Who's Who
Erica Jarman
|
Throughout Heather's several careers eating, drinking and cooking have been abiding passions. As an archaeologist researching the early history of agriculture, Heather spent more time in Mediterranean markets and cooking for the excavators than in the trenches. While General Manager of the Academy of Ancient Music and Personal Manager of Christopher Hogwood, she researched and cooked sixteenth- to eighteenth-century feasts to suit the music performed at concerts. For the sheer joy of it, she cooked alternate Sundays at the Good Food Guide restaurant The Old Fire Engine House in Ely, disturbing the equilibrium by demanding unusual ingredients for historical English dishes. More interested in eating than publicity, Heather nevertheless did occasional programmes on eighteenth-century cuisine for the BBC and organised the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum into cooking their own seventeenth-century banquet. She was a founder member of the Cambridge Convivium of Slow Food, organised Neal's Yard Dairy's appearance at Slow Food Cheese in Bra, Italy, in September 2005 and their sold-out cheese workshops in London. None of this can compare in job satisfaction to introducing like-minded food-lovers to the traditional flavours and knowledge of the Garfagnana. *Named Heather by her parents, she discovered that Italians couldn't pronounce the initial 'H' or 'th' and adopted the Latin name for the heather plant, Erica, by which she is now known in Italy.
|
Erica (Heather) Jarman
|
Giancarlo Russo
|
Giancarlo designed and leads our Courses with Artisans Advanced Salumi Course and the Theory & Practice of Italian Cheese. He was Marketing Director for Mars-Nivea and American Express until he bailed out to adopt a slower, more personally rewarding way of life. Since then he has gained a wide range of qualifications and experience in the field of artisanal food:
|
Giancarlo Russo
|
Marzio Paganelli
|
Marzio is our driver, but he's also the life and soul of the party. His main job is to keep us on course and get us to where we want to go. But if you're bored watching your olives being processed at the olive press, he'll entertain you by miming to Maria Callas singing Puccini. He's our unofficial language school making it fun to learn Italian. He's got a solution to every problem and no request is too much trouble. He's happy to provide a taxi service too, so let us know if you'd like to book him for your own stay in Italy.
|
Marzio Paganelli
|
Andrea Bertucci
|
Owner of the Slow Food osteria Il Vecchio Mulino in Castelnuovo, Andrea has done more than anyone else to put the traditional food of the Garfagnana on the gastronomic map of Italy. He was born on Lago Pontecosi just up the Serchio River from Castelnuovo. 'I came out of the lake mud', he says, making it sound like the primordial soup. His mother was an excellent cook and his family had a smallholding with chickens, rabbits and pigs. His face lights up at the memory of the great day each year when his grandfather slaughtered the pig that had been fattened on kitchen leftovers—lucky porker. The women made biroldo, while the men tended to the prosciuttos, sausages and lardo. In his early 20s he strayed to Lombardy to manufacture explosives for those magnificent Italian autostradas that emulate the straightness of Roman roads by boring straight through mountains. But by 1986 he was homesick and came back to the Garfagnana and started Il Vecchio Mulino, for which he selects the best wines of Tuscany and the best food of the Garfagnana (making an exception for the gigantic mortadella from Bologna). On most visits he brings a new discovery to the table for us to taste — a leek preserve or a cheese he's matured himself. As the founder of the Garfagnana Slow Food convivium and with a finger in most gastronomic pies, he has probably done as much for the cause of biodiversity and the rural economy as the regional government and the EU put together. For myself, I'm especially proud of his tribute to me: 'For me, Erica [my name in Italian] is the Number 1 gourmet girl in the Garfagnana. She's really serious about finding out about the origins of our food and how it's made.
|
Andrea Bertucci
|
Photographers
|
A special thanks to all the photographers, both professional and amateur, without whose photos this website would be a much duller place to visit: Keith Barry · Andrew Bartley · Betsy Bothe · Adrian Brooks · Vittoria Cardella · Sarah Carter · Stephen Dunn · Marion Edwards · Roberto Giomo · Antonella Giusti · Janette Gross · Klaus Falbe-Hansen · Duncan Fielden · Helen Higgs · Andrew Houston · Margie Isom · Neal Johnson · Stefania Maffei · Brian Marshall · Tracey Meredith · John Morrison · Nick Morrison · Lucia Norrito · O'Connor · Harold Partain · Nina Peskett · Leslie Powell · Cindy Rosendorff · Dan Santoro · Libby Saylor · Anne Shelley · Colin Tweedy · Robyn Vulinovich · Kathy Weston
|
Photographers
|
