Bra sausage and the University of Pollenzo
Bra, a baroque town on the edge of the Langhe and Roero, is the birthplace of Slow Food, the international movement founded in 1986 by Carlo Petrini, born here, to defend good, clean and fair food against fast food and the standardisation of taste. Today Slow Food has members in over 160 countries and promotes traditional products, small producers and biodiversity, with projects such as the Presidia and the Ark of Taste. Its international headquarters is still in Bra, and every two years, in September, the town hosts Cheese, the largest international event dedicated to raw-milk cheeses.
Bra is famous for its salsiccia di Bra, a thin sausage made of veal and pork with spices, the only one in Italy that by tradition can be eaten raw, and for the Bra cheese, a PDO cheese of the Langhe. The historic centre has fine baroque churches, such as Santa Chiara by Bernardo Vittone, and the Palazzo Traversa museum. Just outside the town, in the hamlet of Pollenzo, stands the Agenzia di Pollenzo, a neo-Gothic complex built by King Charles Albert of Savoy, part of the UNESCO site of the Savoy Residences, which houses the University of Gastronomic Sciences, the first university in the world dedicated to food culture, founded by Slow Food in 2004, together with the Banca del Vino, a "wine library" that preserves the memory of Italian wine in its cellars.
Tip: the Banca del Vino offers tours and tastings; try raw Bra sausage with a glass of local red wine in one of the town's osterie.
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