Holidays

Spending your holidays on the farm. It hasn't always been fun, as the pics of Lewis W. Hine show. 

I don’t know how you feel like at this moment, but I look forward to the holidays. It is not specifically the low temperatures, because combined with clear blue skies and a wintery sun, I really love it. It is just that it seems like everyone is getting ready for Christmas and so should I. With only a week of work left, I thought I might as well dedicate a blog to the topic.

What holidays have to do with food? A lot. Starting with the Christmas holidays, which usually are centered around food as most of us enjoy big Christmas breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Even though the main reason for this break is a religious one, however forgotten by many that let themselves overwhelm by commercial and eating activities. Actually not something I really look forward to. In unlucky cases, you go from one family to another, the host insisting you to eat well. Do they not understand that eating too much three times a day isn’t healthy anymore? At some point you start to feel like a goose which liver will become foie gras in the very near future.

Anyways, I will try not to overeat myself, prepare some less unhealthy dishes as well and hope to be able to do some exercises, to digest everything and get some air. After Christmas follows New Year with the traditional dishes (sweet deepfried dough-balls in the Netherlands, grapes in Spain, lentils in Italy) and Epiphany, in many countries another reason to sit around the table and eat. From where do we actually get all the food?

Well, here is the connection between food and holidays I wanted to talk about. Have you ever realized why children can stay away from school almost all summer? Off-course this has to do with the heat, which makes it impossible to keep the kids concentrated for long. Besides that, the long holidays have to do with a very old profession: the farmer.

Many of our ancestors where farmers, even though it is difficult to imagine now. They were hired by a landlord which made them grow food. U

sually for his staff, his army or the citizens of the village or town he reigned and some for the farmers family. It was an insecure life as it was not possible to avoid diseases in crops and animals, and weather circumstances could never be controlled. As there were no machines, everything had to be done by hand. And this is where the holidays are explained.

When farmers kids where lucky enough to go to school, their parents did not refrain from keeping them home every now and then. The kids who were old enough to help on the land became workers at times of seeding and harvest. You might understand when this was about to happen.

At the moment most of us are so lucky that during the weeks we are not expected at school or in the office, we can really take a break, forget about the daily rhythms and do what we feel like to do. I hope you enjoy it. See you back in the next year.

After you enjoyed some good food, I hope.

Dining in secret

An intimate atmosphere made us all feel welcome and comfortable which gave a fun night for all of us

In Milan, dinners in private homes seem to be the order of the day. As you might remember, earlier this year I participated in a delicious breakfast on a rainy spring Sunday. As the experience there was very interesting, I did not hesitate at all when an invitation for a similar kind of event arrived in my mailbox.

It is already for a few years that new kinds of dining-out are invented. For smartphones there are many apps available which enable people to share leftovers on a kind of ‘marketplace’. The so-called Restaurant Day gives amateur cooks the possibility to expose their kitchen skills every three months. To me, it all suits to the trend in which bottom-up initiatives are more appreciated than the traditional economic activities.

Tour the Forks’ history started with the inventions of ‘secret dinners’. Secret in different ways: you never know where you are expected and whom you can expect. It offers the participants (I think you cannot use the word guest here) another way of having a fun night out.

After almost two years of ‘secret dinner silence’, the move to a new studio and many interesting food-related activities, Tour de Fork decided it was time to re-vive the successful event. The first hint was given about a month up front followed by the invitation a few weeks later. This didn’t say more than the date and time and, off-course, the theme of the dinner. With accepting the invitation we said yes to a dinner centred around bread, which was prepared by a be-friended cook.

Bread does not seem the most exiting topic for a dinner. I mean, we are in Italy. The bread here is usually not that outstanding, even though things are changing. But maybe the choice for this topic made me even more curious, as a bread-loving Dutch girl like me. Besides that the published menu already showed that we would travel around the world following the historical discovery of the baker. As at this moment when food and history are daily matters for me, I could not wait to start the journey.

To stop the first hunger, we were welcomed with a good glass of gin-tonic accompanied by Indian papadums and a yoghurt mint-dip. It might have been the way the drinks were served, but within a few minutes, people were chatting with each other. Since it was the first ‘secret dinner’ in the new series, Tour de Fork decided to only invite friends. Which made that we at least had one thing in common, namely knowing the hosts. It felt a bit like we arrived all from the same family but that somehow we never got to meet each other. This dinner was a good opportunity to make up for that!

When the drinks started to do its’ job, we were invited to sit-down at the big table hosting all the 18 guests. I know the studio from an earlier collaboration. At that time it had a cold feeling, literally as well as figurative. But the way it was decorated now, made me completely forget about that. It felt like being hosted in someone’s warm living room instead of sitting in a sober basement.

