Zucchini only grow in summer: on food choices and sustainability

I was lucky enough to be born in Abruzzo, a land that gives me a new emotion each day. Twice a week in my hometown of Sulmona, there’s the central market, full of farmers who have been coming from nearby areas for generations—especially from the coast, where the soil is richer for growing vegetables—to sell their treasures. There are two local women, both named Anna, with small stalls and big smiles, who I always shop with. I’m very aware that if we don’t support our small local producers, they will disappear. And we will be left only with supermarkets, one after the other, selling apples and avocados that have travelled halfway across the world and been in cold storage for months. Imagine if supermarkets had to include harvest dates with their produce, how their sales would plummet!

In my food and wine tours, but also in life in general, I strive to support these small producers who are the very fabric of life here in Abruzzo. My friend Virginia, with her father Giocondo and her mother Stella, carry on the tradition of cheesemaking under our beloved Maiella mountain. Through their work, they not only protect our territory but also give us healthy, genuine products full of history. If their goat ricotta could talk it would tell the history of Abruzzo, born of the transhumance trail and the countless shepherds who walked from here down to Puglia, creating a very specific culture of cheesemaking and cooking. So many of the dishes we eat today are the fruit of those great journeys.