Gourmet traditional food in Rome
By establishing the Open Colonna restaurant in one of Rome’s most famous modern art museums, Italian chef Antonello Colonna has given new momentum to Italian regional cooking and its associated traditional knowledge. At the same time it has boosted the market for local agrobiodiversity, which is supplied to the restaurant’s kitchens by a network of trusted farmers. The restaurant’s daily fare revisits traditional Italian recipes and includes only seasonal, locally-procured foods, particularly neglected and underutilised species. The chef has also opened an innovative cooking school that trains students to become farmer chefs as they grow their own vegetables. Colonna’s efforts are part of the rising number of global food movements that aim to protect and enhance the value of traditional foods by creating more sustainable food production and consumption systems. Chefs Colonna and Meyer (see Food School in Bolivia) are soon to collaborate on a new initiative that puts traditional foods at its core.
The problem
Once famous for its high life expectancy, the population of Yogyakarta in Indonesia is experiencing a steep rise in the incidence of diabetes and heart disease, largely due to changes in diets and lifestyle. Rice has supplanted traditional root crops as the main source of carbohydrates and its consumption has risen steadily reaching 115 kg/capita/year (2012), almost twice average consumption worldwide (60 kg/capita/year). Furthermore, households depend heavily on instant noodles as their core food, leading to reliance on wheat imports.
Agrobiodiversity
Agricultural biodiversity surveys carried out in the rural areas of Yogyakarta have shown that ten root crops are still widely used and grown in homegardens. These root crops are uwi/purple yam (Dioscorea alata), gembili/lesser yam (Dioscorea esculenta L.), “garut”/arrowroot (Maranta arundinacea), “ganyong”/Indian shot (Canna edulis or indica), “gadung” (Dioscorea hispida), “kleci” (Coleus tuberosus), “suweg”/Elephant foot yam (Amorphophallus campanulatus) and “kimpul”/purple stem taro (Xanthosoma violaceum) as well cassava and sweet potatoes.
Nutritionally-speaking most of these root crops (except for arrowroot) are lower in energy and carbohydrate content than rice, however, they contain much higher quantities of essential micronutrients which are important for healthy and balanced diets.
Cassava, the most popular of these crops, is commonly found on local market stalls and cassava-based foods are consumed by both young and old at least 3 to 4 times a week, either as staple food or snacks. Preparation methods vary according to geographic location but exist both in fermented and non-fermented form with important probiotic properties. 
Tape, a sweet or sour alcoholic paste is common to both regions. The fermented foods (gatot and growol) contain lactic acid bacteria and are consumed in combination with vegetables, coconut oil cake or tempeh (traditional fermented soy bean). The two staple foods are rice substitutes and normally consumed when rice production is low. Tape is prepared using boiled cassava fermented with a mold culture of Saccharomices cerevisae and is consumed both as a snack or pudding.
The Cooking School
In April 2012 Antonello Colonna opened a Chef-Resort in the Roman countryside. The resort houses an adjoining multifunctional farm designed to train budding chefs into becoming ‘farmer-chefs’. As well as having access to a professional kitchen, each student manages a personal vegetable garden with the supervision and support of experienced farmers who share their knowledge on cultivating local agrobiodiversity.
The Chef-Resort is set up to foster new links with local, national and international communities. It includes an organic shop, a weekly farmers’ market, a cheese factory, a school garden and spaces for art exhibitions and concerts. The aim, says Colonna “is to create a permanent ‘Foodstock’ (from the famous musical festival Woodstock), i.e. an environment where experts and amateurs can come together to enjoy and exchange information on sustainable food options". It also aims to attract people from different sociocultural and economic backgrounds, and to shape more sustainable food consumption patterns.