International and Italian Presidia at Slow Fish 2013 in Genoa, Italy

The sixth edition of Slow Fish, organized by the Liguria Regional Authority and Slow Food, will be held from May 9 to 12 in the Historical Port of Genoa, Italy. Slow Fish is a fair dedicated to the world of fish and marine ecosystems, consisting of an open-air market, Taste Workshops, events and meetings with fishers, chefs and experts. Among the exhibitors will be a total of 14 Slow Food Presidia. The Presidia project is an initiative of the Slow Food Foundation of Biodiversity, which sustains quality productions at risk of extinction, protect unique regions and ecosystems, recover traditional processing methods and safeguard native breeds and local plant varieties. 

The following Presidia will be at Slow Fish: 

France

• – Natural Breton Oysters: One of the few oyster productions existing today that refuses to use genetically altered varieties. 

The Netherlands

• – Wadden Sea Traditional Fishers: In the Dutch section of the Wadden Sea, 35 artisan fishers continue to use traditional fishing methods, that is, fixed equipment that is secured to specific points, such as fish pots, long-lines and nets, rather than mobile fishing gear.

Norway

• – Presidium Sunnmøre Cured and Smoked Herring: Herring has been an essential part of the Norwegian diet for hundreds of years, and until 50 years ago there were around 35 companies dealing with smoked herring production. Unfortunately, rapid industrial development has caused the closure of most of these. Nevertheless, silver, golden and hard-cured herring are still produced by the family-run company Njardar, in Leinøy, the last company in Norway that still uses artisan salting and smoking techniques. 

• – Presidium More og Romsdal Salt Cod: One of the few remaining small-scale producers who still use “traditional quality” klippfish production, that is, sustainable fishing techniques with special cod fishing nets and long lines and hooks.

Italy

• – Lake Como Sun-Dried Missoltino: This new Presidium, which will be inaugurated at Slow Fish, preserves the ancient tradition of salting and sun drying Alosa agone on the shores of Lake Como. 
• – Orbetello Botargo: Produces botarga by delicately extracting the female fish’s egg sacs, placing them under salt for a few hours, and then pressing them and letting them dry. 
• – Lake Garda Carpione: A salmonid fish from Italy’s lake region, which is found only in the deep waters of Lake Garda and fished with deep-water nets. 
• – Traditional Cetara Anchovy Extract: An amber-colored liquid, known as colatura, made from anchovies fished in the Gulf of Salerno and used as a condiment, especially for pasta. 
• – Portonovo Wild Mussels: A naturally reproducing species of wild mussels around Ancona, which live attached to the submerged rocks along the Conero coast. 
• – Ceresole d’Alba Tench: Tench has been farmed for centuries in ponds in the Pianalto di Poirino, Piedmont. Every rural family used to have a man-made pond used as a drinking trough or irrigation reservoir, in which tench would be farmed for home consumption. 
• – Camogli Tonnarella: A traditional fishing method in which fishing nets made of coconut fiber are cast at sea for about six months, from April to September, and raised three times a day. The nets only catch medium-large sized fish, making it a highly sustainable method. The tonnarella in Camogli is the last operating in the Liguria Region and is one of the few remaining in all of Italy. 

The fish-related Presidia at Slow Fish offer the possibility to taste and buy these extraordinary delicacies, which are rare and not easy to obtain. The three non fish-related products at the market will be: 

• – Mountain Pasture Castelmagno (Italy): The Presidium specifies a minimum aging period of four months for this cheese. The Presidium is one of the few remaining producers to maintain the complex and ancient production technique, which calls for the curd to be broken into large walnut-sized lumps that are then tied up in a cloth and left to hang before being cut again into cubes, crumbled into fine pieces, mixed with coarse salt and put into molds. 
• – Shepherds’ Fiore Sardo (Italy): Thanks to the Presidium the cheese is still produced in its historic area of origin, the small Sardinian towns of the Barbagia area. Here, artisan cheesemaking has been preserved largely due to a group of shepherds who rear Sardinian sheep and produce tens of tons of raw-milk cheese without the use of dried starter cultures.
• – Cervia Artisanal Sea Salt (Italy): The origins of the Cervia saltworks go back to ancient history, but the traditional method was lost over time and is now only preserved by the Presidium. 

Slow Fish offers many of the unique tastes, which risk being substituted by homogenized industrial products. During the event, Italian and international cooks of the Alliance Bistrot will use the above-mentioned Presidia products in their dishes.