A Summer at Spannocchia: What We Can All Learn About Living Sustainably
Published 03/23/2023 in Scholar Travel Stipend
Written
by Vaneshia Reed |
03/23/2023
Two years ago, I returned to Boston in a leap of faith to embark on a culinary exploration, where I worked as a line cook in restaurants, produced food events in Harvard’s Pforzheimer House, and completed a culinary certificate program at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. Working in the food and hospitality industry made me increasingly sensitive to operational inefficiencies, sustainability issues, food insecurity and waste, the effects of monoculture, and just how broken our food system is.
In The Third Plate, Chef Dan Barber outlines the strong influence chefs have on food demand, ecological systems, and consequently, the environment. How with this strong influence comes the duty to be more responsible drivers of consumption, good stewards of our environment, and champions of sustainability. This duty led me to Tuscany for a culinary apprenticeship to learn true farm-to-table cuisine and models for conservation and sustainability, where I have come to understand that this duty is all of ours––from the food producer to the chef to the consumer. Though we don’t yet have all the tools to create this future of food, organizations like Spannocchia are making it possible and serve as a model to not only l ive sustainably and responsibly but also how to spread that knowledge.
Spannocchia i s an agritourism establishment that aims to “serve as an international model for sustainability.” For over twenty years, they have hosted interns from around the globe to learn about “agriculture, responsible tourism, and the importance of preserving the cultural traditions of Tuscany.” With an emphasis on community and education as part of their mission, they are working to build a community of “ambassadors of conservation” (former interns, apprentices, volunteers, and guests) who “continue to employ the practices they learned at Spannocchia in their communities, professions, and daily lives.”
Our Food System is a Global Crisis
Climate change and rising populations, along with increased interest in healthier, sustainable, planet friendly, and locally sourced diets have all placed heavy demands on an already strained food system. Our species is at a pivotal inflection point to make significant changes to our agricultural and food systems to minimize the effects of climate change and be prepared to sustainably feed a population that is expected to reach nearly 10 billion people by 2050. Greatly correlated with the issue of climate change, this is undoubtedly one of the most critical global issues facing humans today. Given the Milken Institute’s focus on “physical, mental, and environmental health” and learning innovative ways to tackle “some of our most critical global issues," along with the Milken Family Foundation mission to help people “lead “productive and satisfying lives” through education, I was excited to take a deep dive in the teachings and practices of an organization for which living sustainably and respecting nature and its resources has long been the default way of life.
Spannocchia hosts a variety of teaching programs, including the culinary apprenticeship I completed, a butcher’s apprenticeship, a farm internship program, and a host of programming for guests who wish to l earn more about farming, conservation, sustainability and farm-to-table cuisine. My exploration of the teaching practices used and their efficacy will focus on my culinary apprenticeship and the farm internship since I had the greatest overlap and interactions with the interns. Through interviews with teachers, program participants, and guests when possible, I aimed to explore the teachings and efficacy of these programs.
Farm Internship
Every year, Spannocchia hosts three groups of eight interns to gain hands-on farm experience and learn about regenerative farming and animal care, conservation, maintenance and restoration. The interns work directly with farm staff on Spannochia’s daily operations, which include farm and property maintenance, animal care, and working in the vegetable gardens, vineyards and orchards. Their hands-on work experience is also supplemented with planned educational activities, including classroom instruction and field trips to learn more about regenerative agriculture, environmental issues, innovative conservation techniques, and sustainable culinary practices in wine making, olive harvesting, salumi production and more.
While both intern groups I lived with told me that they were glad they did the internship, they both expressed similar concerns with the program's structure. It quickly became clear that the program was only as effective as its teachers and also required engaged and enthusiastic interns––both of which I saw challenges with this summer. For the orto and operations teams, there was surely no shortage of work and l earning. The constant amount of work required that they were able to learn how to do things on their own fairly quickly––though according to them, not always accurately or efficiently. The animal care team initially only really learned by watching and were only able to gain more hands-on learning with the hire of a new animal care. Both groups seemed to agree that the best way for them to learn was for someone to explain how to do things fully and accurately and then to let them try it themselves. Overburdened staff sometimes made this teaching method challenging. This was also a frequent struggle with the educational activities, which the interns said were sometimes clearly planned only minutes before the class, if they were planned at all.
Farm work is very laborious and hard work. Teaching is hard work. So teaching a new group of interns every three months required the farm managers to take time out of their work to teach these groups, who were of course ultimately going to leave. This is one of the greatest challenges of the farm internship. Additional training for the managers on how to provide a robust teaching experience could greatly strengthen the program. Nonetheless the model has still allowed hundreds of volunteers to pass through and gain valuable knowledge to pass on while providing the farm managers with additional much needed help.
Culinary Apprenticeship
In addition to the farm internship, Spannocchia hosts two culinary apprentices every summer to work alongside head chef Pietrina to learn the fundamentals of Tuscan and farm-to-table cuisine. During the summer, Spannocchia’s orto (vegetable garden) is ripe with various fresh and organic fruits and vegetables, which serve as the basis for the teaching experience. Because I was there from summer to early fall, it was fun and exciting to see how our menu changed with the seasons. When I arrived, the orto was overflowing with zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes, the orchard with figs, and the herb garden with herbs like rosemary, basil, and mint. We made zucchini pasta with mint pesto, eggplant parmigiano, rosemary roasted potatoes, risotto with zucchini flowers, and fig cakes. As the season changed and the orto gave us squash galore, cardoons, kale, cabbage, persimmons, our menu evolved to include dishes like squash risotto, stewed cardoons, stuffed cabbage, pizza with squash flowers, stewed meat with kale, and persimmon tiramisu.
