Cascina dei Frutasé - Maximum diversity in a small rural space

Long time no update...

Don't worry, loyal readers, I haven't given up on the blog. I've just been doing a lot of work-related travelling lately and haven't managed to get much written.

My fears of gulag-style labour in blizzard conditions turned out to be unfounded; in fact we got the first real scent of spring in Cumiana, Piedmont, about 30km from Turin and 60km from the French border, where Laura and I spent a week in March doing WWOOF volunteering with the Zaro family: Bruno, Milena, Simone and Matteo.

A common but vital strategy for back-to-the-land migration involves the diversification of economic activities. I've seen this put into practice in various ways, but Bruno's family offers the must successful example that I've been able to document so far. Bruno and Milena both lived and worked in Turin until the start of the 1990s, when they decided to uproot to the local countryside. Both were tired of the time restrictions imposed by their regimented work cycles, and put faith in the idea that a rural relocation would offer greater personal freedom.

The donkeys of Cascina dei Frutasé: Ettore, Fillipo, Chan and Bierba

They began growing wheat, spelt and lesser-known grains traditional to the Alps, milling the cereals themselves and baking bread for retail at the farmers' markets of Pinerolo and Turin. This was their primary activity for about 10 years until they purchased Cascina dei Frutasé, a former fruit orchard that had fallen into neglect. Here they began to diversify their operations, designing terraces for growing leafy plants such as lettuce, cabbage, radicchio and valerian, as well as onions, garlic and other vegetables. At the top of the hill on which their house sits is a vegetable patch (known in Italy as an orto), where Laura helped plant this year's crop of onions and peas.

She can't train her husband, but Laura sure can train a hedge

Few of these vegetables find their way to local markets, however, as most get used by the family and in the restaurant they built as part of the house. Only open on weekends, the family prepares (with just a little outside help) a fixed-price menu, usually consisting of salad, antipasti, pasta or rice, meat, cheese and desert. They aim to offer mostly organic meals, with as much as possible grown on the property. On the Saturday night that Laura and I stayed there we were treated to the same food given to paying customers, all of which demonstrated the best of rich Piemontese cuisine. I think we ate something like a ridiculous 10 courses (all of them small, but we still had to call it quits before Milena started making crepes for us) but I remember being particularly blown away by the gallantina of rabbit and a warm local tomino topped with chestnut honey. Tomini are small rounds of cheese, usually drizzled with a light sauce or strong honey. The one Milena served was produced by a friend of theirs, and had a similar if less stringy texture to fresh mozzarella. Like mozzarella it had a very thin skin, and when punctured it oozed a soft, gooey interior. Simplicity and indulgence, perfectly harmonised.

One of Bruno's synergistic growing experiments

We're still a long way from covering the full scale of Cascina Frutase's operations. They keep donkeys, 2 horses and a mule (used primarily for summer trekking in the local hills, as well as a little farm work), and about 50 hens for eggs and 50 chickens reared for meat. There are two polytunnels for growing fruit and veg, clusters of fruit trees whose annual bounty is transformed into jams and marmalades and various mounds built for 'synergistic' agriculture, where Bruno is currently experimenting with wheat, spinach and onions.

Rising dough in the bakery / workshop

A workshop sits next to the house where grain is milled and dough produced for the 80 loaves of bread that are baked every week in a traditional wood-fired bread oven. There are three types of bread – wheat, spelt and another Piemontese grain – all hand-produced and looking very much the traditional artisan loaf. A lot of work goes into the baking, but it seems to result in a good payoff.

Bruno and Simone, preparing the loaves

On Friday afternoons Simone takes the bread to Turin, where an organic food shop buys about 20 loaves and a GAS group (a self-organised buying collective, more on which some other time...) takes a similar amount. The remaining loaves go to markets in Turin and Pinerolo, where Bruno also sells his eggs, preserves, and occasionally any excess fruit or vegetables. As I've been told repeatedly by several farmers in Italy, though, the money is in trasformazione – processing the raw materials into a more consumer-friendly package, such as jams, spreads or baked goods.

