Finding Italy.

This week it’s been lovely to catch up with TV programmes I’ve missed and one of these is Stanley Tucci in Italy. The second episode is all about the Piedmont region, which happens to be my all-time favourite part of Italy. Why? Well, having lived in Milan for several years we visited all the expected places but avoided Turin, the home of the Shroud and yet another car factory. It was a school visit that took me there many years after we’d left and I regretted not having visited sooner. The architecture, the porticos to protect pedestrians from the weather, the bicherin (a drink of hot chocolate, coffee and cream) and the lack of tourists – wonderful. The Slow-food movement began there as a reaction to all the fast-food outlets opening throughout the country. Our trip took us to Alba, where the truffle auction had taken place earlier that day, and we enjoyed a delicious tasting menu with truffles featuring in almost every course. The biggest shock/surprise of the trip was being told I was due to teach a class of year 9 pupils and was required to make pancakes with them. Straight away I changed it to scones and sent out for ingredients – quite a mission as Self Raising flour isn’t common, with yeast being the preferred raising agent. It transpired that the pupils had little spoken English so I had to do it mostly in Italian, but we managed to make perfect scones and ate them with butter and jam. Not quite what I’d expected to be doing, but it made the trip worthwhile. What a way to “Find Piedmont”!