Food

So, last week I was in Bra in Piedmont for the Slow Food Cheese festival… It was wicked. Unfortunately, I was too busy trying to sell cheese in Italian and then getting monumentally pissed that I didn't take any photos. However, my colleagues did, so I've nabbed them and thrown in a few of mine from 2009.

So, we flew into Turin then drove to Bra. After checking in we went to meet our colleagues and checked out the stand. I'm not naming names, but the happy dude was running our stand (also fairly nippy on his black Iro) and the guy on the left makes Stichelton. If you know this cheese then you will love it and therefore, this man. Plus he is well funny, init.

Below are some of the cheeses that we were selling. Tymsboro and Cardo are two amazing goat's cheeses made in Somerset by the same cheesemaker. Cardo is a washed cheese using a natural Cardoon thistle rennet… It is special and well good! One of my favourites though is St James, a washed ewe's milk cheese.

One of the other stands a few down from us had many people gathered around them. Their cheeses were incredibly strange - old, mouldy cheeses that have been buried for 2 years. I tried a few and predictably, they tasted of earth, compost and/or shit.

The place that I ate more than anywhere else was Bocca Buona, one of the Slow Food restaurants. http://www.laboccabuona.it/
This is where I had my first Salsiccia di Bra of the trip - a raw veal sausage. Sounds weird, tastes awesome. Served with grilled anchovies and a fantastic green pesto-esque sauce we couldn't identify! The photos below weren't taken on the trip, but from google to give you an idea.

Other delights had at Bocca Buona was the Stichelton gnocchi (soft and gooey with a rich blue cheese sauce), octopus salad (wafer thin slices with a curried potato salad, not a tentacle sucker in sight) and surprisingly good breadsticks!

One of our suppliers is the Cravero's who mature Parmesan. http://www.cravero-cheese.it/welcome_eng.lasso
It's mostly cheese from three Parmiggiano Reggiano producers plus a Grana Padano producer. For nine generations father and son have shared the names Giorgio and Giacomo and supplied Italy with some of the best cheese. This is one of the storage areas…

This is the view from their digs…

Another popular eatery was Pizzeria Da Ugo, or Elvis Pizza (there are loads of pictures of Elvis everywhere, I don't know why). We had about two massive pizzas each, loads of beer, wine and a weird artichoke liqueur called Cynar… It's gross, but you want to drink it anyway. Came to €15
Below is a picture of one of the many pizzas I had (hence bailing from Tibb's latest trip to Franco Mancha's), but not from Da Ugo. I was too drunk/exhausted/tired/hungry when we were there as it was usually midnight post shift. Every pizza was awesome, though.

The hotel we stayed in was immense. Below the hotel they make their own wine, which is boom and only €5 a bottle. Dangerous. http://www.ascherihotel.it/
Next time, which will be 2013 as it's a biennial event, I plan to get less pissed and head over with some gears on the plane, so I can get closer to these…