Some finished rounds, minutes out of the oven

Sunday farmers' market in Turin

Finally, the family uses what spare space they have to offer bed and breakfast hospitality.

The Zaros have all these bases covered in a more comprehensive way than I've seen at any other farm. They still operate with a spirit of experimentation and optimism, but have also found a formula which allows them to extract maximum value from a small piece of land. My next WWOOFing dispatch will show what can be achieved on an even smaller patch of ground, and within a densely populated area.

Some products from Cascina dei Frutasé

Next up: a masochistic endurance test in Piedmont

We're supposed to be going up to the foothills of the Alps later this week, in the chilly northern province of Piedmont. Here's a view of mild, temperate Umbria this morning, though, so I don't know what we're letting ourselves in for. Whatever happens, any trip northwards will be preceded by a stop-off at these thermal pools near Siena. Most of the hotels with thermal spas will give non-guests a pretty reasonable day pass, usually around €10, and I cannot wait to immerse myself in these steaming baths. Any time the slightest hint of spring arrives, we get dumped on with piles of snow or days and days of rain.

In praise of... Agretti

I've been meaning to highlight some unusual vegetables I've discovered in Italy (or meats, for that matter... or condiments, seasonings, cheeses, liqueurs...) and thought I'd start with the magical cardoon (looks like a giant celery, tastes like the best artichoke you've ever had), but that's sadly now out of season. What is in abundance at the moment is even more of a revelation. Known in English-speaking lands by the far much less inspiring name of saltwort, agretti is a grass-like cousin of the common tumbleweed (which, of course, has to begin life as a healthy green plant before beginning its inevitable roll across a dusty landscape). Saltwort also has an interesting history of industrial use, having once been the primary source of soda ash, crucial to traditional soap and glass production.

Historically (but not by necessity) cultivated in Mediterranean salt waters, it does have a slight saltiness worthy of its name. Agretti in Italian, though, implies a slight sourness. In actual fact, it has a very balanced, earthy flavour, most akin to very fresh spinach, with the mature depth of asparagus and strong earthiness of beetroot. It can be eaten raw but I like it cooked in just a little salted water for 3-4 minutes, enough time to swell the stalks and bring out some colour while keeping its firmness.

Its flavour is bold enough to suit minimal accompaniment, so it would probably be fine with just some butter and lemon juice, or olive oil and garlic. I learned a great recipe for a dressing from Walter at Ristonchia, though, which is definitely worth attempting. In a food processor, blend 10 shelled walnuts, one clove of garlic, the juice of half a lemon, salt, pepper and plenty of olive oil. Bring it to the smooth consistency of an oily salad dressing, and if it's too thick just add more olive oil. This is a mouth-watering match for agretti, but I'm sure it would also work well with asparagus, spinach, cavolo nero or other greens.

Sadly, it's hard to find young agretti outside Italy (and my understanding is that mature saltwort isn't edible, or at least isn't worth the bother). I think you'd have better luck trying to grow it in the US or UK than ever finding it in a supermarket. This company offers some seeds, but claims that even the seeds are a bit of a rarity.

ISEE Conference Discussion Session, Germany, 22-25 Aug 2010

I've just received the excellent news that my proposal to the biennial conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics in Bremen and Oldenburg, Germany has been accepted. I'll be chairing a discussion session on alternative agro-food networks for postgrad and early post-doc researchers, consisting of four short papers and then a long discussion with the speakers. I'm not an expert on ecological economics, which can get extremely technical on both the ecology and economic fronts, so didn't think my chances of acceptance were all that great. The feedback from the reviewers of my abstract was really positive though, so it appears my proposal was more relevant than I knew.

The next stage is to send out a call for papers on some mailing lists and then try to narrow all the submissions down to four presentations. I gave a 20-minute paper at the Royal Geographical Society conference in Manchester last year, but this is the first time I've chaired a discussion session so the responsibilities are quite different. Taking this role saves me actually writing a paper, though. And earns me a free trip to Germany!

