ITALIA

I suppose I should explain what the hell it is I'm doing in Italy and why I'm eating so well. As of two weeks ago I am officially a student of the Università di Scienze Gastronomiche (UniSG) in Bra, Italy. The home of Slow Food and Carlo Petrini. Please feel free to delight in and harbor pangs of jealous over the following description of my program:

Master in Food Culture and Communications – Food, Place, and Identity
The main goal of this English-language master is to provide students with knowledge about high-quality food
products as well as the communication and promotion of such products based on an extensive anthropological and historical study of food consumption, not only in Italy but abroad as well. The stream “Food, Place, and Identity” of the Master’s Program explores the multiple “geographies” of food production and consumption, focusing on sites ranging from the body, home, community, city, region, nation, and the global, and the individual and collective identities shaped around these "places." In fact, food and food cultures can only be efficiently communicated with reference to place and identity (a notion that we understand not as “fixed,” but being in constant flux and the product of hybridizations). Whether we talk about zero-mile food, local food activism, urban food systems, ethnic food, Japanese cuisine, French wines, or global food policies, we are always making reference to the relationship between food and place (whether “real” or “imagined”), and the meanings this bond inflates into food as well as places. As the popular notion of “terroir” conveys, it is the convergence of place, climate, local human knowledge and sensibilities that determines the quality of foods. This section explores the relationships between food, place, and identity from the perspective of food policy, migrations, tourism, history and memory, and cultural artifacts that range from film to literature.

The campus is located in Pollenzo, an ancient Roman town, and classes are held in a 19th century estate dedicated to furthering the knowledge of agriculture and husbandry in Piemonte.

Luncheon on the grass:

Classroom with a view:

Vi terrò aggiornati!

I'll keep you updated!