Lindsay Anderson writes from UNSIG
dispatch #2
Buon giorno from Parma! More specifically, Colorno, where our University of Gastronomic Sciences (UNISG) campus is located. The school is housed in the Reggia di Colorno, a grand, buttery-yellow former palace built as a fortress in the 13th century. As a later Baroque palace, it was home to Napoleon’s second wife, and has since been occupied by a number of institutions, including – fun fact – an insane asylum. Now it is home to a variety of organizations including UNISG and ALMA, an international Italian culinary school. Our classroom runs the length of the palace’s gardens, which I must say provides the loveliest views I’ve ever had from a desk.
Our class is made up of twenty-five students, and each of us are proud to belong to the most diverse group UNISG has ever seen. We represent sixteen different countries, a privilege which has already enlivened classroom discussions and offered promises of a ‘Korean’ or ‘Greek’ or ‘Japanese’ night, to name a few. I am already pondering what on earth I will make on July 1st.
Ultimately, we share several things in common. Firstly, there is our love of food in cooking, eating, and discussing the issues surrounding it. Secondly, many of us have encountered the same dilemma: describing to people that we wish to work ‘in food,’ but then explaining that no, this does not mean we want to be chefs or food critics. This leads to the task of figuring out what our non-chef/non-critic niche is in the food world, with desires to extend ourselves beyond just trendy restaurants, glossy photos of styled food, and the Food Network.
Don’t get me wrong – I love eating out, reading food magazines, and I’ve learned most of what I know about cooking from people like Christine Cushing. It’s just that there are an indescribable number of things that food affects that aren’t always focused on, broadly including the environment, economics, politics, psychology, and anthropology. Within these many disciplines, there is all sorts of work to be done which relates to food, and amongst these lesser-known avenues are where many of us hope to find some understanding through this program.
We have been in school less than a week, but so far we have been lectured on molecular science, with a professor so understanding of her students that she made frequent analogies to butter and compared micelle cells to Ferrero Roche. With another prof, we have begun the long and perhaps impossible process of defining the word ‘gastronomy.’ Several days ago, we learned about the science of taste and smell, then were tested with scents to determine the winner of the ‘Gold,’ ‘Silver,’ ‘Bronze,’ and ‘Stone’ Noses (I did not win but thankfully wasn’t declared ‘Stone’).
We met and were lectured by Carlo Petrini, the founder of Slow Food. Through an interpreter, we listened to this very intense and passionate man talk about the need for gastronomy to be understood as a science, rather than the ‘art of eating delicately’ or ‘food pornography’ (a term quite frequently used in school thus far). He discussed the current food system, the notion of consumption, people’s right to pleasure, and issues surrounding Slow Food and elitism. Ultimately, he told us that the one thing we can be sure of after this program is that we will be confused. Even more-so than when we began it.
Judging by my experiences so far, I am willing to whole-heartedly embrace this confusion and ready to muddle-up-my-mind even further. And with you I shall share the chaos.
Two new things I learned in Italy today? That there are five, not four bakeries on my block, and that I have some incredibly poetic classmates.
Until next time!