While chatting with a fellow ‘stranger’ we enjoyed the one and only Italian dish of the night: the ribollita, a Tuscan stile soup with different kind of vegetables and beans. Completely in line with the farm-style dish it was sided by two big pieces of heavy bread. One of them included garlic, the other made out of rye. Here it would have been great if the pater familias had asked us a moment of silence and used this to explain about the choice of the theme and made us all aware of the story it has. Later it was explained that it was a choice not to take this role as it was also an opportunity for the hosts to have a relaxing evening among friends. Next time though, I hope they will do it to give the event also a more educative side.

I think the third course was the most exotic dish for every-one, even though it was based on the northern kitchen of the cold Sweden. Six small pieces of self-made rye bread where topped with different spreads and toppings; homemade mayonnaise, smoked mackerel, boiled eggs and pickled cucumber. Flavours all unfamiliar to us and therefore more exciting to talk about. Whether it was this or the shots of vodka that traditionally help the Swedish to digest their heavy meals, we all had fun and the ‘family members’ started to feel more related and chatted along like they’ve never done else.

Before we knew, midnight was long behind us and it was time for the last part of the dinner. The dessert (bread pudding) another shot of vodka (there was a lot to digest) and the envelop, meant for the payments which were announced already on the invitation. Although this might be the most undesired part of the evening, (you feel like staying at your friends and then they ask you to pay…) in this case they made it part of the whole concept which avoided possible embarrassing moments.

The next ‘secretdinner’ is planned for January. So if you got curious while reading this blog (you should) I suggest you start to follow the studio and make sure that you are between the next run of invitees.  

Fire

A fire doen't only warm-up the people, but also relations (thanks to ateliermob for the picture)

Sometimes complicated things become a lot easier when food and drinks come in. It is a mean way to relax people (not only because of the alcohol…) and gives them something in common to talk about. I had this experience only a few days ago.

Just before the weekend I started a three day workshop. It was for and by architects, which was a whole new experience for me. Even though I studied architecture for almost seven years. The goal of the workshop was to collaborate on the creation of a community by building something.

As all the participants and the mentors were architects, we started to talk about the current state of our location. A few years ago the former fabric was turned into a beautiful location were creative persons can work and expose themselves. We - outsiders - found out that it is inhabited by these different communities which all have one thing in common (their profession) but that they hardly exchange anything. We call it a lack of public domain.

The building itself encloses a huge square which is sometimes turned into an event location, some more regular than others. A square with a lot of potential as well for its size as its’ relative safety in an area with a lot of traffic and movements. However, it does not invite at all. And that is where we decided to focus on.

Our main objective was to make people enter the square and to give them a place where they can entertain themselves, meet friends or strangers, spend some time during one of the many activities in the former fabric or have lunch on a workday. We designed a very open structure to make it inviting and multi-usable. Off course, the designing process was not as easy as it sounds. As I said, we were all architects which meant we all had our own ideas of what it should look like. But we managed to create an object with different lines coming together in one centre which was to host a fireplace.

The closing party of the festival was also the inauguration of the object we created. As the festival lacked real social activities so far, we decided that we were going to organize them ourselves. With fifty euros, we headed to the supermarket and bought some spirits (‘to get the fire inside’) and marshmallows. As soon as the serious part of the festival was over we projected a film of the fire which was just outside the building. Within a few minutes everyone understood that the real party was there.

After a toast talks burst out. But the real fun things were the marshmallows as only half of the people around the fire knew what to do with them. They became a reason to talk to strangers and the more experienced marshmallow eaters offered suggestions about how to heat them.  From this small talk people continued to less superficial subjects and this was the start of the so desired exchange between strangers.

We worked so hard to make the best design and finish the object even during snow and rainfall. But in the end all that mattered was the warm fire, some drinks and food. This I why I like my Food in the Streets that much. It can be so simple!

Seeds for the future

Beautiful fields of grains. But are they healthy or not?

I do not know if it was a coincidence or that it is for another reason, but in the last weeks I’ve seen many documentaries on seeds. Some of the stories I heard worried me. I do not intend to waste your day, but it is something we cannot ignore. So please continue reading and learn.

I guess you know that all our vegetables, fruits and herbs sometime started as a seed. The seeds where put in the soil, the sun, water and an acceptable temperature woke them up and made them germinate. Depending on the type of plant, it takes a few days up-to months or years before it grows into something edible.

For centuries, farmers have been using this method to grow their crops. When the plants have flowered, the farmer collects the seeds, dries them and then uses them the next season. In this process the farmers try to collect only the seeds from the strong plants and avoid taking those from the borders of the grow field, as they can be contaminated by seeds from nearby but different species.

This all continued until a big company discovered how to manipulate seeds genetically. This enabled them to grow plants that are resistant to certain pesticides. Pesticides they produced themselves. From that moment on the farmers who used the seeds could grow denser rows, since fighting the weeds had become very easy. A win-win situation for all.

But slowly this company went further and further with the development of agricultural products. It expanded all over the world and of course it had to fight different competitors, driving them even more deeper into the development of their commodities.

