Heavy coffee break

Although I’ve already dedicated some posts to coffee (see A damping cup of coffee and Another cup of coffee on coffee habits in the Netherlands and abroad, and Coffee lovers on the way Italians enjoy this drink) none of them discussed into much detail the process that is needed to get you the drink that you so need in the morning. Let’s start the long journey immediately. But let me warn you first. This story definitely has a dark side as well.

The most fun story about the origin of coffee says that the Ethiopian shepherd Kaldi discovered the positive effect of the berries around 500 A.D. His goats – that were eating the berries of a bush – got very active. The shepherd decided to take the berries to a befriended monk. He however refused to believe it and threw the berries in the fire. While the beans were roasted, a delicious flavor of coffee filled the air. This made them act immediately and save it from burning completely. Somehow, someone came up with the idea to solve the roasted berries in a glass of water. Coffee, as we know it today, was born.

From there on it took about 1000 years for the first coffee to cross the borders of the mid-African countries and arrive in the important trading cities of Damascus, Cairo and Istanbul. From there the beans were imported into Europe. The drink became popular very quickly thanks to its arrival in Venice and a Pope that took the role of ambassador of coffee.  

The countries in which coffee bushes were grown increased at the speed of the growing popularity of the drink. The Dutch East Indian Company took it to Indonesia and Java, the French to the Caribbean and soon the Portuguese found a way to introduce it in Brazil as well. By the end of the 17^th century, coffee houses were part of each (Western) city and played an important role in social, economic and political life.

During a lecture in occasion of the upcoming EXPO2015, an executive of the worldwide known coffee brand illy stated that business and social responsibility could go hand in hand. This is a relevant subject as it concerns products that are produced in so-called underdeveloped countries and consumed in the developed ones. Unfortunately, our wealthy Western lifestyle is not always reflected in other parts of the world.

While the coffee plants and houses conquered the world, another phenomenon followed soon after; slavery. Like happens often, if there is a market, there is people that make a lot of money and people that suffer. The first ones are usually the ones with the power, the second ones are in less fortunate positions and mostly have no choice but to do whatever they are asked to do. This is the case with coffee, but also with cacao, bananas and other products that grow in the countries around the equator.

So while you can have as many coffee as you can handle during a day, a kid that in our world would still be obligatory to go to school is working his ass-off taking care of the coffee plants for a minimum fee. And there is a huge change that he or she has not ever tried a coffee himself and probably it won’t happen either. Have you thought of that when you complained about the costs of your Nespresso cups or the price of your mega-Starbucks takeaway?

The journey continues. More and more coffee sellers (bars, restaurants, etc.) realize that it is unfair to profit from the people that have no feet to stand on. Buying and selling Fairtrade coffee is a good way to help to improve the circumstance of coffee growers, that usually are small (family) businesses, as stated in an article on Stanford Social Innovation Review. It is a way to respect the people that once were and still are the victims of our endless consumerism. Is it not much fairer to make them enjoy life the way we do?

Were back home. Time to have a coffee now.

Restaurant Day II

Those who follow Food in the Streets on facebook know that I participated (again) to Restaurant Day. After all the fun of the preparations, yesterday finally was the big day in which I could receive my guests and let them enjoy my so famous apple pie. It was a very cool experience that I want to share with you. I hope that you get so enthusiastic that you will be there the next time too!

The preparations for the one-day event started already at the end of last year. I felt like organizing something related to my interest for food, people and cities and thought a second participation to Restaurant Day might be a good reason to do so. Besides that, the event is not very known yet in Italy.  I am sure that with support from people that believe in the idea that food is the perfect tool to bring people together, the Restaurant Day could grow big here as well.  

The idea to make a Dutch style apple pie was born immediately after that. It is one of my favourite pies, easy to make and usually appreciated by the ones who eat it. The only thing that was left to do, was make sure that the number of visitors increased or, actually, at least doubled compared to my first participation. So as soon as the new year had taken off, I started to fill my facebook page with teasers that would convince my followers to come. It seemed all to go well with about six reservations, both from friends as from ‘strangers’.

