In November of last year we published an article bemoaning the fact that one of the last special apple trees in Barga was chopped down to make way for an car park. In that article we wrote – In fact this particular tree had not been harvested for some years and it’s unfashionably small and sometimes misshapen fruit was allowed to fall to the ground and over time rot back into the earth.
To my knowledge only one person diligently collected some of the windfall each year and carried it home to her family to enjoy the taste of a fruit that their grandparents would have enjoyed and an apple and which has more or less been erased from the local culture.
Each year they would marvel at the fact that this succulent, oh so tasty treat was just there for the asking – nobody else ever bothered to pick up the fruit and now that experience has disappeared along with so many others.
Nobody is going to mourn for an apple tree are they ? (article here)
So it came as a great surprise to find a day dedicated to biodiversity that was held recently at Castelnuvo Garfagnana organised by the Cosituenda Condotta Slow Food Garfagnana and Valle del Serchio. Spread out on a table in the centre of Castelnuovo were not just one or two types of local apples still growing in the area but more than 20 plus many types of pear and fig.
There is still hope !
Music for the afternoon was supplied by the hardest working band in the area – Emma e gli Aristodemos, who played two full sets in the piazza and then moved on to Andrea at the Mulino Vecchio and repeated the whole session from start to finish.
Click on the link below to hear Emma and the Aristodemos playing “Lullaby of Birdland”
emma_aristodemos_birdland_19sept2010
Una giornata dedicata alla biodiversità rurale, sia vegetale che animale, pensata come un’evoluzione di relazione fra diversità ambientali e culturali che creano una grande diversità di prodotti agricoli e gastronomici legati ad un preciso territorio.
Biogustando è un incontro di saperi e sapori che si sviluppa attraverso percorsi degustativi ed informativi realizzati dalla Comunità Montana della Garfagnana e dalla Sezione Banca Regionale del Germoplasma in collaborazione con la “costituenda condotta Slow Food Garfagnana e Valle del Serchio”, i produttori locali, i Coltivatori Custodi della Garfagnana, gli imprenditori agricoli locali, L’Ass. Castanicoltori della Garfagnana e la Rete Semi Rurali.
Programma
Dalle ore 11.00 partendo da Piazza Umberto I verso il centro storico sarà possibile visitare le mostre istallate lungo le vie del centro e la mostra-mercato contadino.
Dalle ore 12.00 avrà inizio il percorso degustativo con la partecipazione di produttori locali della “Costituenda Condotta Slow Food Garfagnana e Valle del Serchio”. €15
Vi accompagneranno con la loro musica “Emma egli Aristodemos”
Alle ore 15.00 la Compagnia di Gorfigliano presenta lo spettacolo di teatro popolare “il Maggio”
Info: Comunità Montana della Garfagnana – Tel. 0583.644911 I.A.T. Garfagnana – Tel. 0583.65169 www.turismo.garfagnana.eu