After years it is proven out that these creations from the lab - which once seemed very interesting – have taken over the control of the whole food chain. Farmers who once choose to take a chance and bought these products from the company, now do not know how to terminate their contracts. Their neighbouring farmers are driven into despair as the patented seeds end up on their fields. It costs them a lot (money and time) to avoid being sued for violating the exclusive rights. A single farmer fighting to such a big company is like David fighting Goliath.

And there is more. We consumers don’t even know what we eat anymore. Is it an original race which is able to reproduce itself in the next year or is our food grown out of weak and ‘dead’ seeds which cannot impart themselves (so-called hybrid seeds) another time?

The last film I saw made me a bit more confident in our future. It was about a very dedicated American professor who is working hard to save the seeds in our world. He can talk about this very passionate and inspiring. While he has to make great efforts to convince national governments of the importance of conserving original seeds. We might need them one day, when those ‘designed’ seeds cannot satisfy our needs anymore.

I must confess that all the documentaries made me worry. I don’t know what to do anymore. Because it is not easy to find out whether your rice is grown out of original seeds or whether they are hybrid. Can you see or taste the difference? Is it written somewhere on the package? I don’t know. The least I could do is ask my food provider of fruit and veggies. So I’ve sent them a mail to ask what kind of seeds the farm uses. Hopefully they give an honest answer. As soon as they reply, you’ll find it here. Until that time I have to do it with that what my provision offers.

Eyes open

These unknown but colourful veggies can't be refused, can they?

This week I came to an insight. I was reading an article in a free magazine offered by a supermarket that sells only organic products. The insight does not have anything to do with organic food or with this specific supermarket. No, it just brought many things together that helped me to open my eyes.

In a meeting I visited recently, someone was explaining us about the difficulties of the current food production system. It was actually a very obvious explanation, but – like happens often – something I personally had never thought of. The speaker  gave us a new perspective to the things: if today all consumers decide to stop eating salads (just a random example), the retailer can only react on this after a few weeks or maybe even months. He namely already has contracts with suppliers (read: farmers) that he cannot cancel. After a few months, the retailer cancelled his contract and solved his problem. But there is still the producer who probably spent a lot of money to make his farm completely fit for the cultivation of salad: he has specially designed green-houses, a water installation only suited for watering this crop, his staff is educated to grow the best salads, etc. He made investments he was going to pay back in the coming years but suddenly it all turned out to be worthless.

Off course the scenario discussed is not about to happen overnight and especially so drastic. But there definitely is a serious possibility that these problems occur, think of the bird flu or the cucumber disease only a few years ago. Suddenly people stopped buying these products, even when it was sure they were not affected by the problems. It costs farmers and national governments millions of euros to cover the insurances. And then I’m not even talking about the waste it created.

Back to the magazine I mentioned earlier. This supermarket is proposing an agreement between farmer, retailer and costumer to buy whatever the farmer has on offer. It does not matter whether it is a strange looking or unknown product, the supermarket puts it in its shelves. It helps give the farmer a more secure income (remember that he has to plan far more ahead than our daily shopping decisions) and it gives the supermarket the security that its clientele buy the products at a fair price for all groups concerned.

This method seems the solutions for the schedule a farmer is working in. However, it is a paradigm when talking about the call to ‘vote with your fork’. It gives the power to the farmer and makes the consumer his servant.

This can be solved. It actually is already solved by people who joined a community that purchases  directly from the supplier*. They communicate with the farmer and agree beforehand on the products they are going to buy. If you want a specific kind of tomatoes or zucchini he will grow it. Where in Italy this phenomenon is already known for years, recently it is upcoming in the rest of the western world as well.

So maybe, unless the actual discussions about consumers influence, we should not forget about the farmers’ role. It is about the balance between what we (the consumer) want and what he (the farmer) can. If you go shopping tomorrow, choose those products that are in season, local and have a fair price. You then probably made the right choice.

*called Community Supported Agriculture in the USA or Gruppo d’Acquisto Solidale in Italy

Wasted

Each household in the West wastes an average of two full-bins of food each year

The discussion about the future of our food is going on. Since it is almost sure, that we need to feed 9 billion people in 2050, experts are searching for a solution to make sure there is enough food for all of us. Food in the Streets wonders whether it is really so hard to solve this problem?

I will start with some facts. At this moment there are about 7 billion people in the world to feed. One out of eight is chronically undernourished, all of them living in developing countries. At the same time we produce an average of 2720 calories a day per person while we only need 2000 calories (woman) to 2500 calories (men) to survive. Part of this surplus is eaten by people who are too heavy or even obese. Another part is thrown away by consumers without eating it.

The so-called food waste is an expensive and very inefficient act. We in Europe and North America throw away almost as much food (222 million tons) as is produced in sub-Saharan Africa. But where does it get lost?

Food waste is what we consumers do. ‘We’ as in people in developed countries. It is done in the supermarkets and restaurants but mainly in our own households. We buy more than we eventually eat and – although all of us have a fridge and most of us a freezer – we cannot handle leftovers other than throw them away.