Here's the abstract for the session:

(New and emerging researchers) Seeding alternatives: politics and practice in alternative agro-food networks

Andrew M Wilbur

University of Glasgow

This session encourages postgraduate and early postdoctoral researchers to present and discuss recent research concerning alternative agro-food networks (AAFNs) as a component of broader trans-disciplinary investigations into ecological economics. The question of what makes any food system ‘alternative’ is regularly challenged in the literature of AAFNs (Marsden and Sonnino, 2006; McCarthy, 2006; Goodman and Goodman, 2007) and should not be taken for granted. Contemporary AAFNs are more often than not dependent on the infrastructure of capitalism to function. Yet the principles that underlie many AAFNs express well-defined ambitions alternative to unfettered economic growth, often favouring cooperative, community-based and ecologically sensitive models of production, distribution and consumption. The politics and practices of AAFNs are entangled at multiple levels, from localised questions of best practice to international regulation and competition structures. Therefore this session aims to take a broad and inclusive view of AAFNs, encouraging theoretical reflections, empirical analyses and speculative suggestions for further, possibly trans-disciplinary, research.

Researchers are invited to discuss research concerning AAFNs as they relate to several possible themes:

* ecological sustainability

* alternative economic exchanges

* politics, empowerment and resistance

* governance and regulation

* land use and resource management

* de-growth, Slow movements and (re)localisation

* indigenous technical knowledge

* ethics, values and contestation

This session will be chaired by Andrew Wilbur, PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow.

Works cited

Goodman, D and Goodman, M (2007) Localism, Livelihoods and the 'Post-Organic': Changing Perspectives on Alternative Food Networks in the United States. Alternative Food Geographies. Maye, D., Holloway, L. & Kneafsey, M. London, Elsevier.

Marsden, T and Sonnino, R (2006) "Beyond the divide: rethinking relationships between conventional and alternative food networks in Europe." Journal of Economic Geography 6: 181-199.

McCarthy, J. (2006) "Rural geography: alternative rural economies - the search for alterity in forests, fisheries, food, and fair trade." Progress in Human Geography 30(6): 803-811

Anatomy of Self-Sufficiency (Part 1)

Ristonchia

The Tuscan hilltown of Cortona was forever changed by Frances Mayes's Under the Tuscan Sun. Inspired by the book or film and determined to claim their own piece of the Tuscan dream, wealthy Europeans, Americans, Japanese and Russians have been buying up tracts of land and pumping up house prices in the area for a good couple of decades, making this one of Italy's most expensive regions. Still, a bit of careful exploration can reveal places like Ristonchia, where Walter Rossteuscher has lived since the early 1980s, creating a life of quiet serenity, surrounded by natural beauty, without the need for excess millions.

Ristonchia is a hamlet which has been almost completely abandoned, about 500m in the hills between Cortona and Castiglion Fiorentino. Once home to over a hundred people, only 5 households are currently inhabited. The gradual abandonment of Ristonchia both enabled – through cheap land prices - and benefited from Walter's stewardship of the surrounding land. Starting small after moving to Tuscany from Munich, Walter initially harvested some local olives and grapes and raised sheep. As more land his become available, Walter's agricultural activities have expanded to encompass 500 olive trees (some over 500 years old, on ancient terraces possibly built by Greek settlers during the Minoan period), a vineyard, chestnut grove, woodland for foraging, as well as chickens, guinea fowl, goats, donkeys and a horse. Walter also keeps bees and produces his own honey, and maintains a small organic vegetable garden. Walter is not completely self-sufficient, nor does he claim to be. His production and exchange of basic foodstuffs, however, have hugely reduced his dependency on market-rate products. For instance, goats love to graze on the leaves of olive trees, so the annual pruning of the groves provides ample food for the animals at no cost. Food waste from Walter's house also goes to the goats, who definitely live up to their omnivorous image. Heavier limbs from the olive trees are cut into firewood that will eventually find its way into Walter's stufa, or stove, which heats not only the kitchen but also the house's water supply and the radiators in other rooms. Manure, of course, is returned to the land as fertiliser. Nature has a value in places like Ristonchia that is seldom recognised in less remote parts – nothing is wasted, and a use can be found for nearly anything the land offers. This kind of mixed farming is, as Walter says, almost a closed circle. That is, it maintains a self-supporting ecological cycle with an in-built economy that generates value and disincentivises waste.

