Join LifeInAbruzzo on Zoom or Facebook live chat with special guests Abruzzo and Italy’s most iconic shepherds and cheese-makers, Gregorio Rotolo of Valle Scannese and Nunzio Marcelli of La Porta dei Parchi and discover the story of Abruzzo’s delectable cheeses & the Transumanza.
The chat will be in Italian and English with plenty of time for questions and requests for cheese-making tips!
Sunday 3rd May, 5.15 pm CET, 4.15 pm BST, 11.15 am EDT
If you missed the event you can still watch it here
Gregorio and his assistant Michael will give a fascinating history of cheese making in Scanno and Abruzzo and how it’s diversified over the last 50 years and tastes have moved away from a simple young Pecorino, illustrated by examples of Gregorio’s cheeses. They will discuss how Gregorio is trying to encourage younger Abruzzesi back into the art of cheese-making and sustainable futures.
Nunzio will give a colourful talk about the transumanza, its cultural and social importance and its recent UNESCO seal. He will discuss how Abruzzo cheeses are now known throughout the world and how at a time of a pandemic, customers can mobilse their direct relationships with farms and encouraging sustainable farming with schemes like ‘Adottore una Pecora’.
How to Join
To join the chat simply go to the Life in Abruzzo Facebook page and the chat will play automatically on Sunday 3rd May
or join via Zoom
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Meeting ID: 886 7337 8028
Password: 266756
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Valle Scannese
What to Expect from a Gregoriano Pecorino?
The Gregoriano is created 1600 metres above sea level in the heart of the Abruzzo National Park in the pastures outside the town of Scanno (AQ). It is a superb combination of raw organic sheep’s milk that uses rennet coagulation. It’s a process that requires a little more time and patience but the reward is great. Gregoriano is a soft, aromatic pecorino with typical crushed and rounded shapes on its edge with a white or greenish rind that acquires a softness with aging until it becomes almost a Stracchinato.
La Porta dei Parchi
Nunzio was born in Anversa degli Abruzzi in 1954. He left Anversa only to go to university in Rome. He graduated in economics, his dissertation was on development of the hinterland in Appennines through pastoralism. He then he started the farm, connecting caring for the land, traditions, economy and tourism. He continued the transumanza on foot along the ancient ways of shepherds, while most of the breeders moved their flock by truck. The production of the farm is organic “ante litteram”, the sheep are always out (summer and winter). At first he seemed to be “peculiar”, because at the end of 70s and in the 80s the idea of going back to mountains and agriculture seemed crazy to most people. Now he is recognized as one of the masters of creating a new opportunity for the land and the economy of the mountain zones. The products of the farm are exported and sold to some of the best restaurants in the east cost of USA like ‘Locanda Verde’ (owned by De Niro). Tourists are now asking for experiences like transumanza, which has been included in the “patrimonio dell’umanità UNESCO”. And with Covid everyone seems to finally understand the real value of this small villages, their products, their tradition, their land. But without people like Nunzio, they would not have survived.
Author: Sam Dunham
Sam is a very lucky midlife 'mamma' to A who is 12 and juggles her work as a self-employed freelance SEO food and travel copywriter and EFL teacher. She is the founder of the Life In Abruzzo Cultural Association, co-founder of Let's Blog Abruzzo. she is the founder of the 'English in the Woods' initiative, teaching English outdoors in a forest style school.
