Discovering authentic local opportunities

For over twenty years, Fattorie Faggioli and now Borgo Basino have collaborated with Professor Hiroko Kudo in welcoming Japanese delegations of directors, entrepreneurs, journalists, stakeholders and academics interested in rural traditions and networks.

This year, we accompanied students from Chuo University in Tokyo on an experiential online tourism journey to discover the Romagna area, with the aim of learning about rural treasures, public-private partnership and local gastronomy.

Also this year, COVID-19 didn’t stop the opportunity for a meeting of cultures. In fact, every day for a week earlier this month, we carried out direct online meetings with Japan to experience encounters, share knowledge and taste the local traditions.

Indeed, because Borgo Basino’s particular contribution to the “Tourism Experience On-line” related to our local the gastronomic and cultural heritage, presenting and proposing Pellegrino Artusi’s recipes to the Japanese delegation. Our collaboration with Casa Artusi goes back many years and values their appreciation of the ancient tradition of the area, their eye for quality and the authenticity of their local ingredients. Pellegrino Artusi’s “Science in the kitchen and the art of eating well” was one of the first books published in modern Italian and is now published in more than 12 languages, including Japanese, thanks to the translation of Professor Kudo. It’s 790 “homecooked” recipes, transcribed by Artusi from interviews with Italian housewives with care and flourish in 1891, became both a literary and gastronomic classic. It is a book created from the grassroots, raising up the contribution of local women and their knowledge and skill with local traditions.

Italy is all about food and the attention, simplicity, and colors of our cuisine define us.

Federica, one of our azdoras (local dialect for “housewife/matriarch”), prepared some of Artusi’s classic recipes to be shared all over the world during the days dedicated to experiential tourism with the Japanese delegation.