Hurry up and wait: Piemonte Stage Day 3

Day three started with the Piazza Giolitti Farmers' Market and a mezzo-kilo of fresh apricots.  With each morning starting progressively earlier, it was an 8:45 start.  By this time accustomed to the routine, we piled onto the bus and began the first long drive of the day.

Donning the oh-so-sexy standard white disposable coat, cap and plastic bags for our feet, we started off with a tour of the factory at Osella, a prominent Italian cheese company.  Our guide kindly led us through every step of the cheese-making process on a more industrial scale.  Osella is a unique entity - a family-run company, yet owned 51% by Kraft.  Despite the cringe we all struggled to hide at the idea of multi-national ownership, Osella appears to walk that knife edge of artisanal tradition and autonomy and reliance on outside capital quite well.  Approximately 40% of their production remains fresh cheese, and they use only local, Italian milk from within 60km.  Or as they put it, 5,000 cows work for them daily, helping create camembert, ricotta and robiola cream cheeses.  After an eye-opening look at their marketing strategies over the years, we were faced with the requisite study trip all-cheese lunch.  While their marketing may not have struck a chord, one dense smear of robiola herb cream cheese on crisp flatbread won me over.  I have to admit I bought some on the weekend.

A quick bus ride later found us at Cascina Gorgia, a lovely agritourismo outside of Orbassano.  Agritourismos are a wonderful Italian concept - rustic or elegant working farms where you pay to stay, explore, help out if you like, and eat what they produce.  Cascina Gorgia  had a beautiful traditional building of ivy-covered stone, shaded patio, butcher shop . . . and a veritable menagerie of chickens, furry-footed turkeys, rare goats, lambs, pigs, deer, ducks, turtles, cows and emus.  As well as a wall-jumping peacock, as we discovered when, squawking, it landed right beside us during a lazy reading break.  Our hosts generously brought us beer after our tour of the farm.  However, we then spent almost three unexpected hours outside in 34 degree temperatures waiting for the main event - the official announcement of the newest Slow Food Presidia:  Red Celery.

We were nodding off en masse during the press conference and speeches.  But of course, the first musical note of wine hitting the glass, and we were mobile.   The following antipasti and pasta courses all featured the rare red celery.  It was a unique concept: while the individual elements were all tasty, it's an interesting call to highlight a vegetable that isn't harvested until fall.  The dishes, including the chocolates, all relied on frozen celery.  It seemed a very un-Slow Food approach.  Despite the enjoyable meal and company, we were thrilled to get home early to commune with our fans.  Especially my roommate, whose love of braising was piqued by the potential prospect of freshly slaughtered emu in Fall.