Tag Archives: class

Food Anthropology: Chitalian Cuisine

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Last week, as part of a class on food anthropology, we all had to conduct an ethnographic study of a food production place in town using participant-observation methods (read: hanging out and discreetly taking notes). Rather than choosing one of the town’s many pizzerias or gelato shops, I decided to investigate the one place that has elicited a sort of morbid fascination for me for the last month: The Chinese restaurant in Bra. That’s right, there’s only one, and there isn’t too much other ethnic food in town to speak of, aside from a couple small kebab shops.

After enlisting the help of some comrades who claimed to be strong of stomach, we ventured toward Nin Hao Ristorante on the northern outskirts of town. It was 8 pm on a Monday night, and the restaurant was ostensibly open, but the dining room looked dark from the outside, and there were no signs of life, other than a Chinese man who was sitting on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette. I hesitated and gave a cautious tug on the door. The restaurant was desolate and the lights were even off. At that point, a server marched out, then turned to us with a smile as she flicked the light switch. We turned to each other apprehensively. I don’t know if I have ever dined at an entirely empty restaurant before.
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Wine Snobbery 101

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“Everyone has the ability to taste and analyze wine, you just need to have the vocabulary and focus to do it,” said Ann Noble, a retired UC Davis professor of Viticulture and Enology. With that, we launched into two days of Sensory Analysis classes, an overview of the sensory properties of wine (appearance, aroma, mouthfeel, flavor, aftertaste) and some of the psychological factors that influence the perception of wine. And though her appearance was unassuming, Noble turned out to be a colorful, crusty character full of dry, sarcastic comments such as “You just have a pinot fetish” and “You’re a prostitute when you’re a researcher because you need money!”

Indeed, Noble’s presentation on her research was impressive. Up till now, I had always been skeptical of professional wine tasters. First off, there have been lots of reports that wine ratings are inconsistent, even with repeated ratings from the same judges. Supposedly, lots of experienced wine drinkers can’t even tell red from white wine. Secondly, wine writers and aficionados tend to use ridiculously flowery languages to describe wines, like “Now, that’s a little girl from Morey-St.-Denis! A virgin. She needs to air a bit. Then we can all prod it, taste it and love it as we truly deserve, as God appointed us.” Yeah, okay.

Noble argued that wine experts who conduct labeled tastings are necessarily biased, and that results based on a few individuals are invalid. On the other hand, using a sensory panel of people trained to describe and quantify attributes of wine under ideal conditions (blind tastings, quiet room, no interfering odors) generates in statistically valid results. The panel provides objective, accurate and repeatable measurements. You can then use statistical techniques like principal components analysis to weight the importance of the descriptive variables, or partial least squares regressions to relate sensory data to chemical or consumer preference data. I am pretty sure the rest of the class was tuning out this section, but my inner stats nerd was in heaven. Who knew my stint at the Fed would be useful in oenology??
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Gastronomy School is Serious Business

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The view out the window from Aula 2, where we spend 6 hours a day in class

Classes at UNISG are held from 9 am to 4 pm, with an hour long lunch break at noon. Without too much self-incrimination, I will simply say that it has been a long time since I have had to focus so intensely, without the distraction of of the internets, on one subject for that length of time. This will require some adjustment.

There is no semester or quarter system in place, but rather, professors give lectures for a few days at a time whenever they are available (some are visiting from other universities) or periodically throughout the year. For the first couple days, we were lectured on traditional specialties from the various regions of Italy. The former yielded immediate payoffs as I went to the grocery store and began to analyse and recognise the breads and cheeses available here in the Piedmont region. Since we are in northwestern Italy in a cold, mountainous climate, the cuisine is characterized by robust dishes, the use of butter instead of olive oil (French influence), lots of antipasti, cheese and meat, and few pasta dishes. On Friday morning, one of my classmates brought in a couple local cheeses that we had discussed the day before, including a Bruss. This is a traditional Piedmontese cheese made by reusing the leftovers of different cheese that did not age well due to excess humidity or fermentation. You mix the cheeses into grappa (or wine or vinegar), and let it ferment, then beat it into a spread. Suffice it to say, I have had many very strong cheeses in my life, but this was the most intense, pungent cheese I have ever had, tart with the tang of fermentation. The hair on the back of my neck was raised, and you could see the noses wrinkle amongst my classmates. If I hadn’t known better, I wouldn’t have recognized the brus as cheese. American cheddar this was not. Unsurprisingly, Valeria (the native Italian) thought the brus was great.

We also had a lecture on the molecular analysis of taste, which is a throwback to high school chemistry class. Though people tend to simplify the perception of taste with a few adjectives (salty, sweet, earthy), there are chemical underpinnings for the way we taste foods differently, why sugar tastes differently than saccharine or aspartame. And there is still plenty of work to be done. For instance, we still haven’t pinned down the way miraculin (the protein in flavor-tripping miracle berries) works at a molecular level.
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First Day of School!

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In an effort to uphold my reputation as a crazy cyclist, the first thing I did upon arriving in Bra was to beeline to a second-hand bike shop and pick up a used bike. I am now the proud owner of an old school Atala, decked out with fenders, a bell and a basket. Fast she is not, but for 60 quid I could probably do worse.

The University of Gastronomic Sciences campus is about 6 km away from Bra, which is about the length of my old commute to the Fed. However, biking to class is considerably more difficult/hair-raising than going to the Fed because the route involves riding down a two-lane highway with a very, very steep, winding hill. Unless you are comfortable with biking downhill with lorries whizzing past you on a road with no shoulder, I don’t really recommend biking. As I flew down the hill this morning, I was traveling so quickly that my eyes were watering. To be fair, vehicles are courteous and do try to move to give you enough space, but there’s really not much room for error. Going back is even more hilarious because you now have to tackle going up the hill. Despite my best efforts, the bike slowly ground to a halt about halfway up the hill and I settled with walking the rest of the way up the hill. Perhaps I should have bought a bike with more than one speed.

Potential deathtrap? I thought about wearing a helmet but Valeria, my Italian flatmate, insists that no one aside from kids wear helmets in Italy. Also, it would ruin my hair.

The UNISG campus in Pollenzo is housed in the refurbished Agenzia di Pollenzo, built in 1833 for Carlo Alberto di Savoia, king of Piedmont-Sardinia at the time. As such, it looks like a castle, with turrets and an inner courtyard, and a church on the premises. About 4 billion euros were spent in restoring the grounds and modernizing the facilities for university usage, with funds contributed from Slow Food and local Italian governments. Today, the university serves 300+ students, and the grounds include a Michelin-starred restaurant (Guido), an upscale hotel, and Italy’s only wine bank, which carries and preserves wine from every producer in the nation.
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