Convivial Tables: Sapid Soil

Prelude

May 6, 2023

Ocean Space Venice

TBA21–Academy

Research

Programming

"Sapid Soil" is the second edition of Convivial Tables, TBA21–Academy’s active research program dedicated to the ties between food and ecology and the way these affect bodies of water.​

"Sapid Soil - Prelude" opens the program of culinary events curated by The Tidal Garden with a buffet that explores the edibility of Venice's waterfront. From the sea fennel that grows from boat poles to the fig tree that takes root in Istrian stone, the so-called 'weeds' signal the organic nature of the city monument and reveal a potential new terrain for rethinking conservation.

Imagining a culinary tradition that has learned to make use of weeds, "Sapid Soil - Prelude" offers a glimpse of a plausible yet real present where architectural heritage is no longer an inert presence. But, on the contrary, it is preserved through the integration of its minerals, bacteria, and fibers into food cycles that extend to the surrounding environment.

The tocio—a thick, Koji-fermented, continuously-evolving sauce, is served alongside a purple cabbage waffle with fermented amoli, goat robiola and sea fennel. The menù is developed by The Tidal Garden in collaboration with chef Marco Bravetti (Tocia! Cucina e Comunità) to integrate weed into traditional food-preservation processes, foreshadowing past and future life-worlds still possible to recover.

PROGRAM

"Sapid Soil: Prelude" is part of Convivial Tables: Sapid Soil, a program of events that insists on the possibilities of food habits to become tools for the emergence of amphibious worlds for a past, present, and future still possible to recover. Taking place between May and October 2023 at Ocean Space, a series of culinary interventions present the ongoing agronomic work of The Tidal Garden with local farmers and institutions. Chefs and businesses explore the edibility of halophytes and saline soils, inviting participants to speculate on the policies that could allow the physical and cultural cultivation, processing, and digestion of a sapid environment.

CONVIVIAL TABLES

“Sapid Soil” is curated by the research agency The Tidal Garden and takes place at Ocean Space, Venice, from May to October 2023 as part of Convivial Tables, TBA21–Academy’s active research program dedicated to the ties between food and ecology and the way these affect bodies of water, led by María Montero Sierra and Barbara Nardacchione with Markus Reymann. This research program is aligned with the principles of regeneration and more-than-human rights promoted by the project Zoöp, which TBA21–Academy is a partner in.
 

MARCO BRAVETTI

Marco Bravetti is a chef and the founder of Tocia! Cucina e Comunità—a collective that employs convivial research around food as a tool to investigate the human and non-human landscape of the lagoon. Named after the Venetian "tociare"—the act of taking a piece of bread, polenta or even your fingers and dipping it into a sauce, Tocia! brings together cooks, farmers, gatherers, fishermen, activists, researchers, artists, and craftsmen. The project enhances the territory and the communities that make it by developing research on products, recovery and preservation techniques, and culinary contaminations.
Marco Bravetti contributed to the 2022 cycle of "Convivial Tables. Entrée: The Pannier of the Lagoon".
 

THE TIDAL GARDEN

The Tidal Garden is a Venice-based research and spatial agency founded in 2020 that explores the edible potential of halophytes as a tool for cultural adaptation to climate change. Led by Lorenzo Barbasetti di Prun (chef/artist), Filippo Grassi (scientist/researcher), and Lodovica Guarnieri (designer/curator) in collaboration with a network of farmers, chefs and researchers, the project supports the emergence of new eating habits as means of conservation of the Lagoon’s landscape in times of rising sea levels.

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