Food loss is a problem in developing countries. Underdeveloped infrastructural systems make it difficult to get food in the right way (read: protected from transport influences) to the right place (distribution centres, cooling, etc.). These losses mean less income for the farmers and higher or unaffordable prices for the consumers in these poor countries.  Thereby not only losing the food, but also wasting the input like water and fertilizers, labour and capital.

It seems that experts get a grip on where it goes wrong. Still the exact size of the problem is not clear what the exact size of the problem is. As a newspaper concludes in its article on the data deficiency in food waste, look for source-oriented measures instead of working at the end of the line. We can off-course continue on the relatively easy road in which we push the pedal a bit deeper, increase the input of energy, pesticides and fertilizers and hope to be able to continue this way for some more time. However, research has shown that there is a big probability that this will not be a long-term solution. 

Then there is the smaller scale or local interventions which are needed in each part of the food value chain; harvest and productions, handling and storage, processing and packaging, distribution and marketing and finally consumption.

Well, I am not convinced yet. It is true that data are difficult to find and are incomparable. A British supermarket recently decided to reveal how much food goes too waste. It was about 30.000 tons and that is only one part of the large food chain they work in. It a good start. This article (left top of page 2) promises that we really do need to increase the number of food we produce, even if we manage to diminish the loss and waste of food by 50%. And if we can arrange to do that, we will be able to start thinking about the rest of the solution. There is still a long way to go!

Learning from the lesson

Close followers might have seen that Food in the Streets shared her ideas with a group of American students. A new experience and an educational moment for myself too.

The interesting thing of being ‘an outsider’ (in this case someone who observes while not being part) is that some things become more clear. You get a new perspective, another point of reference and you start to ask questions. For me it happened with the Dutch urban farming projects.

While Milan is preparing itself for the worldwide event Expo2015, the city and its inhabitants are also thinking about what they could do in their own backyards. Literally, as they start thinking about growing food close to their homes. An interesting phenomenon for a city where design and fashion have been the key words for years. Food in the Streets hopes to be able to contribute to this 'revolution'. 

The students I lectured for only live in this town for three months. They take classes on different subjects, some more appreciated than others. One of the classes they could choose to follow is on social innovation a very popular term. In this class, a group of students is going to realise a window farm, thereby starting from already realized open source designs. As window farming is one possible form of urban farming, the teachers asked me to introduce the phenomenon to them and inspire them with some of the projects I know of.

It seems easy to prepare a presentation about a subject you work on every day. It was no problem to find interesting examples, I had a whole lot of pictures on my pc and -where needed - websites gave me the latest information on the projects I showed. But to explain something that is so normal to you to people who maybe never heard of it, is another thing. But definitely not less interesting.

In about half an hour I explained how I came to the subject of urban farming, why it interests me and why I think more people should practice it. Eight interesting Dutch examples came by, going from herbs on private balconies to the biggest urban farming roof in Europe. And in the end the discussion about the economic future of a phenomenon that only a few years ago was only practised by a minority of people.

For me the discussion was very interesting. Students and invited people asked me some interesting questions on topics which I had taken for granted for a while now. But that is only because I’m into it so deep, that sometimes I forget that for others it isn't that clear at all. So to everyone present, I want to say ‘thank you’. My one-hour-of-teaching  was as educational for me as it hopefully was for you!

For those who are interested to contact invite Food in the Streets as a lecturer, please contact me via the address you can find here.

New!

Work in proces, but results will be presented soon

Food in the Streets goes serious. For almost three (!) years now, I use this blog to share my opinions and points of view with you. I tell you where our food comes from, how we process this and what the role of food is in our daily lives. People, food and cities are the keywords.

After years of writing, I thought I was time to get my hands dirty and come into action. As you might have read in others posts (for example My garden or Do it yourself) I’m experimenting with home-food-growing for quite a while now.  Just now I feel it is the right time to become more professional and present my activities to the whole wide world.

The idea was born half a year ago already, when participating to a contest directed to young talents. Even though I didn’t win, it gave me the opportunity to develop an idea into a feasible plan. Off-course it wasn’t as easy as I hoped it was, so it took me until now to elaborate it.

The so called launch of my service is specially reserved for the readers of this blog. So feel honoured and share this fact with your friends. This blog only lifts a corner of the veil. Follow me here and you’ll see the final result later this week.

From this week on, Food in the Streets cycles around the city with her own container full of edibles. It will make the cities greener and hopefully makes you and other passers-by decide to contact me and ask me for help to make your surroundings greener, and edible, as well!

Want to see more inspiring examples of food in the urban streets? Come Tuesday 29 October to this event at IES Abroad in Milan!

Anger

When 6000 people come to enjoy a free meal (as happened during Damn Food Waste) you won't them all run at you at once

I am angry. And I have kept it to myself for too long so now it’s time to shout it all out. And yes. You are the one who has to listen to it.

