Golosaria is back: from Saturday 6^th to Monday 8^th November 2021, the event will bring to Milan the flavours and the protagonists of the Italian food and wine scene. The initiative, organised by Paolo Massobrio and Marco Gatti, will take place at MiCo – Milano Convention Centre, and will feature the best food & wine producers and a rich programme of events. This year’s edition will focus on two key words: connection and taste, conveying the essence of the work carried out with the book ilGolosario which, in over thirty years, has gone beyond its meaning and reference to eating/drinking to become a way of seeing and presenting things, talking about tastings but also encounters. The ‘connective’ approach may prove to be the key to restarting after the pandemic, discovering new alliances between producers and retail, city and country shops or territorial organisations that come together to pursue a common project. At Golosaria, this theme will be declined in the Food area, with the stories and products of exhibitors selected by ilGolosario, and in the Wine area, which this year will be able to count on a special focus dedicated to the 20 years of the Top Hundred, the award for Italy’s best wines.

The events
In addition to the physical display, there will also be a rich programme of meetings, debates, show cooking and wine tasting to animate the Golosaria spaces, declining the theme of this edition, but also giving space to current issues that concern the spheres of ethics and sustainability, an interest that “is also expressed in the choice of new, totally green materials for the bags,” explain the organisers, “and the Golosaria cup holders, this year made of papercrete thanks to a collaboration with Comieco, the National Consortium for the Recovery and Recycling of Cellulose-based Packaging, to raise awareness of the need for a conscious use of resources. In addition, relying on a completely renewed portal, Golosaria will follow up on the digital experience of last year’s edition by continuing to develop its online channel as an opportunity for discussion, dialogue and business opportunities for companies”.

Golosario Award 2021
During the event, prizes will be awarded to a series of organisations that have virtuously distinguished themselves in its key areas. With this in mind, Let Eat Bi has been selected with this communication: “Following a survey among the contributors to Paolo Massobrio’s ilGolosario, a guide to a thousand and one good things in Italy, your organisation has been nominated to receive the award, reserved for just 10 activities in its category* (‘connection’), dedicated to the most satisfying experiences of 2021”. Armona Pistoletto, as president of the Biella-based association, will receive the award – sponsored by Club di Papillon – on Saturday 6^th November at 4 pm on the Golosaria stage from journalist Paolo Massobrio. Moreover, the conferment of the award will be mentioned on a dedicated page in the 2022 edition of ilGolosario, and a piece about Let Eat Bi will appear in the Golosaria communication, due to be published after 15^th October.

The words of Armona Pistoletto
“Let Eat Bi is an association that carries out a project started in 2014 at Cittadellarte, together with a dense network of partners including associations, cooperatives and local communities,” said Armona Pistoletto, “it combines farming, culture and conviviality, with a focus on social inclusion. One of its projects is ‘Terre AbbanDonate’ (AbanDonated Lands), a web platform that aims to facilitate a synergy between the owners of plots in the Biella area who don’t want or can no longer take care of them and those citizens who would like to cultivate a piece of land, but don’t have it available. Since 2015, Let Eat Bi has also offered a weekly market (every Wednesday morning at Cittadellarte) selling seasonal fruit, vegetables and various local and organic food and wine products through the direct sale by Let Eat Bi partner farms. The aim is to create awareness of the (now urgent) need for local development through natural, local and therefore sustainable food. With its Green Academy, Let Eat Bi also organises an annual programme of courses to promote local food and wine traditions and the sharing of knowledge, with the contributions of agronomists, scholars and farms. Another initiative we have developed is ‘Let Eat Grow’, a generative welfare project that has brought together three associations active in the local social sphere to create an agrifood chain: from the farming of agricultural products to its processing and the sale of transformed foods. We have created a healthy local production by involving people in conditions of social, psychological and economic fragility. The three associations have become mutually useful for the development of a common project. Last but not least,” she concluded, “is the project ‘Orti del Biellese’ (Biellese vegetable gardens): thanks to the ‘connection’ among four organisations already active in the area, we are farming plots of land (acquired through the project Terre AbbanDonate) employing vulnerable people, to deliver weekly boxes of 100% natural vegetables to the citizens of Biella. The project continues thanks to the income earned from the orders placed, but external economic aid is nonetheless welcome (for info and donations: leteatbi@cittadellarte.it)”.

*Out of these 10, two are from Biella: in addition to Let Eat Bi, Barbara Varese will also be awarded for her Bursch.