As promoted by myself, I made the pie a day before, so that all the flavours could absorb. On the day itself, the only thing left was making my house ready, buying flowers, take out the best crockery set available and wait for the visitors to come. To me this is always the most exciting moment. Will they come or not?

About an hour after the starting time of the opening of my ‘restaurant’, the doorbell rang. Two enthusiastic Finnish girls were so brave to conquer the rainy afternoon and come over to my place to enjoy a cup of tea. While we were all enjoying a piece of apple pie we had a good chat about living in another country than the one you’re born and grown-up in.  It was good fun, but I guess all four of us were wondering whether the doorbell would ring again.

Time passed by until it was about six o’clock, closing time for this one-day restaurant. Silently disappointed by the people not showing up I decided to give the girls two pieces of pie to bring to their partners. What did go wrong? Was it my pie, is it the Italians that have other activities on Sunday or what?  

Although I am disappointed by the low number of visitors I decided that it is too early to give up on Restaurant Day in Italy. An event like this needs promoters that convince others to follow them. Next time I’ll hook up with a friend, go outdoors and see if it works out that way. You’ll now as you continue following me.

The next Restaurant Day will be held on Saturday the 17^th of May. Check their website to read how easy it is to open your own restaurant for a day.

Talk like you eat

Prototyping a Food Council in Amsterdam. Foto by Farming the City

This Sunday - 16 February - Restaurant Day Italia also at Food in the Streets! I’ll make a delicious apple pie which you do not want to miss. For more info follow the link to the invitation (anche in Italiano)

In Italy they have a saying which goes like this: ‘Parla come Mangi’. It translates into ‘Talk like you Eat’. This is a way to say that talking should go as easy and natural like eating. Well, in Italy it is like this. But sometimes they exaggerate it, keep talking and forget to act. Let’s see if there is a possibility to change this.

Since 2008, the moment that Milan heard that they could organize the EXPO in 2015, the city is preparing for this event. It took a while but lately people realized that time is getting short. This is the moment that the government, businesses and organizations should stop talking and start acting or it will be too late to turn this unique opportunity into a step forward for the city.

The theme of the EXPO 2015 is ‘Feeding thePlanet. Energy for Life’. It mainly wants to discuss new visions on food security, safety and sufficiency. However, this involves much more than just academic discussions on agriculture, OMG, etc. Translating the theoretic starting point of this event into everyday practice can have a huge influence on the way the city functions, the way it foresees in its food and the social component of eating and its environmental and health consequences. However, therefore action is needed.

In the past year I’ve spend a lot of time listening to presentations and lectures related to the EXPO theme: Schools like Sissa that collaborate with other universities and governments on the project FoodCAST to do research on the future of sustainable food supply; local organizations like Lunedi Sostenibili that acts as a platform for initiatives for greener and sustainable lives in the city. All very relevant initiatives that gather people that can learn from each other or that should put together their forces to make a real change. But it is mainly talking what they do.

From what I’ve seen, Italians spent a lot of time ‘eating’ and are not very good in digesting this into energy that is again transformed into action. I think this mainly has to do with a mentality that is different from the one I’m used to. I come from an organized country where you can not afford to waste time waiting, talking, thinking. It is a society where you want to act. If not direct than via a detour. The beauty of the Mediterranean countries is, that people have time to chat, to discuss and to create ideas but the backdrop is that they find so much difficulties that it makes them decide to forget about it. This makes that many ideas end up in the waste bin which is a real pity.

Back to the upcoming world exposition and the positive influence it might have on the city. Lately the major of Milan dropped the idea of making a food protocol, bringing into practice the Kyoto goals for food. Off course, he is not going to do this on his own. As he says, Milan is going to be the point of reference for reciprocal effort of the cities that will be included in a new network. Seems like a good idea and I seriously hope the city can realize this within the short period of time still available.  