Walter is a veteran of the many left-wing experiments in communal living that occurred during the 1970s, and has kept many contacts with some of the more successful ones. He's also been active in several organic and small farmers' networks, including WWOOF, ASCI and a group he helped to found, APE. Products are regularly traded between farms, so that growers can fulfill their needs in exchange for an excess of their own products. This isn't a completely perfect system, and many farmers in the area will produce the same commodity crops, resulting in gluts and shortages. Small producers often find themselves with a glut of olive oil, for instance. They produce more than enough for their own use, but so do many of their friends and neighbours. For direct sales in small quantities, the cost of bottling and labeling oil for the retail market is rarely justified by the profits on the oil, leaving growers with more than they can sell and depressed wholesale prices. Walter, however, has been relatively fortunate in this regard. A small organic processing firm, a few hundred metres above Ristonchia in the Apennines, has been buying a couple hundred litres of oil from Walter for the past couple years to use in their products. His work with bees has been less successful recently; colony collapse syndrome has affected his honey production over the last two years, and he has had to resume buying a product that he once produced in abundance.

Learning the art of homemade ravioli

The degree of self-sufficiency that he's achieved – while not nearly complete – is more of a relaxed, simplified way of life than the strained asceticism that marks some experiments in self-reliance. Winters can be tough in Ristonchia, where the stone houses are several hundred years old, but Walter's lifestyle is characterised by good food and wine, all produced with high-quality ingredients, usually from local organic farmers. Staying with Walter doesn't feel like some kind of self-imposed exile to prove a point or score some ideological gain. The slow, quiet simplicity of Ristonchia feels more like a wise and creative choice than an angry rejection of consumer society. Nonetheless, it's a revelation to see a way of life so independent of the kind of consumerism normally taken for granted, and to see it work so successfully. And it doesn't cost the millions that the Tuscan Sun crowd seem to think is appropriate for an old farmhouse and some olive trees.

Wild pigs for Valentine's

I'm going away tomorrow for 10 days in a fairly remote part of Tuscany, where I don't think the broadband pipes have penetrated. So there probably won't be any updates until I get back. In the meantime, here's a parting gift. I cooked up this wild boar sausage stew today to accompany Laura's delicious saltimbocca. I sort of made it up and it's dead simple, provided you can get wild boar sausages.

4 medium wild boar sausages

1 sprig of rosemary

1 onion

2 chopped dried chillies

2 garlic cloves

1 bay leaf

1 can of tomatoes

1 can of borlotti or cannellini beans

Plenty of red wine

Chop the onion and fry them up in some olive oil for about 10 minutes, adding the chillies, rosemary and bay leaf about 5 minutes in. While the onions are frying, slice the sausages down the middle, then chop each half. You should get about 15-20 pieces out of each sausage. Toss them into the pan for about 6-8 minutes on a high heat. They don't release much fat, so add more olive oil if the pan starts to get dry and sticky. Add the garlic. Once the garlic has been browned, pour in a big glug of red wine and simmer for a few minutes. Add the tomatoes and beans and cook on a low heat for a good long time. If the stew starts to get really thick, add more wine. Don't be afraid to use lots. Once it's cooked for at least 45 minutes, it's ready to serve.

Snowball's chance in hell of pruning olive trees

I'm supposed to spend next week helping a guy prune his olive trees and vines. He's further north and at a higher elevation than where we are, so I'm not sure how it's all going to work, given that this was the state of our nearest olive grove today:

I think this video's dead. Here are some pictures: