The time has come for you to finish practicing your English, because we – Cat, Moriah, and Paige, le “Tre Americane” – are almost finished interning with SenzaSpreco and will soon return to the big, beautiful land of the United States. Blog posts will go back to being all in Italian from now on (and written by someone else), so that’s good news, right? For us, the bad news is that we three are pretty sad to be leaving a workplace that so enriched our understanding of Italian culture and the direction of the sustainability movement. Thanks to SenzaSpreco, we’ve had the opportunity not only to blog about food waste, but also to learn experientially by visiting several of the places where SenzaSpreco works collaboratively with the Tuscan community.
On our first-ever Friday of the internship, Marta and Jacopo whisked us off to downtown Florence to attend an annual sustainability innovation fair called “La Fiera delle Idee”. We stopped into a crowded urban grocery store to buy some colored markers, then headed off to the fair to represent SenzaSpreco. The premise of our exhibition, which Jacopo has covered in a prior blog post, was that passersby would come up to our table and write a way they mitigate food waste in their own household on a piece of paper. Then, one of us would photograph them on my iPhone holding their makeshift sign on my, and we would hang their food waste reduction tip on a clothesline in the archway (and would hope the aggressive wind wouldn’t blow it away).
For Paige, Moriah, and I, it was an interesting foray into the world of Italian sustainability culture. I personally was surprised how similar Italian sustainability initiatives are to those of the U.S., despite the fact that Italy is a much older country with much more deeply-rooted national cultural traditions. Sustainability innovators in both countries seem equally progressive. For instance, we met a man who grows and sells mushroomsfrom salvaged coffee grounds. The concept fascinated us, but we had also heard that this same practice has been gaining traction in the U.S. lately. In addition, it was intriguing to hear new methods of limiting food waste from the Italians who approached our table; if I had a dog – and hopefully one day I will (husky puppy, maybe…?) – I definitely plan to feed her some of my food waste scraps now that I’ve heard that idea.
During our internship, we were also fortunate enough to visit both a food service company called Qualità & Servizi and a preschool for “infanzia” where said food is served. We met with a lady who explained their company’s sourcing practices (which are unexpectedly amazing!), efforts to prevent food waste, and interest in sustainable procurement of food for their schools. The tour was in Italian, of course; thank goodness for our internship supervisors Giulia and Marta, who did a little translating afterwards. 🙂 The lady also gave us a tour of the facility, showing us where meats and vegetables are stored, processed and transformed into complete meals for their schools.
One of the most interesting parts of the tour was what we had to wear to get into that part of the building; it’s safe to say that we were basically sporting the latest Florentine fashion – fully decked out in white coats, hats and little booties – on our walk around. My favorite part of the day was our visit to the “infanzia” school. We saw little Italian children eating their pasta with tomato sauce, stewed carrots, bread (typical), and local pecorino cheese – and even saw a kid try to escape in the process! I loved watching the teachers interact with the children, attempting to get them to at least try their carrots. It was easy to see how good Italian children have it at lunch! They are served first, second and side dish courses, just as you would see on a typical Italian menu. 🙂 It was wonderful to see the whole meal cycle complete in the meals of the younger generation here.
During our last week with SenzaSpreco, we went to 50 & più, an association of people 50 years or older. We got the opportunity to watch Giulia and Jacopo talk to members of an older generation about the food waste issue and we listened to the group’s original ideas on how to prevent food waste in the home. We even talked to them about how the US celebrates Christmas, how the holidays can lead to extra food waste, and methods to prevent waste during the holidays. My favorite part of this experience was seeing how older Italians view American food culture. It was apparent that they did not think so highly of American eating habits –many asked if we ate any vegetables in the US (to which we can proudly confirm that yes, we do eat vegetables). The group’s reaction to our suggestions to prevent food waste also highlighted some similarities and differences between Italian and American culture. When we suggested to save leftovers and possibly share them with friends and family, we were met with mixed reviews. Some seemed to like this idea and even said that they already share leftovers with family, while others said they would never give away leftovers because it has less value than the experience of cooking and sharing a meal. It was also very interesting to hear the participants ideas for food waste, as they had many recipe ideas that we have not tried before! Overall, being able to talk to this group was a great experience because it was a generation of Italians we had not been able to connect with before. As SenzaSpreco’s Giulia said, it is important to talk about food waste prevention with an older generation because their wealth of experiences give them a different perspective on the issue, and their food habits still strongly influence the habits of their families.
We lived and learned through these three fascinating events, as well as through learning how to cook gnocchi with Jacopo, Giulia, and Marta, interviewing Tuscan farmers, and even through doing the research to write these blog posts. Our internship at SenzaSpreco was a success, and all three of us plan to return to the United States with a refreshing new Italian take on the global food waste problem. Buon appetito!
