Kulinarisk Sydfyn

News from Denmark
Skrevet af webmaster d. 09. juli 2010

All the Slow Food convivia in Denmark just started a ”Slow Food school” at ”Kulinarisk Sydfyn”

The food fair ”Kulinarisk Sydfyn” - which is Denmark’s largest artisan food producers’ fair – takes place each year during the last weekend in June in the old port of Svendborg, which is a traditional old town centrally located in Denmark in the southern part of the island Fyn (Funen). Approximately 150 independent food and drink producers present their produce based on natural ingredients, free of GMOs and lots of organic produce. The fair offers a unique opportunity to get to know the diversity of excellent regional products. Also, there was a number of activities for children such as a tasting exploratorium and a treasure hunt. A large restaurant on the port made a “Taste Funen Platter”. About 12,000 visitors come to the fair during the weekend.

This year all of the Danish convivia decided to enlarge our information stand with a small ”Slow Food school”. We had small classes/sessions every hour and a producer talked about his or her product. It was simple: the visitors could sit down, hear a bit about the Slow Food movement and get to know something tangible about a product, and almost all the producers offered tastings. An organic potato grower and a rhubarb grower talked about the island’s local species, there was an olive oil tasting, three different cheese tastings, a talk about different kinds of grain and flour and local brewer talked about growing hops and barley locally in collaboration with universities and other breweries.

It’s our impression that visitors at this food fair want to know more about what they eat and know more about how to improve their sense of taste and we hope to develop these kinds of events. In Denmark Slow Food is not very well known, and people helped themselves frequently to the brochures. Next year we want to be more visible at the fair. Furthermore, we think that in Denmark we have to work for more focus on the producers. We want the producers and farmers to become the new stars. After many years with focus on chefs and restaurants, focus has to change to the farmers and producers in the future.