Tips from the Network of Cooks

The Earth Workshops for Terra Madre cooks enjoyed enthusiastic and active support, with a veritable explosion of ideas. Here are some of the many suggestions and recommendations put forward and shared by cooks from many parts of the world, including Africa, Ireland, United States, France Colombia, Lithuania and Brazil, among many others.

- Be patient … it is necessary to be patient in communicating what might seem obvious to all of us.
- Educate your colleagues about the importance of seasonality in products used. There are still relatively few cooks who understand the benefits.
- It isn't enough to get supplies from markets of small producers: we have to “adopt” them, and build up a real relationship with them.
- Go into schools, meet children, teach them to cook and eat properly
- Think about what you could eliminate from your work environment in order to reduce pollution: bottled water for example, or tablecloths which have to be continually washed.
- Set objectives, even if minor, and keep to them.
- Teach at least one person to cook something.
- Persuade producers to sell directly to restaurants and other institutions, cutting out intermediaries.
- Teach cooks to establish direct relations with farmers and producers, and try to resolve any logistical problems that might arise.
- Create opportunities for cooks to meet and discuss, build up networks.
- Motivate young people to eat good and fair food.
- Don't fall into the certification trap: it is not always the right answer. Sustainable food products often cannot bear the costs, while certificated “organic” products may be enormous monocultures. Get information about your producers.
- Organize days involving the community, for example a soup day, where people pay according to their means for a simple meal shared with other people.
- Ensure that young cooks can prepare their grandparents’ dishes.
- Reduce waste as much as possible through recycling and composting. What comes into a restaurant is important, but so is what goes out.
- Reduce the amount of meat in menus in favor of vegetables.
- Being a cook isn't a job: it is a collective experience.
- Never forget the importance of pleasure.

At the end of the first workshop for Terra Madre cooks, Alice Waters declared that “we must revitalize our senses and become a political force. We must also educate opinion leaders about good, clean and fair food”. In response, Fia Gullikson invited all cooks to the Terra Madre Chefs' day, on the 11th of november 2008.
If you want to take part in this special day, these are the main points to observe:
- Invite 5 influential people to a festival or convivial event dedicated to gastronomic pleasure.
- Cooperate with local, organic producers or producers who are part of a fair trade network.
- Use this opportunity to communicate the values of Terra Madre and the idea of good, clean and fair food.
- Invite local media to the event or inform them of the initiative.
- The event can be held wherever the cook is working on November 11: at home, at their restaurant or other work venue.
- Tell us about the day by writing to communication@slowfood.it

LET'S START A COOKING REVOLUTION AND SHOW PEOPLE SLOW FOOD IN ACTION!


Contacts:
Fia Gulliksson
fia@foodinaction.se
Claudio Bincoletto
luppolo@tiscali.co.uk

Fia Gullikson has published a plan of action on the Terra Madre Blog. You can find it here. All of you can post comments about it. To log on the blog, click on member login and use the following: username: delegate Password: terramadre2006

Terra Madre 2008 online

Opening ceremony

A concert, a meeting and a celebration. The opening ceremony for Terra Madre 2008 was all this and much more. A kaleidoscope of different faces, cultures and ethnicities coming together for the third edition of a unique event to meet, learn and enjoy themselves. 153 people, one from each participating country, formed a perfect mosaic on stage as Carlo Petrini opened proceedings.
To find out more, click here.

Closing ceremony

The Terra Madre closing ceremony began with a speech from Heeni Hoterene, a young Maori delegate from New Zealand before developing into an explosion of life, color and celebratory dance. After three days of cultural exchange, meetings and learning, it was time to have fun. To find out more, click here.

Learning Communities at Terra Madre

Among the rich program of Earth Workshop held this year at Terra Madre, a special seminar was dedicated to learning communities - a concept which has developed over recent years through the increasing number of educational projects developed by local Slow Food groups around the world.
To find out more, click here.