I came to Italy thinking that people here know how to appreciate food and know how to behave towards it. Mostly they do. They know as no other nation in the world that their food (usually) is made of local products from a good quality, that it is appreciated all over the world and that they must be lucky to have so many good cooks around them. But sometimes I wonder if the Italians are really that aware as we all think.

Many events here are centred around food. Not only festivities like Christmas and Assumption day, but also business or informative events like a book presentation or the break of a conference. It was at the latter one that my anger almost came to an outburst. 

I already hinted about it a few weeks ago.  There was the launch of a new magazine which will inform people about food. The organization was so kind to celebrate this with a tasting of all kinds of local products like beer, strawberry ketchup (!) and ancient apple varieties. After the short presentation, they opened the buffet meant to give people the opportunity to talk to producers and try their products. Although I tought my position was strategic (as in ‘close to the buffet’) there were people who were much more trained (as in ‘rude’) and managed to arrive sooner than I did. With the result that me and my bag pack where kicked around the mass of people like being a dirty sock in an empty wash machine

It was a tasting, so I hoped to really try something, discuss with the producer and then go on to the next product that made me curious. But non of it all was possible as the trays were almost empty before I could move to the second table. Some people – mostly the ones who were over sixty – where able to eat and fill-up their supply all in once.

Last Wednesday it was World Food Day, an event organised by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The aim of this event is to ‘help increase the understanding of problems and solutions in the drive to end hunger’. They event is always a good reason to organise a wide variety of activities all centred around food. Like the one I visited, but also activities with a higher ‘fun’ rate.

After a four hour sit-still in a beautiful but cold space, listening to all kinds of interesting and influential speakers talking about food safety and security, we could all leave the room and head for the buffet. The buffet was full of products that were, so I hope, Made in Italy. That would at least make the choice of ingredients (mainly animal-based products) understandable.  

I was fast so had a good location in the line (I start to learn…) but there were still people quicker than me. Before even finishing there plate, and before giving others the chance to get something to eat, they already where hunting for the second round. Is this what we’ve talked about all morning. Do mainly work for our own food security?

In the end I managed to fill up a moderate plate with salami, a quiche Lorraine (that’s not Italian), a small pizza bread and a rice ‘biscuit’ as well. Even had the chance to ask one of the students behind the buffet what kind of cheese they were serving. I sat down and tried to forget about my anger.  But then I realised what I was eating. I had a dish full of meat, cheese, eggs, bread and only one small tomato compensated for by the a similar sixed piece of mozzarella.  Didn’t we just get to know that part of food security is obtained by better distributing the available food and by avoiding eating a lot of meat? I almost started to feel that all those people didn’t listen at all. Or listened but they didn’t get it. Or worse. They listened, but applied the ‘not in my backyard’ method: ‘Indeed, people need to eat less animal based products. But this doesn’t go for me and myself’. I am even more sorry to say that it was again people which have twice my age. Is it the generation? Did they experience something in their life that made them act like this?

I don’t get angry easily but this was really the straw that broke the camels’ back. People offer you something for free and what do you do? You take it all, attacking it like a beast and then eating it like an animal does, without any enjoyment. How can we ever change this?

Healthy city-life

Food in the Streets once started with a research questioning the influence of food in the public domain. In the (five) years after, this question has been expanded, changed and redefined, but anyhow, it has always been an important part of the blog and my professional life.

Since the beginning of this century, more and more people have realized that it is necessary to find answers to questions combining food and public life. Especially when it became clear that the cities will be the central place of our society. Isn’t it strange when you think that we changed from a mostly rural society into an urban society in the last 100 years?

That people are looking for answers to this new type of society has become clear to me when last week I read about the farmers markets in town. There’s so many now, that they can’t just survive on people with a big budget. In a short period these markets have become serious business attracting all kinds (not really all) of people. After a visit to this bi-weekly market last week, yesterday I passed by this market, organised by a local radio station (!). How cool to see people filling-up their shopping baskets to make sure they can survive onto the next market.

You know that living the ‘modern life’ (what is the modern life actually? Is it people running from here to there or is the it crisis-hit-person looking for a new method to fill its days?) doesn’t allow most people to sit down and eat three times a day. So meals are skipped or eaten behind the computer. On the way home people buy a ready-to-eat or take away meal and then its’ eaten in an instant because ‘there’s something else to do’. But these markets provide the people with that what they need. Buy some bread or pizza at the bakery, a bottle of wine from a local wineproducer and – to top it all up – a gelato made with natural ingredients. Some friends, some sun and it all makes eating a relaxed event.

Eating healthy, in my opinion, isn’t that difficult. Even when you live a very busy life. It only asks for some planning ahead and discipline. Make sure you have enough fresh food in your house (order it, if don’t have time to visit farmers markets) and start to do some multi-task cooking: make next days’ soup when todays dinner is in the oven, make one (or two) extra servings of rice or pasta so you have some for lunch as well or boil some extra veggies to store in the freezer. See, it isn’t that difficult.  

