Asti: Douja d'Or

There is an annual festival in Asti called the Douja d'Or.  It's a food and wine festival that includes hundreds of booths full of wine and classic Piedmont dishes.  We took a picturesque bus ride from Torino and in 45 minutes we arrived in Asti.  Now, we all know Asti as a producer of sparkling wine, or spumante, right?  I remember my grandma serving around the holidays, especially with Christmas dinner, as it was a favorite of hers.  Though I didn't see any spumante at the festival, I did partake in the vino da tavola.

There must have been thousands of people at this festival, because the lines at each booth were half an hour long at least.  We scoped out a few places we wanted to try based on the food map, and devised a strategy.  Appetizer.  Main course.  Main course #2.  Dessert.  Post-Dessert Snacketizer.  We were there for 7 hours, so don't worry.  Photo of me indicating points of interest, i.e. fried pasta:  

   

We tried bruschetta bianca (bread with rosemary-infused olive oil), agnolotti (meat-stuffed ravioli typical of the Piedmont region), polenta cinghiale (wild boar polenta), pesche ripiene (chocolate/hazelnut stuffed peaches), fritelle (fried pasta dough, not as good as doughnuts), crema dolce (cream-filled pastry that wasn't exactly sweet), and we finished with bruschetta rossa (bread with tomato sauce).  Whew!

And can we all just take a moment to truly appreciate the ingenuity of the Italians?  Here you have olive oil.  But it's not your average olive oil, it's infused with rosemary via this stirring/brushing utensil.  So delicious.  I'm still in awe of the brilliant simplicity of Italian food.

The vendors of these delectable meals were serving everything from mushroom risotto and roast beef tagliatelle to lardo-smeared bread and fried frogs legs.  It was definitely a fun evening, we tried some tasty local fare as well as some not-so-tasty desserts.  In fact, toward the end of the night when I went to pour out the "sweet cream" (totally gross non-sweet cream) from my pastry in the trash, I consequently started a conversation (in italiano!) with some native Piemontesi around my age.  They asked me what I was doing and I, slightly embarrassed, replied that I thought the dessert wasn't good.  They laughed and said Piedmont desserts are deceiving, all the ones that look like shit taste good, but all the ones that look good taste like shit!  We laughed and talked for a while about school and the United States and all the cool festivals in the area.  After this interaction, I am further convinced I speak better Italian after a glass or two of vino.

Unfortunately the night didn't have a pleasant ending, as one of the girls from our group stepped on a broken bottle and had to be taken to the doctor.  Consequently we couldn't get on the bus until 1:45AM and we arrived in Torino around 2:30AM.  At that hour there were no buses and we had to walk to find a taxi.  Needless to say I slept in today more than I have in ages!  

Always an adventure here in Piedmont.