It is 2005 in Belvedere Fogliense, a small fraction of the town of Tavullia (birthplace of Valentino Rossi) when One Village and One Hundred Stories first sees the light.
This is a project meant to valorise local culture and territory through the concept of “family dinners”. Social eating has not yet earned itself a cultural status, the sharing economy is unknown to the media, and cooks flocking on magazine covers are still a long way away. But serendipity, with its mysterious ways, gathers citizens and public administrators around the idea of a dinner table as the starting point for telling the story of a territory and the people who made it.
The modest initial goal, a photo exhibition celebrating the long-overdue restoration of an outlying hamlet is pretty soon overwhelmed by an unstoppable genius loci that affirms itself as pies, cakes, tarts and liqueurs straight from granny’s recipe books. Hence the idea to celebrate a “rebirth” by inviting everybody home for a “family dinner”. Because the table is the place of choice for the exchange of stories and one can literally taste an entire culture in a dish of passatelli or in porchetta rabbit.
For its tenth edition (2014) about twenty towns and hamlets have joined the project: families have been joined by B&Bs and agritourisms, wineries, workshops, building an offering that by its very nature is naturally geared towards the values and practices of responsible tourism. Meanwhile, Social media and word-of-mouth have attracted travellers from all Italy, curious to discover a territory through the homes and shops of welcoming strangers, far from the beaten track.
Today, One Village And One Hundred Stories is a live project, coordinated by the cultural association Storiememorie, that gathers cultural professionals, tourist operators, artisans, food producers and guests of the first “family dinners”.
Ten years ‘dining at homes’: watch the video
…or read more about us on wherelemonsblossom.it.
laDirce
“A meal is the cook’s soul turned into food” (Rubem A. Alves)
The first meeting with One village and one hundred stories – Italy in the heart happens at the table: with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, better if accompanied by some hand-made ciambellone (a large donut-shaped cake), it’s easier to become friends. laDirce, the cook-mascot of our project (her names comes with the article, the way we do it here) knows it very well. That is why she is shown offering her guests a cake surmounted by a castle, hosting the soul and the thousand stories of our villages and their people.
