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Giovanni Testa

Cascina Grampa and the "pista del riso".

Giovanni Testa, a young engineer from Turin, after having spent his childhood and youth in the city, decided with his father to take over the management of the family farm, which had been left in the hands of local farmers for many years. Located in San Pietro Mosezzo, the farmhouse stands out for a truly rare feature: having a canal available for exclusive use: the Roggia Crosa. The story deals with the description of the machinery and professions that were traditionally used in the Po Valley for rice processing in great technical detail.

At Cascina Grampa, under a layer of cement, Giovanni discovers six vases, dug out of a single block of stone, the remains of a rice track, a machine, driven by the force of the water, which through an abrasive action, hulls the grains of paddy rice and gradually whitens them. The entrepreneurial project and one of the identifying characteristics of Grampa rice was born from this discovery. Today the virtuous synthesis of traditional processes, combined with recent optical technologies for the selection of the beans, allows to obtain an extraordinary and unique product.

The interview is full of anecdotes and historical information on the subject of rice which compare the Novara plain with that of Lombardy and with the Veronese area.

Video table of contents

  1. Presentation
  2. Direct management of the farm
  3. History of Cascina Grampa
  4. Between city and countryside
  5. A private canal for the "pista del riso"
  6. The "Crosa" irrigation ditch
  7. A farmhouse for 30 people
  8. The autarchy of the old farmhouses
  9. Cascina Grampa and Cascina Palanchina
  10. Work horses
  11. The "liscione" and the "asse spianone"
  12. Rice monoculture
  13. "Sbramino", "pista del riso" and the rice whitening
  14. Mixing the rice with the gem
  15. The "sbramino" and the lost tools
  16. The "molazza"
  17. The pig in the peasant economy
  18. The rediscovery of the track at Grampa
  19. Track professions
  20. The rice trails in the Verona area
  21. The development of the rice industry
  22. Reconstruction of the "pista del riso"
  23. The rice of the "pista" today
  24. Risotto alla meneghina and Giovanni Pascoli
  25. The midnight risotto of the Savoia family
  26. Thomas Jefferson and the Rice Journey
  27. "Pistaroli", "crivellini "and "cavini"
  28. Working hours and taxes on the "piste"
  29. Fight weeds and parasites with natural methods
  30. Innovation and tradition
  31. Valuing tradition is a choice to be explained to the consumer
  32. Enhance Italian risotto rice
  33. Small companies for excellent rice
  34. Sensory analysis to spread the culture of risotto
  35. The added value of farm rice
  36. Growing risotto rice is difficult
  37. Domestic rice and export rice
  38. Risotto rice and cloning attempts
  39. Parboiled rice
  40. Aged rice: a traditional system from the Orient

Interview information

Geographic information

Country: IT

Region: Piemonte

City: San Pietro Mosezzo

Suburb: Cascina Grampa

Links and attachments

People

Giovanni Testa

Date of birth: 09-13-1973
City: Torino
School: University
Profession: Farmer
Languages: Italiano

Document by: Luca Ghiardo
Video by: Gianpaolo Fassino, Luca Ghiardo
Created: 16-05-2017

Questo video fa parte del seguente archivio
Rice stories

Rice stories

Food is a fundamental resource for man and his health, both through the supply of nutrients and the ability to embody traits of human culture that play a leading role in our well-being.

Over time, each territory has built original ways in which to relate to the fruits of its land, enriching them with rituals, symbolic meanings and culinary customs. Much of these relationships have been lost following the years of the economic boom, with the exodus from the countryside to urban centers, with the advent of agriculture for mass production and ultimately with the globalization of markets and the consequent impoverishment of the heritage of biodiversity and ethnodiversity.

The purpose of this archive is to collect evidence relating to the main rice production area in Europe, that is the Po Valley, and to investigate, through the analysis of textual sources and testimonies collected in the field, both what survives of this heritage, and the ways in which which has evolved and reached us, paying particular attention to the explicit and implicit links that bind food and health.

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