But you are not me so you might need some extra help to realize this healthy lifestyle in your busy life. With the book I bought last Friday you might be able to handle it. Simple recipes, illustrated in a nice way and complemented with facts that make cooking and eating even more interesting. And this book definitely isn’t the only one that can help you. There’s internet, there’s app’s, magazines and so on.

That food and the public domain are interrelated is clear. It is only difficult to say in what way. As long as we keep trying to do it in a healthy way, it is fine to me. Try to combine ‘business with pleasure’ and we will be fine. For now at least.

Extraordinary

My photocamera stayed at home, so I used a picure of this company who gave us to try delicious strawberry (!) ketchup

Last week(end) was again a period with many activities related to food and urban farming. One more interesting than the other. I’ll try to give you a short report of a Food in theStreets week and will tell you about the highlights (and disappointments) of it all.

The first activity which took me away from my desk early was the yearly gathering of the Slow Food Milano members. Although Slow Food still has the reputation of being mainly a gastronomic organisation it has widened its scope already a long time ago. With the blending in of Terra Madre in the original Slow Food foundation it became much more directed towards politics, economics and sustainability. Now the food is not only good, but also clean and fair! The meeting discussed the future of the organisation and more specifically the activities of the local department like the bi-monthly Mercatodella Terra and the new accessible Masters of Food on avoiding waste in the kitchen.

Wednesday I had to leave even earlier to arrive in time at the presentation of CiBi, a new free magazine on food. The magazine wasn’t new to me as I started a collaboration with them a few months ago, but this event was the official launch and thus time for a party. After a very short presentation of the chief and other involved persons, the festivities could start. Completely in style, they organised a tasting of products from a new caterer using products from local farmers. The set-up was done very well and the products where definitely of high quality. It was only a shame that people attacked the plates like they hadn’t eaten for weeks. So tasting became a ‘eat as much as you can’ event. A shame that people don’t respect the food and enjoy it, but eat it because it is free.

The week had to finish interesting with lectures on High Tech Green.  Unfortunately, the program started with a delay of an hour. I am sorry to say that also the rest of the symposium wasn’t organised very well, the amount of audience disappointing (especially when you’ve seen the people entering the fairgrounds) and the lectures not of a high level thereby not contributing to the development of the theme. However I enjoyed a bike ride and a visit to this interesting piece of Massimiliano Fuksas.

The weekend started close to home with a lecture series on urban farming. And even though I knew about all the advantages it has it was interesting to meet a group of people going in the same direction as I am. Although the company who made the event possible pushed us in a very clear direction  I think everyone got the message and will decide for themselves how to spread this into the world. Preferably not only by talking about it but by really acting on it.

After a busy week, the rest of the weekend was for relaxation. I went to see a movie at the new film festival in town (go and see ‘The Human Scale’ on the work of Jan Gehl), had a quiet breakfast at Sunday morning and tried some nice dishes at the market of Cox 18.

Now a new week has started. This one definitely more quiet than the last one. So I promise you that next week I will give you a true Food in the Streets blog again. In the meantime, stay updated with the daily posts on Facebook.  

Urban (t)issues

40.000 bottles a day. Not a thing you do in the centre of the city thinking of all the logistics and space needed

Remember that some years ago I wrote a blog about the food industry and its relation with the city? If you need a reminder, follow this link (for English) or this one (for Italian). It is an issue which has always took my intention, since the interest for the subject was born during my studies for architecture. But at this moment  it has my particular attention since I am starting a research on it, planning to make a real Food Tour Milano.

The idea of a Food Tour isn’t mine but came from a great organization based in Amsterdam. This group started a few years ago and has always had food and its’ relation with the city as its main topic. To some extend their actions are inspired by the book Hungry city written by the British architect Carolyn Steel. In this book she explains ‘how food shapes our cities’ thereby influenced by certain external factors like the Industrial Revolution (trains allowing to transport over longer distances) and the after WWII economic boom which allowed everyone to have a freezer and thus store over longer periods (and go for weekly shopping in the big supermarkets in the outskirts of town). When you want to know more about it, read the book.

My task is now to do this research for a big North Italian city. The research still needs to start (funding is really welcome) but a first investigation helped me already to get an idea of where I need to look for. And the enthusiasm for the first results made me really curious. So last Sunday I headed of to the western parts of the town to visit the famous Fernet-Branca factories.

Fernet-Branca is a liquor which originally was created as a medicine for people suffering from cholera. Some of the visitors told us that – when they were younger - their mom gave them some of the drink when they had problems with their intestines or stomach. It helps you to digest and that is how it finally got popular all over the world.