Sounds of Terra Madre

For the first time Salone del Gusto, Turin and Piedmont, hosted Sounds of Terra Madre performers and offered these non-professional musicians a stage to express the daily life and rituals of their agricultural communities.
To find out more, click here.

Youth Food Network

This year, the network grows stronger thanks to the emerging Youth Food Movement, committed to the defence of food and food culture. The participation of a delegation of young people representing the Youth Food Movement assures that food and agriculture knowledge will be handed from one generation to the next.
To find out more, click here.



Voices from Terra Madre

How did participants experience Terra Madre 2008? Here are some impressions and comments collected during and after the event.

Dear Terra Madre friends, For some time I have been wanting to share with you our experiences with a forgotten variety of bean and its use in local culinary traditions. This is our story. We were unhappy about the difficult economic situation in our region and in October 2005 created the Petrovo Polje cooperative. A few months later we received our first visit from the NGO UCODEP which was looking for forgotten local products, varieties and specialties. With their help we rediscovered the ancient variety of Lathyrus sativus, known locally as the Poljak bean,, which was at risk of disappearing. Two families still had 2 kg of seeds from this variety and decided to start growing it again. During this time we were also visited by representatives from the SeedNet project, who collected a small quantity of Poljak bean seeds to keep in their genetic databank. Then we attended Terra Madre 2006. It was there, meeting so many other local communities and producers from all over the world, that we became aware how important it was to defend traditions. We realized the benefits of sustainable agriculture and the need to share our experiences with our farmers and local authorities. Our first support came from the municipality of Trebinje (Bosnia Herzegovina), where nine local growers planted 50 kg of poljak beans in 2007. We then contacted the Ministry of Agriculture for the Srpska Republic (Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina). They decided to support our project to continue production of an ancient variety by covering production costs for the 2008 season and asking the Faculty of Agriculture in Banja Luka to study this variety. The number of producers has increased from 9 to 21 in the past year and they have produced 4200 kilograms of seeds. A large number of people from the Trebinje area have contacted us to obtain more information about the vegetable. As a result of our cooperative’s work, we have given about a dozen interviews to TV and other media interested in finding out more about ancient varieties and their importance. The members of the community are all proud of their achievements. We are involved in promoting the excellent properties of Poljak beans and have managed to enlist the support of bodies such as the Trebinje municipality and the Ministry of Agriculture. We were at Terra Madre again this year and had the opportunity to talk about our projects and discuss our problems.           Jovo Runjevac President of the Petrovo Polje Cooperative and producer of Poljak beans, Bosnia Herzegovina

Terra Madre was undoubtedly one of the liveliest and most practical events this century. When we were the pioneers attending the first edition in 2004, no one imagined such a wonderful event could exist anywhere in the world… several years have passed, friendships have been strengthened and exchanges established. For a few incredible days our lives have been vastly enriched, food producers of the world have met and learned from each other. Every one of us realizes how much knowledge other people have, that the world is amazingly varied and diverse. Beyond our small village, hut or luxury hotel there is an enormous world: Terra Madre. There couldn't be a more perfect name for an event: Terra Madre, Terre Mère, Tierra Madre, Mother Earth, Ñiah Sî (in Fang, the language spoken in part of Gabon, as well as Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo, and Sao Tomé). Thank you, Terra Madre, for enabling us to meet each other, helping us to realize that frontiers shouldn't exist because it is possible to “travel” and meet other people without a passport: we are after all just ourselves and nothing more than individuals. Terra Madre is a veritable melting pot of cultures and knowledge. We have discovered countries we had never heard of; we have met people we would never have encountered in everyday life. Terra Madre can be an opportunity for all countries having to face the problem of food sovereignty. I would like to thank those in Italy who believe in us, who do not consider us as outcasts: we do not need pity or paternalistic aid. We want respect, dignity and justice. We will meet up again for new challenges.           Odome Angone Mbolo Convivium de Libreville(Gabon) and delegate at Terra Madre 2008