Some of my favorite memories were going down to the walk-in to see all the fresh produce that Yago, the farm manager, and the farm interns had just harvested. And on a few rare occasions, going with Chef Pietrina to harvest tomatoes if we ran out or to forage mushrooms in the forest for our risotto. On the days in which our dinner menu was directly based on what we had available, I felt the most pride and joy and what we prepared for guests, as it felt most true to our mission and goals. There were, however, evenings in which the menu was written based on what the director thought we should make or what we had not made in a while, which while Tuscan did not always correspond to what had been freshly harvested. Furthermore, there was no system for organizing the harvests by date so sometimes new produce got used before old produce or the old produce outright went bad. Of course, it all got composted so nothing was ever fully “wasted” but it was a shame to compost food that could have been used in a meal with a bit more organization and planning. By the end, it was clear that we were able to make more fun, innovative meals and waste less food when we took the extra time to go down into the walk-in to inventory our produce, and even more so when we included the farm manager in our menu planning. Having a true farm-to-table operation really required the involvement of the farm at every level.
When I arrived, it became clear that I was going to have to work to build Chef Pietrina’s confidence before being given significant tasks. The benefit of a hands-on learning experience is that you learn by doing. But in a kitchen like ours, there was not very much room for error. So I had to work hard to build Chef Pietrina’s trust to be given more responsibility. This meant that at the beginning, I spent a lot of time chopping, measuring, and plating dishes. Honestly, I was initially concerned that I had been brought there just to help run the kitchen instead of truly learning. And I heard from interns that the previous apprentice never gained enough of the chef ’s trust to graduate to significant responsibilities.
Fortunately, I was able to gain the chef ’s trust and earn more responsibility but I had to advocate for my l earning more than I was expecting––asking if she could teach me how she made something, what the i ngredients were, or even if I could arrive earlier to work to help with more prep tasks. In the end, I was able to learn many new recipes and techniques, but was acutely aware that Spannocchia’s learn-by-doing model is complicated by the fact that there is little room for error in the kitchen. Furthermore, because of my work schedule, I was not able to venture out and learn about other parts of the farm operation as much as I would have liked. In the future, I believe the culinary apprentice would benefit from more structured learning on the farm to learn more about where the produce, animals, wine, and olive oil that we cook with and serve––to learn how certain farming practices affect flavor profiles, cooking methods, etc. For a true f arm to table experience.
As a whole, Spannocchia’s culinary apprenticeship was the only teaching experience for cooks and chefs of this nature that I could find, so it truly is a one of a kind experience that could serve as an interesting model for teaching institutions seeking to build more sustainably-minded chefs.
Butcher Apprenticeship
Spannocchia also recruits three butcher apprentices every fall to spend three months learning to make artisanal salumi from their rare heritage breed, Cinta Sinese, pigs. I did not overlap with this program enough to have many insights, but I will say that as the larger food industry recognizes the impact that animal farming is having on our ecosystem and the need to move towards a plant-based diet, in this area Spannocchia seems behind. Perhaps because they believe their operation is on such a small scale. Or because their practices are sustainable for their property. In any case I did not hear any conversations about the future of Spannocchia’s animal farm in conjunction with global conversations about animal agriculture. And the chef was usually pretty overwhelmed by vegetarian guests, and outright annoyed with vegan guests. So this was one of the greatest areas of improvement I identified with their program, though I will acknowledge that the plethora of carnivores who passed through there would probably not agree.
Waste Management
While not an official part of their training program, as part of living in the Spannocchia community all i nterns, apprentices, and guests must learn and adhere to the Italian waste and recycling system. Waste is divided by paper products, plastic, glass, garbage, and compost. Not just at Spannocchia, but all over Italy. Simply put, the US is behind. While many program volunteers would like to continue what we learn back home, the truth is that many cities just don’t have the proper infrastructures.
Ambassadors of Conservation
Spannocchia aims to build a community of ambassadors who will continue to employ and spread the practices we’ve learned beyond our internships and apprenticeships. As a cook, I have certainly learned new cooking techniques and recipes that I will continue to utilize beyond my time at Spannocchia. Many i ntern alum go on to work in sustainable farming, the food industry, and other environmental fields. A more formal study would be required to determine exactly how interns continue to use the lessons and practices they’ve learned. But I imagine that working in careers pertaining to sustainability and environmental consciousness will make it easier to do so. Furthermore, I found during my time speaking to both groups of interns, even former interns who returned to visit, and some guests that these programs tend to attract people who already do or are inclined to live sustainably.
I am interested in how these practices and lessons might be effectively shared with people who may not be inclined to live sustainably, or who simply don’t have access to this kind of knowledge and training. Moreover, as the only black apprentice or intern during my three months there, I was keenly aware that all but one of the other interns and apprentices were white and came from more financially privileged backgrounds. As a culinary apprentice, I certainly am aware that I did not get the same sort of training as the farm interns, whose paid program simply provides a more robust learning experience. While Spannocchia seeks to offer financial assistance to some, the costs associated with the program still remain a barrier for many.
Working in the food and hospitality industry these past couple of years further solidified my deep belief i n the power of food to heal, bring people joy, foster community and build bridges. It also reaffirmed my belief in the need for food that is healthy, sustainable, and accessible––a future of food that requires i nnovation that can be accessed and scaled so that living sustainably simply becomes a way of life. I left Spannocchia with a desire to share my learnings, and especially to do so with an eye towards equity to make sustainable living more accessible and culturally adaptable.
