From May 16th till the 18th the small peninsula in which twin villages Skanör and Falsterbo are set, was the location of the first edition of the food festival created by Mattias Kroon. This is one of the most popular and appreciated Swedish tourist destinations, with a sandy beach, water that is not too deep, golf courses, fishing and game activities, good restaurants. The countryside colours are brilliant: the green and the yellow of the fields with rapeseeds, the blue in the sky filled with sun.
The view of the sea is marked by the flowing line of the Øresund bridge, an imposing engineering work that links Denmark to Sweden and was opened in 2000 – time references, over here, are based on before and after the opening of the bridge. Mattias, Swedish journalist awarded in the latest edition of the Guida di Identità Golose ai ristoranti di Italia, Europa e Mondo, developed the idea of organising an event in his place of birth that would draw attention to its food specialties.
Food trucks, concentrated in the port of the small Swedish peninsula, are among the attractions of the Mat Festival
We discover a sea rich in large and meaty
garfish that have little consideration in the local diet in which white fish and salmon fillets triumph. There are attempts to make people aware of the consumption of wild meat such as the
boars that live in the woods surrounding the two villages, caught following strict regulations, or “
hippie”
cows, of the Highland breed, full of hairs and freely and numerously populating the moors. Their only use is to keep the environment clean.
The attention is also focused on
asparagus,
berries,
rhubarb and
seasonal vegetables. The leitmotif is a natural, true and sustainable diet. A journey that tries to get closer to a new and aware concept of food offered to the audience, made of fanatics, enthusiasts and simple tourists, spontaneously and informally. The
Mat Festival is organised in a casual and fun way, one can sense the energy and the enthusiasm walking around each place involved in the event: the port with its food trucks, the market with local specialties, the eight restaurants in which one can find as many famous chefs. When walking, we bump into the guys from
Noma’s
Nordic Food Lab in Copenhagen after their presentation dedicated to
grasshopper garum.
How could one say no to the Festival’s official beer?
We follow the aroma coming from the garden of a small hotel where a very popular chef and television guru,
Tareq Taylor, is explaining natural food and cooking by preparing a barbeque with local ingredients. People move around on bicycle, on foot or on horse. Meanwhile, on the beach, a boar is being cooked in a large hole, together with the vegetables that will be used for the final feast.
Aldo Castiglione and wife
Annika open the doors of their Italian restaurant
Da Aldo – their espresso coffee is highly recommended – to the most evocative gastronomic districts in Italy, that of
Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP,
Vesuvius and
San Marzano tomatoes,
extra virgin olive oil,
Pasta di Gragnano and
Pizza.
All the themed tastings, organised together with chef
Peppe Daddio were sold out. Almost at the end, chef
Daniel Berlin, already known as a speaker during
Identità Golose offers his menu, in collaboration with a local restaurant. The festival ends around a coarse wood table lavishly laid with the boar cooked under the sand and the not to be missed
Mat Festival beer: it’s ten at night, dusk endures and the natural light is enough to light up the satisfied faces of
Mattias and his chef and restaurateur friends. The first step of this concrete project full of ambition is taken.
