Friuli-Venezia Giulia

The following is an assignment which i was asked to write for my Anthropology-While-Abroad class that i am taking from Professor Julie Velasquez-Runk at UGA. Professor Velasquez-Runk is a renowned anthropologist at the university, and she teaches a class called "The Anthropology of Eating", which i adored. Her assignment for me was to write a paper detailing the relationship between culture and food based on my experiences so far here in Italy, and then to send it as a letter to five members of my family. I said, well how about i just post it on my blog, since that way it is sure to be viewed by all of my loved ones. so here it is:

The allure for me of travelling to Italy is, above all else, the food. I am sure that there are many who would agree with me. Italy has managed to hold a high standard in the world of cuisine, both for its native, much-sought after and infamous dishes, and its use of high quality, fresh, and inspiring ingredients. When I was offered the opportunity to travel to Italy and take part in the creation and growth of localized Italian food, I jumped at the chance. Italy has long been a country that I have dreamed of, and a country that allows my passion for food and culture to reach its pinnacle. Over the course of four months, I will have the chance to work one on one with agriculturalists, scientists, and local food producers within the region to learn first hand what goes into Italian food, both its creation and its consciousness. Italian culture and the foods that they strive for go hand in hand, and it is obvious that a country that holds such high standards to its gastronomic success has a strong, vibrant, and impressive way of life to appreciate such an undertaking.

I study at the University of Udine, a national university that specializes in food science and agriculture. Udine is situated in the hills of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy, in the far north eastern corner, near the borders of Austria and Slovenia. Friuli-Venezia Giulia in its entirety did not become a sovereign region of Italy until 1963, before which time it traded hands between Austrian and Slavic control, and a brief period after World War II when it was partially awarded to Yugoslavia. Due to this turn-around, the region reels from influences outside of Italy, including most prominently Austrian and Slovenian. People within the region speak dialects of Italian specific even to their towns and cities, and the cuisine is vastly different from other more well known areas of Italy. The main source of commerce for this region is agriculture, and the demand and conscientiousness of locally grown, community supported agriculture (CSA) is dominant. I have been here in this region for a little over two weeks now, during which time I have attended two large-scale locally based food and wine festivals, both of which promoted products that had been grown and transported to coincide with the ideology and actions of the Slow Food movement. Slow Food is an international organization which strives to protect the lifestyle, environment, and health behind locally-based, culturally inspired, sustainable food production. As was explained to me at the first of these festivals by my university mentor Simone Castellarin, the Slow Food movement was born in Italy, and accepted amongst those who cherish food, cuisine, health, and the environment, as simply a way of life. These passions and convictions were prevalent in both of the food and wine festivals which I attended. The difference between the two festivals was the locality and regional culture which inspired the wares available to the public. The first festival that I attended was right in the center of Udine, the Friuli Food and Wine Festival, which promoted the sale of local specialties that are in accordance with the DOC. The second festival was called Gusti Di Frontiera, which took place in another town in the region, and encompassed local specialties from the surrounding border countries, including Austria, Slovenia, and France.

The Friuli Food and Wine festival occurred on my first weekend in Udine, and it could not have come at a better time. Udine is a fantastic town, quaint and clean and brimming with kind people, but it is not exactly the most exciting city. When I first got to town, however, I noticed that almost every street had some sort of specialty store, offering locally cured meats, cheeses, breads, pastas, or sweets. Not being quite acquainted enough with the language (or the dormitory kitchen) to want to tackle the butcher quite yet, I opted for testing out the local cuisine in the form of paninis, coffee shops, and ready-made offerings from around town. When the festival came, however, I was starved for fresh, hand crafted food, and I ate till my hearts content. Enveloping the entirety of the historic downtown, the festival filled the streets with tents and caravans full of locally made cheeses, pork products roasted and cured before your eyes, and other, subtler gastronomic expressions of heritage and environment. People flocked into town from all over Italy, and I was told that the Friuli Food and Wine Festival is nationally famous not only for its foods, but specifically for its wines. The Friuli region is one of the most successful in Italy for its wine production, specifically its white wines. Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Friulano, Refosco, and Pinot Gris, are among some of the most regionally important wines produced here. At the Friuli Food and Wine festival, wine makers and drinkers alike were paying homage to the local craft, each booth offering not only glasses and bottles for sale, but giving presentations as to the specific area of the region and necessary components to the wines’ production. It was exciting to be able to see the actual growers and makers of the wine face to face, to see them take pride in their product and be able to note the differences between each type. The crowds were genuinely pleased to see some of their local favorites, and it was apparent that each booth seemed to have a fan base of loyal vineyard supporters, people who would find their booth and a good seat and settle in for the evening to talk and people watch and enjoy their fare. At many of the booths, local vineyards teamed up with chefs or other food producers, and meats and cheeses, or plates of other regionally inspired dishes were served alongside the wines as compliments to the taste, and vice versa. Prosciutto cruddo, salame, pancetta, and fresh roasted pork straight off the bone were offered practically everywhere you looked, and stands full of stacks of cheeses pleased the crowds by offering samples and slicing up fresh bread to accompany the different varieties. Aside from the mountains of fresh pork and cheese, there were other, larger tents which focused more on sit-down style cuisine. These tents had rows of stalls, each advertising a different menu of local dishes. It was interesting to note just how different these dishes seemed from what is usually thought of as “Italian food”. There was no pasta, no stuffed manicotti, and no veal picatta. Instead there were very obviously Germanic and Slovik-inspired dishes, including bratwurst, schnitzel, goulash, herbed snails, polenta cakes, and plates piled high with stewed vegetables and slices of cured horse meat. As people ate their meals, bands or orchestras or soloists would play national and international favorites.

