Quinoa in the Po Valley

I didn’t realise, when I booked a brief holiday in the Po Delta, that I would be staying at the heart of the Italian quinoa supply chain

Episode Transcript

JEREMY: Hello and welcome to another episode of Eat This Podcast with me, (00:06):
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Jeremy Cherfas. Today,an entirely lucky coincidence.
What happened was, I'd booked a few days togo cycling in the Po Delta with a friend.
I belong to an organisation called FIAB,the Federazione Italiana Ambiente Bicicletta,

(00:30):
and they have a handy list of places to staythat cater specifically to cyclists;
big breakfasts, some where to store thebikes,
tools. So I picked one of those,an agriturismo near the little town of
Argenta, which is about 50km from Bologna.
Now an agriturismo is a working farm thatalso welcomes guests with rooms and usually

(00:53):
very good food. Ideal as a base forexploring.
Anyway, when I was checking the details forgetting to the Agri Locanda Val Campotto,
I noticed that it had exactly the sameaddress as something called Quini talia,
and that says it's the first supply chain forcertified organic quinoa grown in Italy.

(01:20):
Well, of course I packed my recorder alongwith my cycling gear.
The agriturismo was really lovely,immersed in flat,
fertile fields, and the quiet roads aroundwere edged with wildflowers and alive with
birdsong. And we ate well too.
But back to the farm. It's owned and run bySebastiano Tundo and was started in the 1930s

(01:44):
by his great grandfather.
Alas, Sebastiano was too busy getting on withthe planting,
but I was happy to get a few minutes to talkto his partner,
Alessandro Biavati.

ALESSANDRO: Okay, I'm Alessandro, I'm the chef here in Agrilocanda val (01:56):
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Campotto, and I'm the owner of this part ofthe company with my three colleagues.
One is Angelica, one is Sebastiano,the farmer,
and one is Fabio.

JEREMY: How did you first get involved with the Locanda here? (02:13):
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ALESSANDRO: I was involved because we -- me and Sebastiano -- (02:18):
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were friends since we were child.
So when everyone makes,you know, his own way in the life,
and we met, he was starting his business as afarmer,
and I was a chef at the time.

(02:38):
And I came back from my trips all over theworld.
And we started to make this kind ofrestaurant here.
And then we both met,and then things go on.

JEREMY: And were you initially attracted to the idea of quinoa? (02:53):
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Did you know about quinoa before?

ALESSANDRO: Yeah, I knew about quinoa because I worked a lot in United States or in Abu Dhabi. (03:00):
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So we used a lot of quinoa over there.
In Italy, it was at the beginning of theusing.
And Sebastiano was the one starting thisbusiness here in Italy.
Not so, not also in, not just in Argenta.

(03:20):
So I was aware of what quinoa was,and I was ,
you know, a little bit excited of tryingsomething new.

JEREMY: W as Sebastiano already growing the quinoa when you joined him or was that something (03:30):
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that was still to come?

ALESSANDRO: I t was the beginning. It was, I think, the first year of growing quinoa, (03:39):
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of successfully growing quinoa.
T hat was the first year.

JEREMY: And then when was that? (03:49):
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ALESSANDRO: I think it was in 2019 or 2018. (03:50):
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And then we started this business together in2020 during Covid ,
you know, starting before Covid.
But then we opened after the Covid.
And then, we started to build somethingdifferent,

(04:12):
not just for the food here,but with other products like quinoa beer or
something like that.

JEREMY: The quinoa beer is delicious. (04:19):
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I mean, I had it with my dinner a couple oftimes.
D oes it have a lot of quinoa?
Because, I mean, there's no ...
I wouldn't know what to taste.
What do you think is there that tastes ofquinoa?

ALESSANDRO: The taste of quinoa? Not in the beer. (04:30):
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Normally it has a hazelnut taste in the ...
when you're eating it. But it was difficultto make a beer because you cannot malt the
quinoa. So at the beginning was quite achallenge.
And then, because we would like to make 100%quinoa beer,

(04:53):
and no one is making 100% quinoa.
There are just a little part of quinoa inbarley or something else.

JEREMY: So what is the challenge of making 100%? (05:02):
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You said you can't malt it.

ALESSANDRO: Yeah. We can't malt. So we just ... (05:05):
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We can obtain just a light beer.
But the challenge was to have the taste,a good taste,
because the first one ,I remember it was not so good at all,
and make a good recipe and trying to tomanage the the malt and the fermentation,

(05:30):
the yeast and everything.
And now we, I think we,after five years, we found a good recipe.
And it's something we can do and we sell alot.
So we're doing these two kinds just,one, a normal one,
and one IPA with just a little bit of hops.

JEREMY: Now, the other thing, I mean, I see that in the shop you have pasta (05:51):
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made with quinoa, but there wasn't any quinoapasta on the menu,
just the croquettes, which are delicious.
But why don't you put the quinoa pasta on themenu?

ALESSANDRO: Because it's ... It's just a choice we make because we have ... (06:07):
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H ere in this part of the country,we eat a lot of fresh pasta made with eggs,
and that kind of pasta we sell,i t's the dry pasta,
like something like that.

(06:29):
S o in the restaurant,we prefer to do the fresh one ,
because we cannot do everything,otherwise it's a little bit wild.
And we prefer to sell this part.
And sometimes we use it.
We use it because we do a lot of gluten freeproducts,
and that's a gluten free product.

JEREMY: And how do Italians ... (06:50):
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I mean, I can imagine that,you know, Americans,
Germans, Canadians, they come here,they say, oh, yeah, quinoa, fine.
But how do Italians respond to quinoa?

ALESSANDRO: As you can imagine, the Italians are responding to quinoa (07:00):
You know what's quinoa?
I don't like quinoa. It's impossible if youdon't taste it.
But , you know, it was a challenge that wewould like to accept.
So try this, try that,and then , you know, it's spreading.
Because for us in Italy,we are strict in our traditions.

(07:23):
So to put something different inside,it's a bit of a challenge.

JEREMY: And as a chef, how do you how do you like to use quinoa? (07:29):
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ALESSANDRO: I like to use the quinoa boiled. (07:33):
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And from the quinoa boiled,we can do a lot of recipes,
like something you taste in the croquettes,so mixed with something else.
And then we use the quinoa flour,the quinoa flour,
gluten free , so you have to,it has to be used with something with gluten,

(08:01):
like flour, like normal flour.
Or to do something else,I don't know, like crackers.
So the first thing about this is the wheatflour inside,
because otherwise you cannot obtain this thinlittle thing without some chemical.
And we don't use chemicals at all.

JEREMY: Q uinoa straight out of the field, straight after harvest, (08:19):
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it's ... You can't eat it.
So are you involved in the processing or ...
How is the quinoa processed?

ALESSANDRO: Okay, I'm not in person involved, but I'm part of the company, (08:31):
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so I know what's happening there.
So we have, after the growing,we take the quinoa,
we have selection. I don't know how to sayit,
but we select quinoa,to take out all the stones or little rocks.

(08:58):
Yes? All that. And then,our quinoa is raw.
So it's not like, bleached or something else.
And so after the selection,from a raw one you have the cleanest one.
But t his is not the,you know, what we see usually in the

(09:21):
supermarket, the white big ones.
It's like a little raw,like a raw barley or row wheat.
B ut then you can use it.
Then like that, you can use it because ...
Just to wash a little bit because you havesaponins inside ,
and then you can use it.
No troubles. So there's a couple of partsfrom the field to the bag,

(09:46):
you know, where we sell the quinoa and whenwe use the quinoa,
but normally it's just the cleaning part andseparating the spare parts.

JEREMY: And it's very strange because here we are. (09:57):
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The landscape here is very flat.
It's very humid. W e're a few kilometres fromthe ocean.
It is nothing like the highlands of Peru andBolivia.
Don't you find that a little bit strange?

ALESSANDRO: It's a little bit strange. At the beginning. It was a little bit strange at the beginning, (10:17):
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but quinoa, it's ... The Chenopodium is,it's a family,
it's the same family of the beetroots.
And in this land in, like,in the 60s until the 80s,

(10:37):
it was big sugar beet farms here.
So it's the same family.
So when we tried the first time to to plantit here,
it was the perfect , you know,field, perfect temperature and everything
else. So it's quite different from what we'veseen in Peru,

(11:00):
in South America, but it's an Italian one,the smallest one.
And we are always, you know,trying to obtain the perfect seed for us.
So we have here, in our land here behind theLocanda,

(11:23):
we have the experimental field of quinoa.
Every year we experiment a couple of seedswhen we find the perfect sort ,
we use that.

JEREMY: Because, you know, Peru, Bolivia, they grow maybe, (11:34):
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maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred differentvarieties.
H ow many varieties do you grow here?
Is it just the one that you like,or?

ALESSANDRO: I think now we're like four, four types, because we grow here and we grow (11:47):
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all over Italy. And there are farmers thatare in the company with us.
S o, you know, here is flat,is humid, water is just a couple of
centimetres of under the sand ,the floor.

(12:11):
But in Umbria or Tuscany or in Puglia it'sdifferent.
So like three or four,not more.
But we have here a wild one,quinoa, and we can see over there now,
not not because we just got the greens,but there's a wild one here.

(12:33):
So that was the beginning.
So if there's the wild one,why not the farmed one?

JEREMY: So the one we see along the road here is ... (12:39):
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I thought that was amaranth,which I know is closely related,
but ...

ALESSANDRO: It's close, and you will see like the amaranth. (12:46):
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But it's the wild chenopodium or sometimesit's the growing of the ...
The one you see is not amaranth,is 90% chenopodium.

JEREMY: Mm. Interesting. Very interesting. (13:04):
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Was that the inspiration to grow?
What was the inspiration to grow quinoa here.

ALESSANDRO: Ah, the beginning was, farming here was not so easy. (13:13):
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And it was like a lack of selling,or a big gap between what's the right price
and what is the price that we obtained.
So we try to ... Sebastiano tried to find adifferent culture to use,

(13:38):
like, not to make money,but just to be sustainable .
Because wheat here is not sustainable if youdon't make,
like, 100 or 200 hectares.
I t's difficult for that.
So, starting like from a sustainable one andthen ,
you know, we see the opportunity here to putin the market,

(14:01):
and there was no market here.
So we made the market.
And now in Italy, we are 99% of the quinoamade in Italy,
is made by us.

JEREMY: What about the future? (14:10):
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Where do you go from here?

ALESSANDRO: Hmm. So now we have to ... (14:12):
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Because we risked a lot in these five ,six years.
So we have to stabilise.
We're waiting for a couple of machines inthe,
after the selection of quinoa.
There's a couple of things to mount to,you know,

(14:35):
just to build the structure.
And then we plan to open because the maingoal is to become the first --
we are now the first,but we're not certified the first here in
Italy -- if you if you would like to haveItalian biological quinoa,

(14:57):
it just 100% made for us.
That's what we're, our goal.
But then from there, we are,n ow we are exporting,
I don't know, Denmark,Norway or something like that.
Just to build a bigger structure to stabilisethis relationship.

JEREMY: And more quinoa on the menu? (15:17):
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ALESSANDRO: More quinoa on the menu. (15:19):
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Different type of quinoa on the menu. W eusually,
when we are arriving at May,June, we change the kind of menu ,
things in the menu. And quinoa is more,you know,
more present because in the winter,quinoa is not for the winter.

(15:40):
It's more for summer. You can,you know, fresh salads or something like
that. So we usually we put a lot like,in a couple of weeks.

JEREMY: Alessandro Biavati, chef at the AgriLocanda Val Campotto. (15:51):
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As I say, it was a lucky coincidence that Ihappened to take a little cycling holiday at
a farm specialising in quinoa.
And if you want to do something similar,I'll put links in the show notes at eatthis
podcast.com . Looking back at some of therides,

(16:16):
we did see quite a few fields that seemed tobe planted to sugar beet.
So perhaps sugar production is not quite deadin the area.
There's also an ex sugar refinery turned intoa museum at Classe outside Ravenna,
which I can tell you is about 50km from thefarm,

(16:37):
along a path that will give you a glimpse offlamingos on the lagoon and that crosses the
river Reno on a chain ferry.
All in all, an excellent adventure.
I hope you enjoyed listening to this episodeas much as I did making it.
And if you did, please tell a friend.

(16:59):
For now though, from me,Jeremy Cherfas and Eat This Podcast,
goodbye and thanks for listening.