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| Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity |
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23/04/2010 |
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Cooks of the Alliance with Italian Presidia
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 The Alliance between Italian cooks and Slow Food Presidia created in 2009 is now yielding its first results. Thanks to funds collected during dinners which Alliance restaurants organized during 2009, a new Presidium has been formed to recover and promote the production of Barley from the Belluno Valleys.
At one time common throughout the valleys of Belluno province, local barley is now only grown in small plots above 1700 meters in the Ladino area and a few fields in the valley bottoms. Over the last few years a group of small farmers in a cooperative have recovered seeds of the traditional local variety and, helped by the Presidium, will be able to start harvesting the old barley variety from next summer and process it using traditional mills.
Hulled barley will be available for traditional soups or the renowned orzotti. It will be processed using traditional millstones to produce a large clear grain retaining the delicate protective layers rich in valuable nutritional substances. It readily hydrates and when cooked, even if reheated, is firmer and less sticky than the industrial product. It will also be supplied as stoneground flour for particular types of bread and baked goods as well as barley coffee specially roasted and ground to make it also suitable for espresso.
In creating the Barley from the Belluno Valleys Presidium, Slow Food aims to help small farmers in the Belluno mountains in their everyday efforts to conserve their area, maintain their agrobiodiversity and traditions. It will provide them with an opportunity to improve agricultural incomes, reduce the need to leave their mountain area and oppose the spread of intensive monocultures.
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