The tour yesterday directed us from the invention of the drink in the mid eighteen hundreds to todays’ production process. In 1845 Bernardino Branca set-up the first branch near Porta Nuova, one of the cities entrances. At that time the location was strategic in the sense that is used to be well connected to other parts of the country thanks to the closeness of the Navigli Martesana (Martesana canal) and the city’s first railway station going from Milano to Monza. (info found here)

In 1910 - the drink had still mainly a medicinal function - the company moved its production process further out of town. I haven’t found out yet why they decided to move (one of the jobs to be done later) but I guess it had something to do with the size of the factory needed in relation with the sizes of the plots available, its price and the security requirements.

Slowly bits and pieces of the influence of food in the development of the city are found. Fernet-Branca’s story is just one of many. In a few months I hope to have the puzzle completed and to be able to tell you a consistent story. Stay in touch by following this blog and the facebook page to find the first tour dates!

Thanks to this photographer for the cover foto. More pictures can be found here. 

It’s still summer

A good breakfast with fresh orange juice, figs, french toast (!) and coffee!

When I tell people that my blog is called Food in the Streets, people usually think that I write about street food. It is true that there is an match in the words but actually street food is not a topic that is mentioned a lot. Food in the Streets is about the relation between people, food and cities and therefore talks about many different subjects. It allow myself to write about it as long as they are related to the above named themes. See this weeks' blog for an example.

Off course we all hope that autumn leaves us alone for a while. However, we can’t ignore some of its first signs: days are getting shorter, nights are cooler and some trees already started to change their leaves into the typical autumns colors. Therefore it is now the time to enjoy the last rays of warm sun. Three suggestions follow here.

Wake up early and take a breakfast on your balcony (or a caffé’s terrace) before you start a day in the office. The sun now rises halfway the city’s skyline at the moment the average office worker is having his first cup of coffee. Enjoy the combination of a fresh morning, the rising sun and a hot cup of freshly brewed coffee. Your day at office can’t go wrong anymore.

Something what tastes good all year round is even better when the sun makes you feel like it’s springs. Even though the atmosphere is different – it is more humid, and temperatures are usually higher – the September sun can make you feel like you are in this season. Enjoy it when you can because this feeling might not come back for the coming months. And when you are doing this, you should treat yourself with a delicious ice-cream. Why not flirting with both seasons and combine fresh peach flavor with the more heavy cinnamon one?

If you are as lucky that even during the weekend the sun is with you, than profit from it. For the last time this year you should gather your picnic set and head of to a nice park. Don’t forget to fill up your basket with all the fresh fruit and veggies this season has to offer: plums, melons, newly harvested apples, salads and the last tomatoes. The combination of the colors is definitely going to make you feel like you’re in a summer party. Invite your friends and have fun!

For me this weekend is about to be a combination of all the suggestions. There’s definitely going to be a good breakfast, but on my dining table, with the windows open, bringing in the fresh air. For one of the afternoons a bike ride to this gelateria is planned. They have the craziest flavors and I want to try some of them. The picnic is probably going to be a barbecue. Nothing wrong with that either, ain’t it?

Like the facebook page to be noticed when the foto's of my weekend are published.

Step one in the green dream

Interesting products to make food grow close to your kitchen

Some time ago I told you about me having a dream. More importantly that if you have one, the only way to realize it, is to wake up and work on it. For some weeks, that’s what I’m doing now.

Part of the process is doing things which maybe are not something you really like to do or which are not your best characteristics. These are things you need to step over or you won’t get there anyways. So last Friday I woke-up early and headed over to a town two hours away to visit a fair. A fair on flowers, plants and everything you need to grow and maintain them. Did you know something like that exists?

The fair wasn’t the reason to head south, but was an interesting side-effect. By signing me up to the conference on ‘technical green’ I was allowed to enter the fairground and to see what’s going on in the business, talk to some people and distribute my business cards. What I hate about this, is that people are not interested in you, but only in the money they might make out of the conversation.

So far so good. I concentrated on the lectures which were meant to share information on what green can do for the urban environment: why we enjoy parks, what are the advantages of green office courtyards and which profits there are when installing a green rooftop. Sounds all super interesting when you try to create a real relation between food, people and the cities.

Unfortunately the program was so full of interesting lecturers and so much time got lost by saying ‘please hurry up’ and ‘I’ll try to be short’ that the presentations couldn’t really get much further than showing beautiful pictures of architectures and landscapes. That wasn’t where we came for.

For me technical green does not only mean that flowers and plants make a place look nice, but that people really enjoy it. It should be explained why: temperatures are better, cars are far away, you can hear the birds, see the seasons, smell the flowers. And thereby you should not forget to think about other functionalities you can get from so called technical green. For example the food it can provide.

I learned a lot that day. I am still not a big fan of fairs but who knows what come out of the business cards swops I did? More over I also learned that my dream has not been realized in the country I live in now. So I’ll stay awake and continue the work.

An urban farm tour – Day II

Real food is growing in the Nutstuin

After speed-visits in the Dutch cities of Eindhoven en Utrecht, I took some more time to visit the wide diversity of urban farming projects in The Hague. Don't forget to check out (and share) the pics here. 

