Cheese lovers from around the world will flock here to this Piedmont town at the weekend for Cheese 2007, a showcase organised by the Slow Food movement.
Now in its sixth edition, Cheese 2007 will offer a host of attractions including the Great Cheese Market, the Great Hall of Cheese, the Enoteca wine shop, the House of Blue Cheeses and a number of Tasting Booths and Workshops, including one which will offer a Master of Cheese degree.
Participants will thus be able to buy cheeses of all types, shapes and sizes; taste a vast number of cheeses, including over 70 types of blue cheese; taste over 1,500 wines and a host of domestic and imported beers; learn about cheese and how it is made; and take part in a series of events including conferences, a wine auction, book presentations, meetings and entertainment performances.
According to Slow Food President Carlo Petrini, this year's edition "will celebrate our closeness to Eastern European countries, Romania and Bulgaria in particular, which have only recently joined the European Union".
"We will focus attention on the problem of genetically modified organisms, an issue which we at Slow Food feel particularly strongly about," he added.
Slow Food began in Italy in 1986 as a movement to promote traditional and quality foods and wines as an alternative to the expansion of a fast-food culture.
It has since expanded into a worldwide movement with a declared mission to "defend biodiversity in our food supply, spread taste education and connect producers of excellent foods with co-producers through events and initiatives".
Cheese 2007, Petrini explained, "will help develop an approach which all of us co-producers - who are no longer mere consumers - must follow. We must educate ourselves, seeking out information about products, producers, ways of eating better and polluting less".
"We will then, as a group and individually, become a major force for change," the Slow Food founder said.
Aside from GMOs and the need to keep them out of all stages in the food chain, Cheese 2007 will also address such topics as milk quality and the situation facing shepherds, Petrini added.
Cheese 2007, which runs September 21 through 24, will be inaugurated by Italian Agriculture Minister Paolo De Castro who recently said "Cheese and Bra - a center of Piedmonte's culture and food traditions - are a winning combination which will help give our agriculture and country an international boost".
"They are an almost perfect synthesis of innovation, creativity, tradition, culture, quality and knowledge," he added.
