A substantial and interesting guide devoted to buying from the farms and producers of the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park came out on 16 April 2012.
“La Spesa nel Parco” (Shopping in the Park), as the guide is called, essentially offers food products, with the sole exception of spun wool from the rearing of sheep of the Gentile di Puglia, Sopravvissana and Merinizzata breeds.
The guide, which you will find at the bottom of the page, can be downloaded free of charge; it is yet another interesting initiative by the park. A way of encouraging a kind of tourism that gives value to the economic life of mountain areas.
The suggestions are numerous and all extremely tempting: from cheeses to cured meats, right through to lesser-known and less-eaten cereals such as spelt or Solina wheat. From saffron to vin cotto and cagionetti, the most widespread and best-known typical Abruzzo sweets (did you know them? Yours truly, who goes to Abruzzo dozens of times a year, had never heard of this sweet until now). Let's give ourselves the chance to keep learning...
It's worth downloading the guide and printing it out at home too, useful as a vade mecum for the coming summer holidays, which in these times of crisis won't let everyone travel too far from home.
Let's rethink our holidays on the model of a kind of hiking and tourism that can bring economic resources to our beautiful regions of central Italy.
Let's not forget the idea of sustainable tourism as we set it out some time ago in one of our articles. Enough of the usual hit-and-run tourism. Let's stop at farms and agriturismi. Let's stay, let's buy the products of local farming and the foods made from them. Let's talk to the producers: they can't wait to share their gastronomic and cultural traditions...
To find out more: Presentation of the guide "La spesa nel Parco"