| The 'Slow Food' Movement, Italian-Style: Gelato, Zucchini Flowers and Sheep's Cheese |
| Friday, 29 July 2011 | Dawn Marshallsay | Blog Entry |
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But how does the expansion of my belly fit into an environmental website, you might ask. It’s exactly that—the Italians have mastered the art of eating heartily but staying slim: sit, chew and enjoy good local produce. It’s no surprise that the Slow Food movement started in Italy. Carlo Petrini founded the Slow Food movement in 1986 to protect local produce in resistance to a McDonald’s opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome. Over 100,000 members in 132 countries now live by the concept of eco-gastronomy, which celebrates the connections between plate and planet, and aims for good, clean, fair food. So I set out on a mission to enjoy Italian food in Italian style. Lucky for me, Carabé Gelaterie of Via Ricasoli, 60, Florence uses traditional ingredients and methods, so I indulged in a biroche filled with chocolate granita. A biroche is a traditional Sicilian ice-cream sandwich, while granite is a semi-frozen dessert made from sugar, water and flavorings from Sicily. My desert tasted like a bread roll filled with chocolate spread, as I extracted its contents with a spoon until it was thin enough to get my teeth around. Customers can even leave comments in a big red book in the shop. Drawings of ice cream and smiling faces frame comments such as, “The best gelato in the history of gelato” (Natalie Maxwell, California) and, “The richest chocolate ice cream I’ve ever eaten” (seven-year-old boy from Spain). While the Carabé gelaterie allowed me to sample a more traditional version of my favorite desert, my vacation also allowed me to try two products I’d always deemed inedible: zucchini (corgette) flowers and sheep’s milk cheese. While many countries still throw away fiori di zucca, Italians cover them in egg batter and fry them in oil to create a delicate summer dish. Mine had a faint tang of aniseed. Like many vegetarians, I’m a big fan of cheese, so I thought I’d brave Italy’s sheep’s milk variety, Pecorino, which is reputedly strong. The Pecorino Toscano in my Panini was actually quite mild compared to the mature cheddar I’m used to in England. Later I learned that Toscany’s Pecorino is the only type that isn’t aged. In reward for stomaching cheese from yet another animal, I bought a €2 slice of pizza made with my favorite Italian cheese: mozzarella. Additional resources:
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As my favorite two foods are pizza and ice cream, I walked around Italy drooling like a dog. Every two meters I’d find a gelaterie selling countless flavors of ice cream, sorbet, granita and frozen yogurt—in cones, cups and brioche rolls. But whenever I was tempted to skip to pudding first, I’d stumble across a pizzeria selling slices as big as my face for €2 and be ‘forced’ back into my sensible mains-before-pudding routine. 
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