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Godzillavilla

~ The ongoing saga of turning a crumbling Italian ruin into a home

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Tag Archives: organic

Unpasteurized Milk Bliss

07 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by Shelagh in Culture, Food

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

italy, organic, organic food, unpasteurized milk

Some simple things that other countries do seem so obviously intelligent, you have to wonder why your own country can’t manage it. The distribution of milk – delicious, same-day, unpasteurized, farm-fresh milk – in many parts of Italy is one such example. The very fact that citizens are allowed (gasp!) to drink unpasteurized milk is itself a triumph of intelligence. In Canada, despite the fact that today’s bovine hygienic standards take the risk out of the stuff, pure milk is still seen as kryptonite to our species.

So imagine my delight on seeing two machines that give me what I want, at any hour of the day or night. Milk bliss.

A little rain-proof kiosk with bottles to the right and the Marvelous Machine. The pink warning says you’re not supposed to drink it until after you’ve boiled it – a health precaution that also (according to comments on this blog) keeps the milk for longer.

Marvelous Machine in action. We saw this on a Sapore e Sapere tour.

The first, in Tuscany, allows you to bring your own bottle, or purchase one at the vending station, and purchase however much fresh milk you want from a spigot. Good Lord. Not only is it pure, but if you only want enough for your coffee that morning, that’s OK. The farmers fill it up each morning and evening. If it runs out, there’s a number to call – it’s the farmer, who will drive down and refill it if he has any left.

In Varese, you can buy the unpasteurized local milk at the grocery store. I don’t drink any other kind when I’m there and I’m still not suffering from kryptonite poisoning, imagine that! On my last visit I discovered the milk vending machine, in front of the organic meat butcher in Varese Ligure. It’s not quite as exciting as the Tuscan spigot because you have to buy a whole 1/2 litre bottle, but it’s still pretty cool. Store closed? No problem. Pop in your coins and out pops a bottle of fresh, pure milk, just like a can of Coke, except so much more worth drinking.

Varese Ligure’s midnight milk vendor. You can buy the pasteurized version here too (as well as the ‘crudo’), but why would you? We were like little kids with a bubble gum machine using this thing. Ridiculously delighted.

Heavens, how did this pic get into the milk post? Another form of bliss: the locally brewed grappa, nicely packaged for export. That’s another thing we’d never be able to do in Canada.

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Ligurian Heart

28 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by Shelagh in Community, History

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

eco-sustainability, Liguria, organic

Godzillavilla is in the Val di Vara, an area of Liguria where you still hear few languages other than Italian, even in high tourist season. It’s not quite on the international destination map.

The little town that could

Sometime around our fifth year in Italy I’d come across an article in Io Donna, a women’s magazine, about the valley and its main town, Varese Ligure. The photos were beautiful, its story more so. Like many rural valleys that twist their way into the central spine of the Apennines, it had experienced a population exodus post-war. Young people had moved to the larger towns for work, rejecting life on the land, and the towns became phantoms of their former selves.

By the 1980’s it was a dire situation. Then Varese Ligure’s enlightened government had a brilliant idea, well ahead of its time: since their valley was in the middle of nowhere and offered pretty much nothing, why not make something of that?

Making the most of the middle of nowhere

Through a remarkable application of both will and action, in 1999 the Val di Vara became Europe’s first valley to be certified ISO 14001, the international benchmark for environmental management. Chemical free, energy-sustaining, and boasting fine organic cheeses, produce and meat, it has become an organic haven in an industrial world.

People returned to take up organic farming, bee-keeping, and cheese-making. Varese Ligure, an ancient borgo with its own perfect castle and a unique, circular town plan, began to be spruced up. Good restaurants opened. Artists and craftspeople arrived. And so did we, drawn to its energy, inventiveness, and the purity of its landscape.

Varese Ligure’s story reflects the character of its people. What better folk to be around when attempting something as audacious as bringing Godzillavilla back to life? I’m hoping some of their resolve and resourcefulness rubs off on me. If they can resurrect a whole valley and its towns, surely resurrecting one old house is possible.

Varese's castle, still privately owned


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