Farm Holidays: Discovering Genuine Flavors and the Value of Nature

Practically everyone has enjoyed a Farm Holiday experience. Two words should be spent, however, to better describe this fascinating pursuit, the bastion of fine cooking and wholesome ingredients, and something that is unfortunately more difficult to find even in the country, which has become the victim of cement and supermarkets. Formally, these rural establishments offer food and lodging prevalently in farming areas. But since the interest of the public (extremely varied in terms of social class, culture and expectations, and also including more foreigners today) has grown considerably, owners now feel the need and desire to offer guests amenities and services that go far beyond the purely formal definition of the business. They offer suggestions on what to see and do in the area; hold weekly or one-day gastronomic "theme" seminars; present short courses on wine and food which are taught by experts; provide hospitality to stressed managers for their business meetings; organize perfect parties and banquets for baptisms, holy communion, and confirmation; and welcome school groups interested in observing wine-making techniques or raising livestock. You can be sure that, from now on, there will be more and more farm holiday establishments offering genuine, healthy, wholesome foods.
The reason for their success might be easier to sense than to explain: let's imagine an accessible and convenient place which, while not designed for mass tourism, offers an ideal vacation or break (even only for a Sunday lunch!) to recharge one's batteries and savor the natural pace of life in total freedom and relaxation, in a serene and quiet setting.

In this place one again becomes accustomed to smelling the fragrance of flowers and aromatic herbs and to listening to the peacock's call during the mating season or the rooster crowing at dawn.
A sense of time vanishes, swallowed up by breathtaking panoramas, and space is crossed by an informal ambiance and the natural warmth of hospitality.
If this rhetoric might seem a bit cloying... there's more, because this is also, and especially, the place for people who wish to rediscover the flavor and taste of simple things and old-fashioned wholesome food, when the tomato tasted like a tomato, chicken tasted like chicken, and fruit ripened on the trees and was picked, sweet and juicy, at the right moment. Just think: this is the same rhetoric used in advertising to sell you something that is exactly the opposite. Go, then, and rediscover the flavor of oil, cheese, wine and bread, and see how they are made. Learn how food is prepared only with ingredients from the vegetable garden, the fields, and from farmyard animals. In fact, farm holiday establishments are required to present dishes made from ingredients that mostly come from the area (at least 50%). For this reason, the most loyal or, at least, the most exigent patrons of these tables laden with wholesome foods are often local folk.

The owners, who are always on the premises (they never leave the place, not even to go on a vacation), are the official guarantee of the quality and flavor of this world. They reinvest into the establishment what they earn from offering hospitality. Of course, it is a life of sacrifice that is, however, fully recompensed by the rapport established with guests who often become friends, and with the area, which gives much but also receives much, especially in terms of visibility and reputation. During off-hours, guests-friends can learn to make homemade pasta or to preserve fruits and vegetables, and the most determined can even get a first-hand look at harvesting or grape-picking.
Guest can offer suggestions to a real person, not through a form "to be sent to the hotel customer service department". And don't be concerned if you have to call several times when you make your reservation because no one happens to answer the phone: that's a good sign! It means the owners are working out in the fields, and are also working for you. It doesn't matter if the farm holiday establishment is in the country, the mountains or the hills: the spirit will always be the same. Here nature sets the rules and humans adapt, not vice versa. Try it and see, if only for a romantic dinner with your significant other. It will be worth it. And you'll be back.