The Friuli Food and Wine festival went on for three days, and the locals that I spoke with agreed on the fact that this festival was their city’s night on the town. When I asked my friend Luigi jokingly, “where’s the after-party,” he responded, “you come back, one year!” This seems evident now that the town has gone back to normal; early nights and early mornings are the norm in this area, where the people are “uncharacteristically” Italian in their desire to work hard and play later. Infact, it is in a way necessary for the wine producers in this region, in fact all over Italy, to dedicate a serious amount of energy to maintaining high quality standards for their wine. There is a specific label, Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC), that certifies that wines within the country meet specific quality standards reflecting the environment and creation processes of the product. With this stamp of quality placed securely on the wines’ label, consumers are “guaranteed” a good bottle of wine. It has been said, of course, that the DOC labelling is something to be wary of. Just as certain “organic” products are not necessarily animal friendly and, likewise, “cage free” in no way means “without horomones”, a DOC label is something that the vintner must, in a way, purchase. In order to be granted a quality check, wine producers must pay a fee; and even if their product passes the quality test, the taste and value of the wine is negotiable. Likewise, wine makers who do not pay for a quality inspection, or simply do not give into the necessity of having a “national quality stamp” on their product, could produce perfectly wonderful wines- only to be snubbed by certificate-abiding consumers. It is unfortunate, then, that the Friuli Food and Wine Festival was also called “Friuli DOC”, for in a way that means that some fascinating and earth-friendly local wines were not allowed to participate in the ceremonies. When I learned of the DOC I made it my goal to accept the stamp of quality, but to look beyond the title into other, lesser known and promoted local wines.

A week after my introduction to local food and wine, I was granted the chance to attend another, broader reaching food festival. This festival was especially intriguing to me, because it did not just focus on Friuli products, but on products and cultural expressions from the surrounding countries which had so much influence on Friuli-Venezia Giulia in the first place: France, Austria, and Slovenia. Thirty kilometres east of Udine is the town of Gorizia, a beautiful old town in the shadow of a castle on the border of Slovenia. Gorizia hosted this years Gusti Di Frontiera, which covered the town in tents full of food, wine, and beer, made with reference to cultural favorites within those countries that influenced this region of Italy. I noticed right off that this festival was a bit different. It could have just been that the locals were different- Italy is surprisingly diverse in personality and culture even within the distance of a few kilometres. There seemed a more rambunctious air about the festival, the crowd seemed younger, and the variety of products, obviously, was much more vast. It could have just been the addition of beer. However, the music was also different. On every street corner a different band was playing a style of music that I had only heard in movies set in Paris, Vienna, or similar; guitars and snare drums and French horns, played by men in lederhosen, checkered caps, or three-piece suits. The food was all locally produced, and the city was divided into sections relevant to the directions of the border country: the West side was French fare, the North was Austrian, the East was Slovenian, and in the center, Friulian. Everything on sale, whether to eat or to drink or to take home as a souvenir, was crafted by hand and genuinely loved, the man who cured the pork slicing it for you, or the man who made the beer explaining the subtle difference between this variety or that (I didn’t understand this lecture, but the friends I was with told me what was going on). It was so refreshing to see such a large crowd travel from far and wide to be at a festival where the main goal was to present to the public the foods and beverages which they eat on a regular basis! It seemed the epitome of community supported agriculture, everyone so proud and in love with their culture and their food that an entire weekend event was based around celebrating it.

A lot of time and care goes into the agriculture in this region. During the week days I work with a group of food scientists from the university. Currently their project is to create a new strain of wine (or multiple strains) that are resistant to local fungi and adverse elements. The scientist’s names are Simone, Luigi, and Barabara, and they are all dedicated not necessarily to the scientific aspect of their job, but to the grapes that they are saving. Three times now we have been out into the experimental vineyard, where regional grapes are grown and cross pollinated and sampled. The vineyards are vast and various; vine by vine the variety of grape and the condition of the berries changes. In an effort to make the grapes stronger, they have to be hurt. As Simone explained, it may be easier to make wine out of a berry that has been irrigated, but the grapes that have to work for their nutrients taste the best. “Stressed” grapes, they are called, make themselves stronger by struggling for their condition. Certain vines, therefore, are irrigated, and others are not, and experiments are performed to find out just how well the stressed grapes fared. Mold is examined for its root cause and sick grapes are studied under microscope after being dosed with medicines. Once the University of Udine scientists have found a set of grapes that work, the grapes are harvested, analysed, and sorted, and then driven in a refrigerated van into Verona, where the PhD students there make the wine. Such extreme care is exhibited with each bunch; the grapes are handled like precious bubbles and treated individually. It is as though the harvesters know that within each one there is an individual ability to hit or miss, and in order to produce the best product each needs to be respected. I imagine that the production of other foods in this region goes along similar lines, especially when that food is to be eaten personally, and not just used for experiments.

I am excited to continue my work here. The chance to see food treated with such love is something that I have never witnessed before from a farming-and-harvesting standpoint. While I stake my claim in a kitchen, the passion there is with ingredients that have already been created for my use. To be able to witness the birth of foods I love will help me to be able to use them in an even more gratifying way. The Italians that I have so far had the pleasure of witnessing are, wonderfully, exactly as I imagined. There is such an importance put on what they eat, and it is directly parallel to how they live their lives. To them, food is more then a necessity, it is a pleasure. There is happiness in the consumption of food and drink that highlights the meaning of the study of gastronomy; Italians, at least those who I have been near, are in all ways gastronomes. Their food and culture are intertwined, to the point where food inspires art, music, celebration, relationships, and labour. Their craft in many ways is their cuisine, and their culture is situated around their love and respect for their craft.


**for more fascinating photos from the Gorizia festival and my day harvesting grapes with simone, go to www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2434733&l=6cbbd&id=4913936.