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Italy festival honors forgotten fruits (Casola Valsenio near Faenza)
AP on Yahoo ^ | 8/29/06 | AP

Posted on 08/29/2006 8:27:26 PM PDT by NormsRevenge

FAENZA, Italy - Environmentalists, foodies and travelers, unite!

You have nothing to lose but your boring supermarket produce.

The Festival of Forgotten Fruits — scheduled for Oct. 14-15 in the town of Casola Valsenio, Italy — is an event designed to bring attention to little-known and sometimes ancient varieties of wild fruit that are still cultivated locally.

The festival will feature pomegranates, vulpine pears, rose apples, jujubes (also known as red dates or Chinese dates), quince apples, sorb apples, cornelian cherries and unusual types of berries, as well as medlars, which are used as an ingredient in desserts, jelly and wine. When ripe, medlars taste and feel a little like apple sauce.

Local farmers will display baskets of fruits and nuts, and sell jams, marmalades, pies, syrups, wines and liquors derived from them. Local restaurants will feature the fruits in recipes like pasta with pomegranate seeds.

A "Road of Forgotten Fruits" runs between the Senio and Santerno river valleys towards Casola Valsenio, with eight "oases" in which these fruits have been planted and are allowed to grow wild.

Casola Valsenio also has a botanical garden that grows about 450 different types of herbs. Local dairy products are often flavored with these herbs, such as pecorino with thyme or goat's milk with basil.

Casola Valsenio, near the city of Faenza, is about 40 miles from Bologna.

Faenza is home to the International Ceramics Museum of Faenza, known for its collection of majolica, a richly colored and decorated glazed pottery.


TOPICS: Food; History; Travel
KEYWORDS: apples; casolavalsenio; chinesedates; corneliancherries; faenza; festival; forgotten; fruits; godsgravesglyphs; italy; jujubes; medlar; medlars; pomegranates; pomologist; pomologists; pomology; quinceapples; reddates; roseapples; sorbapples; vulpinepears

1 posted on 08/29/2006 8:27:27 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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For help in planning a trip, visit http://www.pubblica.it/terredifaenza/uk/casola.asp or call the local tourism office at 011-39-0546-74627.


2 posted on 08/29/2006 8:27:39 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi ......Help the "Pendleton 8' and families -- http://www.freerepublic.com/~normsrevenge/)
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To: NormsRevenge

Ooooooh, I love it! Especially pomegranates and quince - have enjoyed many of them this year already.

Wish I could afford to go - sounds wonderful and it's a great idea for an Italian festival!


3 posted on 08/29/2006 8:33:00 PM PDT by Rte66
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To: NormsRevenge

When I was a kid I always had a box of Ju JU Bees during the sat Afternoon matinee! They were second only to Judy Fruits!


4 posted on 08/29/2006 9:17:25 PM PDT by Young Werther
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To: Lil'freeper

WAPF ping?


5 posted on 08/29/2006 9:18:28 PM PDT by Rytwyng (Only a Million Minuteman March can stop the Bush Border Betrayal!)
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To: NormsRevenge
The Festival of Forgotten Fruits — scheduled for Oct. 14-15 in the town of Casola Valsenio, Italy...

Gay Pride Weekend??

6 posted on 08/29/2006 9:18:55 PM PDT by JRios1968 (This kid knows how to wallop a baseball!!!!!!)
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To: NormsRevenge; blam; FairOpinion; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 24Karet; 3AngelaD; ...
Thanks NormsRevenge. Lookie everyone, an ancient fruit ping!

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

7 posted on 08/31/2006 10:32:39 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (updated my FR profile on Thursday, August 10, 2006. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: NormsRevenge
The festival will feature pomegranates,

Who forgets pomegranates? I'm well aware of them. I just don't eat them because I don't like having red teeth, fingers, and spots on the carpet.
8 posted on 08/31/2006 10:38:49 AM PDT by Xenalyte (No movie shall triumph over "Snakes on a Plane.")
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To: SunkenCiv

"Ancient fruit" was tempting, but sometimes it's best to let the easy ones fly by.


9 posted on 08/31/2006 10:39:27 AM PDT by Xenalyte (No movie shall triumph over "Snakes on a Plane.")
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To: Xenalyte

Hadrian? I thought so. ;')


10 posted on 08/31/2006 10:57:46 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (updated my FR profile on Thursday, August 10, 2006. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: NormsRevenge

Elton John????


11 posted on 08/31/2006 1:23:40 PM PDT by ZULU (Non nobis, non nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. God, guts, and guns made America great.)
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To: NormsRevenge

the Tab Hunter Pear


12 posted on 09/01/2006 7:38:59 AM PDT by wildbill
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To: NormsRevenge
This sounds like my kind of festival. I just finished the last day of the North American Fruit Explorer's annual conference. This year, it was in Lexington, KY, and today was our field day. We went to the horticultural experimental farm of UK, and tasted lots of great fruits, while listening to presentations by the faculty. Then on to Boyd's Orchard in Versailles, for more fruits and some lunch. In the afternoon, we travelled to the experimental farm of Kentucky State University in Frankfort, where we (among other things) toured the National Pawpaw Germplasm Repository, and were able to taste many delicious varieties of cultivated pawpaw. It was a great conference. All of you with an interest in fruit should look into the organization:

www.nafex.org

"...pomegranates, vulpine pears, rose apples, jujubes (also known as red dates or Chinese dates), quince apples, sorb apples, cornelian cherries and unusual types of berries, as well as medlars..." Jujubes, when dried, look like dried cockroaches (minus the legs), and the taste approximates what I'd imagine for a dried cockroach. They are highly overrated. Cornelian cherries, on the other hand, are wonderful....one of our most underappreciated fruits. I will plant several when I eventually move and buy more property.

Medlars are best compared to apple-flavored wet cardboard.

13 posted on 09/01/2006 5:24:19 PM PDT by Renfield
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