This article was first published in Ferment issue 117, April 2025.
In 1986, outraged by the proposed opening of the first McDonald’s restaurant in Italy – by Rome’s venerable Spanish Steps, no less – Carlo Petrini and a group of friends staged a protest, handing out pasta in the piazza. This event was designed to showcase food that is a part of Italian culture; posing it in stark contrast to fast food which is homogenous by nature.
That event did not stop the relentless march of the Golden Arches across Italy (although they were forced to tone down the appearance of the branding to keep it more in touch with the historic surroundings) but it was the beginning of a new crusade to ensure everybody on Earth has access to food that is good, clean and fair. It was the birth of the Slow Food Movement, which now engages with millions of people across more than 160 countries.
Petrini, now the President of Slow Food, talks about encouraging access to food that is “culturally desirable” – traditional foodstuffs that are produced in ethical ways. Often, research shows the flavours are in fact preferred by their local communities to the mass produced food that multi-national corporations try to impose globally.
Slow Food Cheese in Bra
Thanks to Petrini’s Piemontese heritage, the headquarters of the movement is in Bra, a generally sleepy town in the north west of Italy. Bra has a handful of Baroque buildings, but it lacks the medieval splendour of neighbouring towns like Alba. However, to those in the know, the unprepossessing Bra is just as much of a foodie destination, thanks to its celebrated biennial festival, Cheese.
The next edition of Slow Food Cheese is due to take place in September 2025. It is a celebration of the best global raw milk, cheese and dairy – the largest of its kind in the world. The first festival took place in 1997, showcasing not just milk and the products that can be made from it, but also all of the biodiversity that they represent. From the microbes that create cheese to the ruminants that gave the milk in the first place.
Some 200,000 people visit Bra during the festival, where stalls line the whole length of the centre of the town. Regional producers and local products are showcased as well as an international contingent of representatives. A huge programme of activities takes place across the four day event to help educate and inspire.
It is an incredible event to witness, strolling through the bustling crowds in the late summer sunshine. You can of course sample the wares of small producers from around the world, but Cheese is much more than a food festival. It is a call to arms, engaging with politicians to look at how global food networks can be made more sustainable and accessible to all. It is a platform for educating the next generation – with workshops and resources for schools to access in person and online. It is a vehicle for the protection of traditional practices that are under threat of extinction from capitalism’s market forces.
The Cheese
Unsurprisingly, the cheese exhibitors are the stars of the show. Festival goers armed with cocktail sticks mooch amiably from stall to stall, sampling the displayed wares and finding the perfect cheese or twelve to take home. With some two hundred cheese producers and specialist retailers to be found in the city, there’s an overwhelming variety on display.
There are plenty of big names to be found if you like to stick to familiar flavours. The Consortium for Parmigiano Reggiano, from Reggio Emilia, has a massive stake in the event as one of the headline sponsors. You will also find artisanal producers of Dutch Gouda rubbing shoulders with the Swiss cheese, Raclette.
But look beyond these and you will discover the rare and unusual. From the lower Alpine valleys of Trentino the small group of 17 Trentigrana producing dairies offer delicious cubes of their complex herbaceous, sweet mountain cheese. Another mountain food is the Caciocavallo Podolico from Basilicata, an intensely flavoured cheese from Podolica cattle that is strictly produced following the seasonality of calving to protect the wellbeing of the cows.
The UK has a reasonable representation too, with Neal’s Yard Dairy having a sizeable presence at the show. Stichelton and Sparkenhoe Blue are also interesting British cheeses that are exhibited as designated Slow Food Presidia – small scale artisan products that are at risk of disappearing. These cheeses are listed as a set, the raw milk blues of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire.
The Midlands region is also well known for producing Stilton. However, the terms of Stilton’s PDO status, issued by the European Union, stipulates that pasteurized milk must be used to make it. This moves it out of the sphere of interest for the Cheese festival. That leaves just two producers making raw milk blue cheese in the Midlands – Joe Schneider at Cuckney in Nottinghamshire and David Clarke at Sparkenhoe Farm in Leicestershire. These are some of the rarest, and most celebrated, cheeses in the UK.
Other UK Slow Food Presidia include artisanal handmade Somerset Cheddar which is made using traditional ‘pint starters’ and calf rennet before being aged for at least 11 months and three counties perry made by producers like Oliver’s, Butford Organics and Barbourne.
Love Local
Seeing a variety of rare breed dairy animals being showcased in pens just outside one of the many street food areas in town can be something of a surprise. There are often goats and sheep on display, being vigorously patted by local children. The stocky but gentle white Piemontese cattle stare meekly at passers by with their mournful dark eyes. Their beef makes the most incredible carne cruda, or tartare.
And that’s not the only local delicacy that you cannot afford to miss if you swing by Cheese 2025. You’ll find vendors of the traditional Salsiccia de Bra dotted across town. This bright pink Fassona beef sausage is marbled with finely minced local pork fat and flavoured with salt, white pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon. Some producers may add a splash of cow’s milk or perhaps a little Arneis, a local white wine, to help achieve the best consistency.
Salsiccia de Bra is best served raw, smeared onto a slice of fresh bread. If you are squeamish about raw meat you can also find it grilled or used in a ragù. The spiral sausage received a royal licence from King Carlo Alberto of Savoy in 1847 to protect its production.
Since it’s consumed fresh, Salsiccia de Bra is practically impossible to find outside of the immediate radius of the town. It is a regional delicacy that is rightly treasured. This makes it a true embodiment of the Slow Food principles.
Another gastronomic item that should be high on your to-eat list at Bra is a sample of the Bra Duro. This cheese is made with cow’s milk. It has a rough rind and the firm centre has occasional small holes and a nutty flavour. It is usually aged for around 6 months which gives it the firmer texture and allows the cheese to develop a sharper flavour with tones of hay and herbs also coming through. It pairs well with amber beers like the local Birrificio Castagnero’s CST 7.0% Chestnut Ale.
Beer and Cheese
La Castagnero are one of the increasing number of Italian brewers who showcase their craft at Cheese, alongside all of the dairy producers. During my last visit to the festival pre-Covid in 2019, for example, I met the team from Birra STABRÄU for the first time. This trio of childhood friends began as homebrewers in their cellar. The brewery’s name is evocative of Bra, their childhood home, and it is also a pun on the traditional phrase ‘be good’ as heard in the Piemontese dialect.
Their range consisted of just four beers back then; a Kolsch, a red, an APA and a delicious session IPA called Theta. I recall the latter being a deliciously floral and aromatic pale, although at 5.0% it was a little too strong to enjoy more than one as I walked through the stalls. They experiment with many more beer styles besides this nowadays, including a Milanese smoked stout.In the same year, I was pleasantly surprised to have the opportunity to attend an IPA focused tasting led by Firestone Walker’s head Brewmaster, Matt Brynildson. His presence at Cheese was really emblematic of the rising interest in craft beer that Italy was experiencing in the late 2010s. That growth has continued, with 41 brewers exhibiting at the last edition of the festival in 2023. Sixteen of them hailed from the home region, including the celebrated Baladin, whose beers are relatively easy to obtain here in the UK.
