Where Food Brings People

Posted on 23 novembre 2014 by Unknown

So, finally I'm here. In Bra, Piedmont, Italy.

It's not the first time, let me say it. 


I lived here for a whole month 2 summers ago, when I did my internship at Slow Food Italy offices. And from that moment I've come back a few times because I felt it would be my place one day. 
Well, I wasn't wrong.

I spent the last 5 years studying Japanese language in Venice, at Cà Foscari University and I don't have any regrets about my past studies. I couldn't meet so many wonderful people and collect lovely memories if my choices were different, but it's true that it had been also 5 years that I was dreaming this university, the Gastronomic Sciences University in Pollenzo, a small town (about 700 people) close to Bra. 


Why Gastronomic Sciences after studying Japanese language? Is there any link between them?
No specific reason, but the deep interest into two completely different fields: food and Japanese culture.

When someone asks me 'why did you want to study Japanese?' I always say that everything begun when I was 11 years old and I started reading manga (Dragon Ball was the first). 
Then, 'why are you studying Gastronomic Sciences?'. 
I don't know, maybe because I was born in Reggio Emilia and, you know, parents bring up their children with Lambrusco wine and cured meat. JK! (just kidding)
The truth is that I've always felt close to the food's world and to our traditional gastronomy, and my grandma Mari's death (2008) roused something inside me.


She was what we call "una perfetta rezdora" (a perfect cook of traditional food) and starting a new chapter of life (university) without her has been weird. Analyzing it now, I think I needed to find out a way to feel close to her and FOOD was the answer.
So, that's been the reason why I've opened a YouTube cooking channel almost 5 years ago.

In that period my certainty was shaking. Japan and an hypothetical life in that country scared me, I believed that I couldn't be happy there, and I discovered a wonderful University in Piedmont where foodie people like me seemed to live in the heaven, but I also knew I couldn't give up so easily on my Japanese studies and so I kept walking on my path 'til the day I went to Tokyo for 3 months (September 2011).
Then those 3 months became 6 (plus 3 in South Korea). Maybe the best time of my life.


Meanwhile I got my bachelor degree (3 years) and I started my master degree's course (2 years), because you might get it if you want to see a real job opportunity in Italy (I've been told...).
However, I've never, never lost my foodie passion. I always tried to get my university internships related to it, I've never left my small YouTube world and that Piedmontese University stopped in my mind.

After my internship at Slow Food Italy, I had to talk to my parents. While I was feeling I should looked for a job after my master graduation, I also thought life is one and I should get the risk: a master course in Food Culture and Communications, with Representation, Meaning, and Media track.
Only one condition: get the degree on the first graduation Summer session.
Guess what?!


It's been two weeks in my new place in Piedmont and tomorrow the master course gets started for real.
I don't know what I want to do, where I want to live and who I want to be in the future, but I'm pretty sure that it will be an amazing year, full of food discoveries, hard work and new friends from all over the world.

All this is to inaugurate an English diary and try to write about my experience at the University of Gastronomic Sciences.

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