"Museo del Gusto" Sunday afternoon with Chef Walter Eynard

Antique Piemontese kitchen display,

Museo del Gusto, Frossaco

Sunday brought a welcome outing for us, along with my in-laws, over to the nearby Roman village of Frossaco.  It was off to a demonstration of Torre Pellice's favorite Chef, Walter Eynard, owner and chef of the 2 star Michelin restaurant, Flipot. As times change here as in other parts of the world, the restaurant has shifted from actively being open to now being open for private dining upon reservation. Times are changing everywhere. Chef Eynard has lost any of his touch and  produced  several stunning plates that lucky for us we all got a taste of in spite of the fact that the room was filled beyond capacity, spilling out into the wine tasting room.  The Museo del Gusto is a wonderful small  museum celebrating the many different origins and aspects of food and drink, down through the ages.  They have some wonderful antiques and  educational displays of the origins of local foods, but to me the best part of this museum, is that they are always offering a variety of interesting lectures, films, speakers and sampling. What's a food museum without some real food? To that end they opened a small shop inside featuring our wines of the Strada Reale dei Vini Torinese and locally produced food products, like honey, fruit preserves, fruit in moscato wine, polenta, digestivi and many other tempting treats. A great place to pick up a few items for yourself or for that special food basket for all occasions.

Back to Sunday's demo...

Chef Walter Eynard

 demonstrated 3 delicious plates

Delicious and eye appealing

Rollata di cavolo e trota salmonata in a saffron fumet

Savoy cabbage and trout rolls in a saffron fish sauce

This antipasto  plate was paired with 2 selections of white wine

Barge's Azienda  Le Marie's Blanc di Lissart

Erbaluce di Caluso Azienda Orsolani

Piatto Unico

Filetto di Cinghiale, con

riduzione salsa di vino

  Gnocchi e barbabietola, acciughe

e fonduta con pepe nero

Single plate of

Wild boar tenderloin in a red wine and juniper  sauce

with potato gnocchi in a beet root and anchovy sauce

and a side of cheese sauce with black pepper

paired with

Barge's Azienda Le Marie's "Debarges",

 a blend of Barbera and Nebbiolo grapes

Bavarese all'Arancia

Chocolate flecked genoise trunk

filled with a light orange mousse

candied orange peel sauce

and pomegrante seeds and chocolate decoration finish the plate

There was a wonderful pairing with the very more-ish

Malvasia dell'azienda Balbiano

The museum's director Ezio Gaij

presenting Le Marie's "Debarges" Barbera wine

Chef Walter Eynard ans Ezio Gaij

It was a truly a delicious experience and made for a interesting Sunday during the coldest of winter days.

What more could you ask for, fresh local food,  lessons on how to prepare it, tasty local varietals of wine,  great turn out of people and samples of all, for all, compliments of Museo del Gusto. A hearty thank you for all that you do.

Strada Reale meets Museo del Gusto

We have been enjoying a variety of launches of several recent exciting projects that will continue to place Val Chisone on the map for it's wine and cuisine. It's also an opportunity for our local artisan producers to reach a larger audience and encourage tourism in our part of Piedmont. Last year our Torino/Turin province, initiated a project creating a wine road in our entire province to highlight all of our local wines. We enjoyed the inauguration of that effort a couple of weeks ago in Torino. Thus Strada Reale Dei Vini Torinesi, (site in Italian only) or the Royal Torino Wine Road, was born, with a lot of speeches and some sampling of the goods, which I must say, made the speeches more palatable. It's an exciting addition to the touristic promotion of our area, and is now, a reality.

Hot on the heels of this presentation were two more, that were even closer to home over in Frossasco, an old Roman town, home to Museo del Gusto, a unique museum dedicated to the history of food down through the ages. It is also home to our friends, the Dora family, of Dora Vini winery, where they produce their Pinerolese wines. The first, saw the opening of the "Bottega del Vino"in the Museo del Gusto. Most of the Strada Reale far flung wineries of our Torino Province are represented there, making it possible to pick up a few bottles in one place. The Museo del Gusto, now is a "must stop" point on the wine lovers itinerary. True to Italian tradition, it's not only about the wine. You must have food to round out your experience, especially if you find yourself at a museum dedicated to food. They have added in a sampling of Paniere products, which are some Torino provinces unique and highest quality producers of local specialties. You can see a sampler package, that Eataly has put together. We use some of the products here in our "Cooking Together" sessions. Some of our other friends products are there as well, Difinello Coffee and Bernard liqueurs, to name a couple.

The most interesting evening to me personally was the presentation of the movie "Inverno" by Andrea Fenoglio and Diego Mometti, the first chapter in a series of "Landscapes of the World", an attempt to supported by Carlo Petrini and Slow food. It is an attempt to explore the return to the cultivation of the land through practices that does no harm, and all of the inherent obstacles and benefits. I found the black and white film intriguing, haunting and ultimately troubling. It was filmed in February completely in the Pinerolo area. During this time period the landscape is as stark as the words of the people who cultivate and nurture the old ways of food production. Methods that have been squeezed out along the way with progress. Images of a man plowing his field along side of a road on which the other side was a wall of new apartment buildings, with relentless cars passing by between, hammered home the message. It's hard to hang onto the land and traditional practices when we are surrounded by unchecked growth. The film spoke volumes to all of these issues with just a pan of the lens.

We were pleased and honored to meet, surely the most widely recognized public face and spokesperson of Slow Food, Carlo Petrini, one of its founders. He has also written extensively on the subject, with titles like, "Slow Food, the Case for Taste" and "Slow Food Revolution", to name just a couple. He is a funny and passionate speaker that can hold the rapt attention of a crowd. He is a very accessible man for all of his celebrity. He seemed genuinely interested in hearing about our efforts to bring sustainable tourism here and to join us for dinner sometime. Vediamo. We shall see. Stay tuned!