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| Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity |
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27/10/2009 |
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Three new Presidia are born in Austria
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The three new Austrian Presidia will be presented to public during Terra Madre Austria (Vienna, October 28-29): the Tauern Rye from Lungau, the Wachauer Saffron and the Pit Cabbage.
The Tauern Rye from Lungau (Lungauer Tauernroggen) is a robust variety well adapted to mountain areas often unsuitable to grain cultivation. Tauernroggen rye was cultivated until the 1970s when the rapid decline in grain cultivation in the mountains saw it vanish almost completely. Recently, a group of farmers decided to recover this important piece of local biodiversity. Thankfully a handful of local farmers had continued producing the grain on small plots for their own self-sufficiency, and the variety wasn’t lost for ever. The flour is used to bake sourdough bread as well as Hasenöhrl (dough fried in lard, literally means "rabbit ears") and distilled schnapps.
The Wachauer Saffron Presidium was born to recover the tradition of saffron cultivation and transformation in the Wachau Region (Lower Austria), which today is almost completely disappeared. The Wachauer Saffron is cultivated between the cities of Krems and Melk, in one of the most beautiful valleys of the Danube.
The Presidium aims to identify the right cultivation techniques in order to recover this ancient tradition dating back to 1200 when the Crusaders are said to have brought the first saffron plants in Europe.
The Pit Cabbage is an ancient technique to preserve cabbage (once a staple food in Styria) by natural fermentation among layers of straw in pits. The tradition of storing cabbage in pits had been completely abandoned by the 1970s. Two farmers who wanted to revive this ancient technique founded the Presidium.
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