From a city known as De Hofstad (the courts’ city) you don’t expect people to be rebellions. But this is anything but the truth. All ‘farms’ I visited here where initiated by the locals themselves. Only one of them is institutional, but open to the public during working hours. I will explain more about it when we arrive at the place. By the way. An overview of the pictures can be found here. 

The first green I bumped is was almost right after I left the train. The organization Lusthof has the (ambitious) idea of creating a more pleasant city, full of respect and green. Why not try it? The first attempts can be found in a lively area between one of the main train stations and the old center. An interesting locations since it is on the crossing of a characteristic canal, with all the typical Dutch details you can imagine, and a busy streets crossing a zone with dominated by North Africans and the cities China Town.

Small plots created by Lusthof are spread out around the bridge and some of the surrounding streets. It is a funny thing to see corn growing on the sides of a city street and to be able to pick fresh zucchini after you had a drink on one of the nearby terraces. And it is interesting to see how much this green is appreciated and respected. Luckily so far only one ‘accident’ was reported. Not bad, for that neighborhood!

An installation of the artist Annechien Meier was the next stop. In 2010 she started  - together with her fellow inhabitants of the Panderplein houses – this interactive garden. On a (hidden) public courtyard, not far from the center, she and here neighbors transformed a grey square into a green Eden which can be enjoyed by anyone who likes it. At the time we visited it, they where preparing it for the yearly Pander festival with the fitting name ‘Safari in Pander’. Hope they didn’t get lost in the overwhelming green areas.

The only institutional project I visited was subject of one of my earlier blogs. This green pearl was opened to the public over 2 years ago. After being used as a parking lot for years, the users of surrounding buildings decided for it to have more potential. And they were right! The garden now is enjoyed by office workers having their lunch break and in summer there is an outdoor film program. The garden is such a success that an adjacent parking flat decided to join-in and made its face green as well! Another hurray for this initiative!

Before heading back home I quickly passed by the New Babylon tower, and more specifically their restaurant. The tower is still under construction, but the Mediterranean oriented restaurant is already welcoming their guests. The young host kindly showed me around and explained us all about the spices in the garden bordering their terrace. Every day the chef goes into the garden and decides what he will use for that days menu. As soon as the offices and houses are inhabited as well he might get some help -  and competition – from them. An interesting project where commercial and private use should come together in one garden. Hope they succeed to make it a success.

These two days of visiting green projects in the Netherlands was great, but by far not enough to visit them all. As I said before, the country is full of cool initiatives, which can inspire many others. Don’t hesitate to let this happen to you and create you own ‘urban farm’. 

An urban farm tour – Day I

The Tuinfabriek at Utrecht Central Station

It was the best time of the year to do it. Harvest is ready to be picked while outside temperatures are still pleasant. I took some days off, bought all-day train tickets and traveled through the Dutch Randstad to see some of the many urban farming projects realized. Here a report, on facebook the photos. Like them, if you do……

The first stop was unexpected but therefore not less welcome. While transporting myself towards the Eindhoven train station I passed by this greenbusstop. As I’d never heard of it, I thought it was quite new. Further research showed me that the stop was already designed in 2009. No vegies or spices are growing here (yet) but I guess there is a good opportunity to create a network of green abri, offering users of the public transport a wide range of flavors while moving from one place to another.

The official tour was about to start on the first European urban farm in Rotterdam. The project called Uit je Eigen Stad (From Your Own City) took a long time to get started as it wasn’t easy to get the right permissions. Which is not very strange, as you know that this farm is situated on a former harbor site. Unfortunately an unexpected delay made me skip this stop. Next time I am inn as friends told me lunch and location were great!

Next stop was at Utrecht Central Station, or more specifically the Hoog Catharijne shopping centre which connects the station with the old city center. A weird place and nominated several times as the most ugly place in the country. Also the owner has realized this and decided to initiate a summer full of cultural events. These days cultural events in the Netherlands can’t succeed without some innovative food projects. In this case an urban farm on top of the mall. Not just an urban farm. No, one created by an artist and maintained by the inhabitants from neighboring apartment buildings. Now they both profit; the artist has her caretakers, while the inhabitants can look to and live on a beautiful designed and green (!!) rooftop.

Besides tomatoes, pumpkins, potatoes, zucchini and the like, this garden also left room for The Chickenclub (yes, some two legged ladies walking around in their cage here) and to composing machines. With this making it a more realistic copy of an average daily diet, traditionally composed out of vegetables, grains or potatoes and fish or meat.

During my visit, the garden work had just finished and the neighbors enjoyed a drink, some snacks and a barbecue. It is interesting to see that, while people one floor below hurry to catch trains or get their children from daycare, on this rooftop people relax, enjoy the late summer evenings and where able to create something beautiful out of a space which was ignored for years. Well, done!  

Day two was reserved for The Hague. The city housing the government seems to become overgrown by different scales and forms of urban farming. Check it out soon!