Saturday 13.04.19:
Today marked day one of the weekend trip to Cliento with Gustolab. We took a chartered bus for 2 hours, stoped in a tiny town and visited an herb garden that is famous. Here I got to learn about how the garden was organized and why its so important to have. Since I took an herbalism course last year it was really interesting to me. I could piece things that I already knew from last semester together with the new knowledge I was learning. Then we got back on the bus and drove for another two hours until we landed in Cliento. Here we had a tour of some ruins. We got to see where some of the oldest columns still stand. Then eventually we headed to the hotel and went to bed.
Sunday 14.04.19:
Today we woke up early and hopped on the bus to visit the most famous Buffalo farm in Italy. After interviewing the staff and having a tour I learned that the farm truly cares about how their animals are raised. They even invested in four 350,000 euro machines that milk the buffalo. These machines are so important because this way the buffalo only get milked when they want to be milked. They can just walk right into the machine and when they are done being milked they get a bath which they love because....they are buffalo. The farm also plays Mozart for 6 hours a day to help keep the buffalo calm and happy... Happy buffalo make the best cheese.
Later today we were invited to make pizza and have dinner at one of the local restaurants in Eboli. The dinner was incredible! We knew where everything on our plate was grown, and made. All of the fresh greens were from the garden in the back of the restaurant, the wine was made in house, the ricotta cheese spread was
made in the town, and the pizza was made by us in the back! Its kinda funny how much tastier food is when you know exactly where it was grown, and produced.
Monday 15.04.19
Our last day In Cliento! Today we visited one of the oldest Fig Farms (Santimiele) and production places in Italy! Here I got to learn about the influence of figs in the medeteranean diet. Since figs are full of protein and have been around since forever, people have came up with some pretty creative ways to incorporate figs into their daily diet. After the fig tour, we headed to a local restaurant and learned how to make pasta, like a real Italian.... let me be the first to tell you, nothing about making pasta is simple. We watched the chef do a tutorial which only lasted about 10-15 minutes and then we were off to try it out ourselves. This process lasted about 30-45 minutes and I only ended up with half the amount of product that the chef had produced. I later got to interview the chef and ask him some questions regarding his kitchen and sustainability. My favorite quote that came out of the interview was "the smallest jar has the best jam". He also informed me that just a few months ago the kitchen was re designed to make it more sustianbabkyly friendly. They do their best to create little to no food waste. For example he told me about a tuna fish that he cooked with. He used the meat for one part, then saved and froze the eggs to later shave over pasta, and then also used the liver for another meal in the future.