This whole idea of profiting from the opportunities that an exposition like the one in 2015 is giving to the city starts to land also in smaller (non-profit) organizations. Although it is still a lot of talking that is going on, there are already some groups that moved to prototype their idea to see if it works. Milano in Azione (Milan in Action) for example started with a group of people that feed the homeless on Sunday night, when the official food services are closed. Thanks to their active associates they now are realizing a garden where there ‘clients’ can start to grow their own food and learn (again) what it is like to have a job. Other good initiatives are Coltivando, urban gardens by students from the Politecnico and neighbours from the University area, and the proposal by Milano Restaurazione that is working on a project called Ri-Ponte in which they work on the reduction of waste, the use of tap water and conscious shopping.

For me it is important that people act. I know it is not always simple, there might be a lot of paper work to do and rules to obey or to go around, but in the end this will be so satisfying that you forget about it. It is like cooking, that sometimes requires a lot of work but in the end only makes you enjoy!

Traditions

Italian traditions as explained by Albert Heijn

After the Christmas holidays, when traditions are more important than the question if we really enjoy what we do, we are just getting back into our daily rhythm. At the same time we start to forget about the best intentions we made to break with our (bad) habits. Therefore I thought I’ll give you a wake-up call before it is too late.

In the Netherlands Christmas 2013 was meant to be different than the others; no stress, just enjoying. A big supermarket (Albert Heijn) published a menu, which was called (freely translated) christmust instead of christmiss. Their monthly magazine was full of ‘building stones’ that helped the client to make delicious meals without spending hours in the kitchen. The only one suffering was the waste bin, which had to handle the huge amount of packaging materials that came with it. Maybe a new tradition?

Though most of the Italians are (or at least seem) traditional, the same Dutch supermarket recently used every known cliché for their special ‘Italian weeks’. Before you continue to read, I advise you to check it out yourself following this link to their new commercial.

I know of Italian people that still visit their parents weekly, even though they have to travel over two hours to arrive there. I know that Italians like their coffee strong after 11 o’clock. I also know that Italians are proud of their cucina and that they will not hesitate to fill-up their Ryanair suitcases with litres of olive oil from their hometown because it is much better than the one you get at the supermarket up north.  But I also know that the before mentioned commercial is just telling a romantic story which we Dutch (and also others from outside Italy) like to believe in, but which is true only for a tiny bit.

Tradition seems less obvious in other countries. In the tv program about farmers I talked about last week one of the potential partners asked the farmer to go for some typical food of his home country, Canada. I am almost embarrassed to say they ended up in a KFC like fast-food restaurant! How romantic. No wonder he could not convince the girl to fall in love with him….

Also last week I read a post by an American living in Paris on the disappearance of farmers on the Parisian farmers market. While in America these markets become bigger as a response to the food scandals, health situations and changing economy the French ones seem to lose the competition from the super- or hypermarches making shopping much easier and less time consuming. Another tradition gone.

But back to the Italians and the Dutch publicity. Two things need to be addressed. On one hand the Italians really hold on to their traditions: the constant rhythm of three meals a day, clearly divided in sweet stuff in the morning, a lot in the afternoon and something light before bedtime, the delicacies that belong to specific festivities like the chiacchiere for carnival and the locality of certain dishes like the ragù from Bologna.

On the other hand Italians also do enjoy new things. Also Italians like to travel, explore new countries and cultures and thus also new foods. Last year, Milan ‘suffered’ from a hype about ‘American’ burger restaurants and this year it seems like every week a new ‘ramen’ restaurant is opened. The Italians start to appreciate new flavours but the question is how original these places are.

Then it is true (now I really come back to the publicity) that there is a big difference between life in cities and life on the countryside. In the country people live more slow, grow their own food and have less amenities than in cities. I am sure it is the people living here that keep the traditions of Italians truly alive, while the citizens rather leave this behind and act like real cosmopolitans. Even though sometimes even they love to live thislife as well.

One beautiful tradition however, which was forgotten about but comes back now, especially in cities, is the so called caffè spospeso. This is not a type of coffee, but a way to support the less fortunate in society. If you go for a caffè spospeso it means to you take one coffee in a bar but pay for two. The extra coffee is meant for the person who cannot afford it. Such a small gesture, but very social, don’t you think? Some traditions are worth maintaining or re-introducing, even if you are a cosmopolitan.