Rows of vendors cram into a bustling room competing against the noise and from the corner of my eye, from across the room, I spot Blanche. She wears a black apron tied neatly across her waist, and her curly hair lays against her shoulders, swaying in various directions as she throws her head back in laughter. Blanche Marie Josephine is a senior at UNSIG, University of Gastronomic Sciences. The university was created in promotion of the slow food festival and is located near Turin, where the 2018 Terra Madre Salone Del Gusto is taking place.
Terra Madre was first launched by the Slow Foods organization in 2004. It offers a community for small-scale farmers who prioritize being environmentally conscious throughout the processes of their production. This network provides unity amongst the farmers to bring transformation within the food system. Terra Madre is an international event, and you can taste, smell, feel and hear the cultures colliding in a way unlike any other.
Today Blanche is representing Monte Veronese di Nalga which is a slow homemade meat vendor located in Rona, north of Verona. The company is particularly unique due to the raw and clean producing standards it has set for itself. For Monte Veronese de Nalga, being resourceful and conservative holds the same value as sale rates.
Picture this: gazing out at a sea of rolling grassy hills, a handful of cows grazing contently in the sun. From afar, a farmer watches. As the sun sinks lower in the sky, the farmer collects his cows and brings them in. Because of the suitable grazing environment within the Veronese mountains, these cows can have longer periods of pasture. The company specializes in working with a breed of pigs called duroc white. These pigs are fed naturally with buttermilk leftover from the cheese production, and later, they are laster used for the production of salami.
Monte Veronese Di Nalga has been around since the 17th century. While the world around has year after year gained more speed, this company keeps its own pace. Slow is essential to Monte Veronese Di Nalga. The company pushes away the culture of quickness and instead strives for what is well done and done well.
"We are anything but industrial," Blanche said.
Blanche has always had a passion for food and when see was introduced to an opportunity to learn more about celebrating and innovating more ways to produce it sustainably, she fell in love.
"The university wants to make you see food from as many possible points of view and to see it as an important thing," Blanche said.
As she approaches her final year of university, Blanche is beginning to develop her post-grad plan. Currently, she plans to start working in a small Chinese restaurant as a manager to learn further how to get ingredients and develop conscious production within the kitchen. While her plans may not be set in stone, one thing is for sure, whichever kitchen gets Blanche is bound to be better.
