Food for Thought in over 170 Taste Workshops, Dinner Dates and Theatre of Taste and Meet the Maker Events

In the year that the Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre merge to create a single event that can bring the richness of ideas and cultures of the Terra Madre network to a wide audience, the events featured in the programme also reflect this change. They’ll be giving more space to the network’s key issues and campaigns: the importance of biodiversity and sustainability, the protection of landscapes and the rediscovery of traditional knowledge. As usual, they will feature tastings led by producers, chefs, winemakers, brewers and experts.

Terra Madre communities will hold a variety of Taste Workshops presenting stories and specialties from around the world: Try a selection of Japanese sakes, presented by influential sake critic Haruo Matsuzaki, paired with typical Japanese foods. The workshop is organized in collaboration with the Slow Food Fukushima, Miyagi and Kesennuma Convivia, all communities that were hit by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and are working to prevent the loss of local biodiversity and traditional knowledge.Taste the variety of one of Europe’s least-known cuisines in a journey through Albania, a country where small-scale agriculture involves nearly half of the population, but where artisan products and traditional skills are increasingly being lost as a growing number of people leave rural areas.

Learn how food communities in Brittany, France, are fighting to protect the biodiversity of the marine ecosystem and preserve the authentic flavors of Brittany’s many oyster terroirs, thanks to the Slow Food Natural Breton Oyster Presidium, or safeguarding the declining bee populations thanks to the incredibly rare honey from black bees on Ushant Island.

In 14 Theatres of Taste, chefs will prepare their signature dishes for the audience to sample. Explore Peru, one of the most biodiversity-rich countries in the world, through the dishes prepared by Virgilio Martinez of Central restaurant in Lima. Follow Magnus Nilsson in a culinary journey through the Swedish forests of Jämtland, where he forages for berries, herbs, lichens and flowers, hunts game and grows vegetables, accompanied by the artisanal beers from Teo Musso’s Baladin brewery.

Thirty-nine chefs will be coming to Piedmont for 23 Dinner Dates, hosted by prestigious restaurants in and around Turin and famous wineries in the Langhe area. World-renowned and Michelin starred chef Massimo Bottura will be hosting a dinner along with five chefs from South America featuring products from the Terra Madre food communities. A very special dinner will be prepared by Gill Mellor, head chef at River Cottage HQ, and Tim Maddams, chef at the River Cottage Canteen, founded by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in Dorset. The dinner will be the culmination of a two-week cycle from Devon, UK, to Turin, held to raise awareness and money for two charities that help sufferers of depression. The dinner will celebrate the importance of good food and a “Slow life” for mental well-being.

Ten Meet the Maker events, held in an area at the heart of the Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre, will feature tastings, anecdotes and confessions from great figures from the international food and wine world. Meet people like Claude and Lydia Bourguignon, agricultural engineers who have been traveling the countryside of Europe to help vignerons and farmers fight the loss of organic material from their soil.

Read the program of the events and book tickets here

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