My husband Alex and I were two of the extremely fortunate participants in both Terra Madre events.  There really hasn’t been a separation in the two events for us happily it has been a continuation.  So, I have to start talking about Terra Madre 2004 in order to tell our story of Terra Madre 2006.

Terra Madre 2004. 
We spent our first day in Torino at the Palazzo di Lavoro watching as people from around the world poured through the doors.  They came by the bus load: groups from Mongolia and Brazil, the Congo and Sweden.  As the day wore on we became increasingly aware that this was going to be an experience like no other.  We were in a room, a giant room, with farmers literally from every corner of the world.  Just being in that room, was an incredibly powerful experience for me.  We were all just “thereâ€? in a proverbial sea of humanity.  As confusing and chaotic as it seemed at times that day I think it was the perfect way to begin. We were all reminded just how much communication can take place simply by looking another person in the eye and wanting to understand.  At one moment I stood face to face with a farmer from Afghanistan. We looked each other in the eye, we understood each other, we touched hands. I will remember the moment forever.

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A dinner, forum and farmers market in honor of Slow Food Minnesota’s delegates to the Terra Madre conference
Sunday, December 17 :: Martin Luther King Recreation Center :: Minneapolis

The sun shone through the south-facing clerestory windows of the meeting room at Martin Luther King park onto 70 Slow Food enthusiasts seated at long communal tables topped with deep green cloths and set with our convivium’s white dinnerware. Guests enjoyed a cheese course as the program began. (One cheese was the first Big Woods Blue produced by Shepherd’s Way Farms since an arsonist set fire to their property two years ago. The flavor was magnificent! We drank freshly pressed apple cider — floral, and not-too-sweet — which was a perfect foil for the cheese [given that alcohol was not permitted].)

The first speakers were Slow Food Minnesota’s delegates to Terra Madre 2006, Lori and Alan Callister of Callister Farm, Dave and Florence Minar of Cedar Summit Farm and Tammy and Steve Schotthofer of Promised Land Farm. They discussed their experiences in Turin and showed pictures. Stephen Read of Shepherd’s Way, a delegate to the 2004 Terra Madre conference added his thoughts. Ron Huff moderated. Everyone agreed that being among thousands of artisanal producers and seeing and tasting the foods they make was inspiring.

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It’s already been a month and a half since Terra Madre and food communities have been busy back at home:

In Brazil at the beginning of December, communities gathered from all over the country at the Salone of Rural Territories to get to know each other and what is happening in food and agriculture in other regions, while in Bulgaria, the Smilyan food community held a bean festival in their village.

This Sunday, Slow Food Minnesota will host “Tales of Terra Madre”. Terra Madre 2006 delegates will talk about their experiences and show pictures of the conference and the Salone del Gusto. In addition to a mini farmers’ market, there will also be a potluck, and the convivium will provide a lamb tagine with Promised Land lamb and a coq au vin with Callister chicken.

What have you been up to since October 30? Which delegates are you in touch with? What projects are you working on?

[Presented at the US regional meeting]

Sit down at the table with your countrymen & friends
And ask your lips, tongues, minds & bellies some questions,
Questions that remind us that our bodies & spirits
Are either nurtured by place
Or swallowed up by tasteless placelessness…

Ask aloud: Just what exactly is it
That we want to have cross our lips,
To roll off our tongues & down our throats
To be transformed & conjured into something
Altogether new by thousands of gut microbes
To surge into our bloodstreams
To be carried along with insulin for one last wild ride
& to be lodged within the very cells of our bodies?

Just what do we want to be made of?
What do we claim as our tastes?
& what do we want to taste like
When we, in our own turn, are eaten
by wolf, vulture, raven, condor, coyote or bear?

I, for one, & perhaps you as well,
Wish to taste like the very country in which I reside:

Like great plains bison wallowing amidst the prairie turnips,
Like salmon running up a cold and clear mountain stream,
Like gators crawling into a swamp stewing with sassafras leaves,
Like wild rice hand-harvested from the azure waters of a northern lake,
Like maple syrup gleaned from woods where Robert Frost once walked,
Like cactus fruit falling off a tall saguaro into a handmade basket below.

These plants & animals are asking us
to pledge allegiance to what is local, what is loved,
to what is seasonal, what is unique to each American place .

If old Walt Whitman were sitting at our table,
Supping with us today, he’d be celebrating
That wild old slumgullion stew that all of us together make,
Singing a song that goes like this:
“Taste America’s uniqueness, taste this earth,
Taste our terroir, savor its worth,
And by tasting, you will see!â€? 

Gary Paul Nabhan
Renewing America’s Food Tradition

Many of you will remember Michael Pollan’s stirring words at the opening ceremony of Terra Madre, not to mention at the US regional meeting and other sessions both at TM and Salone del Gusto. He is the author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals”, a much-lauded book that is landing on a number of top-books-of-the-year lists, including the NYTimes’ 10 Best Books of the Year. He is also a Terra Madre delegate from Berkeley, California.

For anyone who ever wondered “What’s for dinner?”, this is the book to read.

Read more about Michael Pollan on his website.

Water, Politics, War
Dwight Stanford, Master’s student, UNISG-Colorno
Where oil was one of the world’s primary source of conflict in the previous 20 years, it seems likely the new source will be water and it’s availability to all peoples.  Estimates from the UN predict 1/3 of the world’s population will suffer in the next 20 years from water shortages for both potable water and water for crop growth.
Presenters from five regions spoke of their battles and successes with water usage.

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please help support the grazing of animals by purchasing grassfed proteins.
please visit our website and also submit your comments by asking for and buying grassfed products.

How wonderful to come from the Piedmont of North Carolina to La Piemonte da Italia!!!

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Few farmers cultivate as close to “everything under the sunâ€? as does Bill Crepps - stone fruits, Asian vegetables, roots, brassicas, nuts, persimmons, greens, alliums, nightshades, figs, corn, and hard squash to name some of his crops. Bill’s farm embodies one of the most fundamental principles of sustainable agriculture: diversity. Everything Under the Sun Farm specializes in dried fruits and vegetables, and Bill is interested in connecting with other farmers attending Terra Madre who dry fruit and vegetables.

Bill is a delegate from the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market food community. The Ferry Plaza Farmers Market is operated by the nonprofit Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture and brings together over 80 farms, 30 artisans and purveyors, and thousands of shoppers every week at the historic Ferry Building in San Francisco. Farmers come from throughout California’s diverse growing regions to sell their fruits, vegetables, nuts, meats, cheeses, olive oil, and prepared foods to urban residents. Click here to view a slideshow of the market.

The Pacific Northwest has got it going on.

Following the lead of my brave role models/fellow classmates researching Farmers’ Market, I devoted a few mornings of my vacation back home to scoping out FM scene in my home & native land: the great & the beautiful Pacific Northwest. 

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