food.

So back to Carlo, he spoke to us about his passion for Slow Food and gave us a lot to think about and suggested that being confused about food is a good thing; it means you are thinking and not just enjoying the taste. So that is what I plan to do, get a bit confused about food. What better place to do so than Italy. I constantly remind myself that this is not a dream and that it is my reality not someone else’s.

I’ve been in Bra, Italy for about two weeks now and it has been a whirlwind of experiences: eating, tedious bureaucratic processes that had to be done for me to legally reside in Italy, finding my way round Bra, wine, going to school and learning about things I had very little knowledge about, cheese, getting lost, eating, laughing, walking and trying (although not very well) to speak Italian Thankfully I’m not the only one who has had this whirlwind. I have 26 class mates from all over the world which makes my new home of Bra even more exciting.