Dining Features

Transcription

Dining Features
Let Don Genova show you how to eat, direct from Italy | Straight.com
28/04/2008 09:03 AM
Browse Vancouver Listings
Arts
Search
Home
Arts
Blogs
Classifieds
Contests
Dining
Lifestyle
Movies
Music
News
Personals
Style
Tech
Events
search
Features | Golden Plate Awards | Recipes | Recommendations | Restaurant Listings | Wine Beer and Spirits
RSS
newsletters
back issues
site map
log in
Dining Features
chicny
I am a mature adult who is
still very youthful,...
www.straight.com/personals/
After a year of study in Italy, food journalist Don Genova will share his gastronomic gain
over a series of food-culture classes in Vancouver.
April 24, 2008
Login or register to post comments
Recent articles in Dining Features
Tasting the salts of the earth
email
print
Let Don Genova show you how to eat, direct from Italy
Okanagan Wine Tours - Let your GPS be your
guide
By Angela Murrills
Okanagan wines can compete with the best
Once upon a time, before culinary writers, bloggers, and Web sites existed,
people learned about food firsthand. Travellers returned from exotic lands with
strange seeds and spices. Aspiring chefs refined their techniques by watching
not Gordon Ramsay but their elders. Home cooks picked up tips from Mom. So in
a way, Don Genova, food journalist and educator, is heir to a long tradition that
began when one Stone Ager said to another, “You know, if you brush some sap
from that tree over there on your T. rex T-bone, supper will really rock.”
Make room in your kitchen for grains to swell up
with flavour
Perhaps not touching on T-bones but covering almost everything else edible,
Genova will be sharing his gastronomic knowledge at a series of Food Culture
classes, May 5 to June 30 at Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks (1740 West 2nd
Avenue). He developed the content during close to a year of study that led to his
gaining a master’s degree in food culture in 2007 from the University of
Gastronomic Sciences, in Colorno, Italy. “One goal of going to school was to get
a deeper background,” he says over coffee, describing how the course combined
classroom study, research trips, and a two-month internship during which he
worked on the food-culture course.
Where the wok meets India
Dining Features Archive
Recent articles by Angela Murrills
How green and veggie beautiful is your garden?
Mandala Iki Asian Bistro
Subtle spice route leads to Saravanaa Bhavan
New talent, hip pros hit Fashion Week runways
Angela Murrills Archive
www.hotelzunica.it
Italy Sicily Cooking
Tour
Cook with Italian
chefs, wines, sea
walks, Mount Etna,
volcanoes
www.ItalyCookingSchools.com/
Most Popular Articles
Is B.C. ready for peak-oil refugees?
While he was still in Italy, Genova says, the University of Victoria contacted him,
interested in developing a minor or a continuing-studies certificate in sustainable
gastronomy. He taught the resulting course this past February and March.
Ang Lee in Vancouver, Part 3: On Canada and Bill
C-10
The classes he took meant exposure to instructors from all over the world. “We
learned some pretty obscure stuff—why so many French restaurants ended up
on one particular street in Belgium in the 19th century, about branding of
products, about tradition that’s so apparent in Europe and not apparent here.”
Opting to live in Colorno rather than livelier Parma, 20 kilometres away, also
gave him more face time with visiting professors like Corby Kummer, food editor
at the Atlantic Monthly.
Dino-dragon and robot porn
“Field trips were the highlight,” Genova says, describing a stay on Crete, where
he watched goats being milked and saw phyllo pastry made from scratch. A visit
to Spain involved learning about sausage and cheese production, and a session
with molecular gastronomist Ferran Adrià of El Bulli. France was Burgundy, more
cheese, and Charolais beef.
Italian charming
dwelling
In an ancient village in
Abruzzo, For gourmets
and nature lovers
Your horoscope for April 24 to May 1, 2008
Right-wing pundits, Jeremy Leggett, Bill Clinton,
and peak oil
Food crisis sparks violence across the globe
Dilip Mehta's The Forgotten Woman highlights
Indian widows
Taste of Chaos chills in Vancouver
British Columbia’s manufactured energy crisis
Ang Lee in Vancouver, Part 2: On Asia and Asians
As for producers of prosciutto and Parmigiano, they were right in Genova’s
Italian neighbourhood. Getting up close and personal with the sources, origins,
and entire cycle of authentic European food has given Genova a far broader
perspective on what’s happening back home in Canada. “Part of what I talk
http://www.straight.com/article-142824/how-eat-direct-italy
Pagina 1 di 2
Let Don Genova show you how to eat, direct from Italy | Straight.com
28/04/2008 09:03 AM
perspective on what’s happening back home in Canada. “Part of what I talk
about [in the lectures] is food security,” he says, citing Barcelona, which “puts
great stock in its public markets, which are administered by the city but run by the
stall holders”.
The founders of the University of Gastronomic Sciences are Slow Food and the
regional governments of Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont, so it’s fitting that the
first session of Genova’s course focuses on food culture and the Slow Food
movement, and that the guest speaker is Slow Food Vancouver president
Christina Beaudoins. Next up is olives. “We’ll taste four or five olive oils, and
different kinds of olives,” Genova says, describing how he likes to heat olives
with rosemary, thyme, and orange and lemon peel. Yes, there may be a cooking
demo. For a session entitled Cheese and Terroir, he and Allison Spurrell of Les
Amis du Fromage will delve into history and production. Feasting, Fasting and
Wine takes participants on a trip from the Middle Ages to modern times. Bruce
Swift of Swift Aquaculture, who practises a closed-cycle polyculture involving
coho salmon and wasabi in Agassiz, joins Genova for a session called
Sustainable Seafood.
This series of classes brings home how deeply Vancouver’s food culture has
evolved in recent years, with Oyama Sausage Company’s Jan van der Lieck
presenting samples of his charcuterie against the wider context of Genova’s
photos and video of Italian Parma ham and culatello di Zibello production. A
Food Security lecture questions whether we can, in fact, find it locally, regionally,
or even nationally, with input from Devorah Kahn, food-policy coordinator for the
City of Vancouver. The series concludes with Food and the Media, which looks
at the influence that advertising and media coverage have on our tables, with
documentary filmmaker Nick Versteeg providing an insider perspective.
And if a year of food studies is calling, know this: Genova only spoke poco Italian
when he started the course, but can now understand it. Classes are held in
English, and you can get more information at www.unisg.it/eng/. And surprisingly,
while there, he even lost weight.
In the series Food Culture: From Fast Food to Slow Food, individual classes are
$65, which includes the companion book or DVD; the package of eight is $480.
For more information, see www.bookstocooks.com/. Call 604-688-6755 to
register.
Login or register to post comments |
email this page |
version
printer friendly
Comments Disclaimer
Post New Comment
Great Offers
Microsoft Zune HVA-00001 8GB D
$179.99 Buy Now
About Us Advertise at the Straight
© 2008 Vancouver Free Press
Straight Facts
Terms And Conditions
http://www.straight.com/article-142824/how-eat-direct-italy
Privacy
Online Privacy
Careers
Contact Us
Masthead
Link To Us
Pagina 2 di 2