From April 12 to 14, the town of Foça, on the Aegean coast of Turkey, a few kilometers from Izmir, celebrated its first anniversary of joining the network of Earth Markets with Terra Madre Foça'da, three days of events dedicated to good, clean and fair food.
"We needed an event to promote our ideas and the Slow Food philosophy," Gul Girismen told us. The leader of the Slow Food Foça Zeytindaliı Convivium continued: "Everyone keeps thinking of our market as an ‘organic market.' That's why we wanted to make it clear that ours is much more than a market of ecologically ‘clean' products. With the market, we are protecting our gastronomic traditions, adding value to many women's homemade products and contributing to the local economy of the surrounding small villages." Many different vegetables, herbs and lettuces are on sale at the market, all of excellent quality, as well as bread, preserves, mushrooms, cheese, milk, yogurt and flowers. Taste education activities and seed exchanges are also held at the market.
More than 20 producers from all over Anatolia participated in Terra Madre Foça'da (Terra Madre Foça in Turkish), bringing products like cheese from Kars, a town on the slopes of Mount Ararat famous for its aged cheeses and wide pastures, and wines from Bozcaada, an enchanting Aegean island that guards the entrance to the Dardanelles strait, where the winemaking tradition is rooted in the history and mythology of an ancient past. There was also apple vinegar, wild lavender jam, extra-virgin olive oil and sourdough bread, representing the inexhaustible cornucopia of Turkey's gastronomic riches.
Read more: In Turkey, the Foça Earth Market Turns One | News and Event | Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity