“Weeds”, wrote American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, “are plants whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”

For those fortunate enough to live in Italy, many are already familiar with the oranoleptic virtues of wild asparagus, broccoletti, thistles, chickory, chives, wild fennel, mint, puntarelle and rucola.

But would you be able to recognize them growing in your garden? The Mediterranean region has some of the few surviving cultures that continue to scavenge for edible weeds. The tradition in Italy goes back to Roman times, but now it is mostly the older people (those who survived the famine of World War II) who can tell the difference between agretti and erba cipollina. Edible weeds, when picked in the wild, are tasty, uncontaminated and an excellent source of vitamins and minerals.

Here is your chance to learn more about the wonderful and healthy world of edible weeds! Antonietta Rotondo will take us into the fields at Terre di Conca to identify and pick edible weeds and learn how to prepare them.

For lunch, apart from this bounty of the fields, eco-chef Berardino Lombardo will also prepare a cornucopia of non-meat and organic dishes including frittate made from his the eggs of his chicken, duck and geese, pancotto, cheeses, soups, legumes and desserts. All served with freshly baked bread and excellent wine.

After lunch we will visit the nearby 15th century Convento dei Lattani, gloriously perched on top of the extinct volcano of Roccamonfina. Of special interest are the church doors dating from 1508 with its 20 decorated wooden panels and the convent’s Spanish-gothic window.

Only an hour and a half from Rome, Terre di Conca is an easy drive and an undiscovered and still uncontaminated paradise.

Date: To be estabished (probably in June)

Time: 10am - 5pm

Cost: Adults: €50,00. Children 5-12: €25,00. Toddlers up to 5: free.

To participate register here no later than . Minimum 15 people.

Read what guests and food experts have to say about their experiences at Terre di Conca:

“We had a wonderful Saturday. Thank you for setting that up. It was like a mini holiday far from the business of Rome. The food was amazing, the setting spectacular and the company delightful. “

“We enjoyed the day so much ourselves. We were trying to decide on our way home what our favorite dish was and we all agreed, it was everything! For all of us it was a very memorable day.”

“We had a very nice time on Saturday. So thoughtful of you to order the lovely weather to go with the good food.”

Read what the food experts have to say about Berardino Lombardo:

Faith Willinger:
“Berardino’s organic farm supplies the restaurant with poultry, rabbits, pork, salumi and a garden of heirloom vegetables and fruits. The menu is pure tradition, with local just-made mozzarella, sheep’s milk ricotta, and polenta sauced with sausage, for starters”…”The bread is outstanding, baked in their wood-burning oven”…”There’s local pecorino aged in barrique casks, caciocavallo cheese aged six, twelve, or eighteen months, jam tarts (with homemade jam from organic heirloom fruit), conventuali butter cookies, spiraled with nuts and raisins, and scauratielli, or boiled cookies drenched with honey and orange zest. ”

Luciano Pignataro:
“This is one of those rare places that should be kept jealously secret and revealed sparingly only to those capable of appreciating the state of euphoria that comes when every pleasurable sense is fullfilled; like that offered by Berardino Lombardo, anthropological chef-turned-farmer-and-breeder who, with his wife Antonietta, have created a breath-taking restaurant, situated amidst ancient chestnut groves and the extinct volcano of Roccamonfina.”

Directions:

1. Take the A1 Highway south (towards Naples) and exit at San Vittore.

2. Follow the signs for Mignano Montelungo. After 2 km circa you will come to a large intersection with a stoplight. Turn right onto the Via Casilina and continue for 8.5 km. Turn right at signs for Mignano Montelungo.

3. Cross the railroad, go through Mignano and follow signs for Conca della Campania (or Conca), for another 8.5 kms. There are no signs for Terre di Conca which is on the left before reaching Frazione Piantoli.

by Stefano Polacchi, editor-in-chief of Gambero Rosso.

“How many chefs today can truly say they are eco-friendly? I try to be… but for me it comes more naturally because of where I live and the the choices I have made; if I did things any other way I could no longer make a living . My cuisine is inextricably tied to the land. But when you are far from the land, how ecological can you be?”

Berardino Lombardo is a troublemaker, most of all for himself. He has a good head on his shoulders and his feet are firmly planted on the ground, but his thoughts are, and have always been, totally focused towards utopia: so much so that a part of his dreams have already born fruit and he is looking to enlarge on them.

Berardino ran a successful and highly-awarded restaurant, La Caveja at Pietravairano (in the province of Caserta). Then he bought a farm where he could produce his own vegetables, fruits and herbs and raise farm animals (black pigs, capons and chickens) in semi-liberty… In the end he left the restaurant and retired to Conca della Campania where he is surrounded by 30 hectares of paradise and everything a man like him could possibly need. It is here that he produces his “treasures” such as the stringata - a monument to pork - which can be found in great gourmet restaurants and is revered like crowned jewels.

You can find him at the center of his dining hall, completely at ease, cooking for his customers as if they were guests at his home… It certainly doesn’t look like a model that can be easily exported. There are however, qualities that can be duplicated. In fact Berardino has a project he’s working on (it’s at an advanced stage of conception and will shortly be visible online): a Relais&Chateaux immersed in the woods, between heirloom fruit orchards and fields of wild herbs: bitter chicory, borage, thistles and cardoons, porcacchia and berries, Morello cherries and wild plums, sweet and sour apples, chickens and capons. There will be twenty rooms with a kitchen-laboratory totally dedicated to wild produce. a club with fifty members who will be owners and beneficiaries of the structure.

“I am already in contact with Italian and international professionals. Soon the project will be online, and subscriptions are already available… There are 20 hectares of incontaminated grazing land where one can live in tune with nature, where one can cook what one has picked in the field…” Simply put, a slice of utopia, a utopia directly cloned from Berardino’s farm; it’s not only a way to maintain physical health and mental wellbeing, but also a means of defending the environment and protecting hectares and hectares from cementification, contamination and fires.

This is an idea that could be repeated in a forgotten corner of Australia, England, or Japan. In the meantime Berardino lives and thrives here. People travel from far and wide to eat at his tables. Soon there will be a Relais… and a depressed area of southern Italy will find a new life, and many people will benefit, for a while at least.

Stefano Polacchi, caporedattore Gambero Rosso.

“Ma chi può fare oggi attenzione all’ecologia? Lo faccio un pò io… Ma perchè non potrei vivere: per me è una questione naturale, di vita. La mia cucina è legata agli elementi del territorio. Ma lontano da qui, come fai a fare l’ecologia?”

Berardino Lombardo è un provocatore, prima di tutto verso se stesso. Ma è anche un bel cervello, coi piedi per terra e il pensiero fisso all’utopia: tanto che lui, la sua utopia, l’ha in parte realizzata, e punta anche ad estenderla. Lui aveva una trattoria pluripremiata, la Caveja di Pietravairano (nel Casertano) e allo stesso tempo aveva cominciato a realizzare un’azienda agricola dove produrre verdure, frutta, erbe naturali e allevare animali allo stato brado: maiali neri, capponi, polli… Alla fine ha lasciato la trattoria e si è ritirato a Conca della Campania: 30 ettari di paradiso dove prende tutto ciò che gli serve. Da lì alcuni dei “tesori” che produce - come quel vero e proprio monumento al maiale che è la stringata - prendendo la via dei grandi ristoranti gourmet, dove vengono trattati come veri e propri gioielli. E lui, nella sua postazione al centro della sala, cucina per i suoi ospiti: in totale naturalezza, con i suoi prodotti, come a casa… Cert, come modello non è molto esportabile. Però una qualche replicabilità ce l’ha.

Tanto che Berardino ha già nel cassetto (anzi, è già online in fase di progettazione avanzata) un Relais&Chateaux immerso nel bosco, tra giardini di frutta antica ed erbe spontanee: cicorie amare, cardi e cardelletti, porcacchia e bacche, amarene e prugne selvatiche, mele e melette, polli e capponi… Qui in mezzo una ventina di camere e una cucina-laboratorio interamente dedicata ai prodotti spontanei. Come realizzarla? Con una formula simile alla multiproprietà. una specie di club con una cinquantina di soci che diventerebbero proprietari e fruitori insieme della struttura.

“Ho già diversi contatti con professionisti italiani e stranieri. Prestissimo il progetto sarà visitabile virtualmente in rete, e già sono aperte le adesioni… Sono 20 ettari di terra, un pascolo incontaminato, dove vivere in sintonia con la natura, dove imparare a cercare a cucinarele erbe del bosco…” Insomma l’utopia realizzata, anzi clonata: l’azienda di Berardino e il suo doppio. un modo per tutelare il corpo con cibi sani, ma anche per difendere l’ambiente, per evitare che ettari e ettari di terreno vengano contaminati, bruciati, cementificati. Certo, lo stesso potrebbe anche essere realizzato in un angolo dell’Australia, o Inghilterra, o Giappone. Lui ci vive, quì. In molti vanno a mangiare da lui. Presto ci sarà anche il Relais… Una zona “depressa2 del Sud troverà vita nuova, e in molti, lì, avranno un a vita migliore, almeno per un pò.

“This is one of those rare places that should be kept jealously secret and revealed only to those who can appreciate that state of euphoria when every pleasurable sense is fullfilled; like that offered by Berardino Lombardo, anthropological chef-turned-farmer-and-breeder who, with his wife Antonietta, has created a breath-taking restaurant, situated amidst ancient chestnut groves and the extinct volcano of Roccamonfina.”

One and a half hours south of Rome - an easy drive down the A1 motorway - lies a very special restaurant run by a very special man. The estate is called Terre di Conca, with an 18^th century casale in tufa rock set in 40 hectares of woods and organically-grown farmland. The man, Chef Berardino Lombardo, is credited for having single-handedly saved the autochthonous breed of black pig, or maiale nero casertano. In 1955 there were only 25 specimens alive and the breed was listed in the FAO World Watch List for Domestic Animal Diversity as at risk of extinction. The particular characteristics of this species are that they have black skin, are practically hairless and have a protuberance, similar to earrings, on either side of the neck called bargigli. Today Berardino raises approximately 200 pigs a year that live in semi-freedom, feasting on the chestnuts and acorns in the rich, dense woods of his estate. He makes fine cured meats, lardo secco (dry lard) and a product of his own invention, La Stringata, the result of tying together - thus the name ‘stringed’ - lard, bacon and loin of pork. On arrival participants will meet the chef and watch as he prepares traditional, mouth-watering pork dishes around his huge stove (salvaged from an ancient convent and lovingly restored). Recipes are not available beforehand as they depend on the ripe fruits and vegetables that are hand-picked the day before. Most certainly, however, he will be using the famous annurca apples, another autochthonous variety of the region.

At lunch a huge meal will be served, accompanied by excellent wines. Guests are then welcome to spend the afternoon walking through the estate, viewing Antonietta’s priceless antique lace and embroidery collection and relaxing by Terre di Conca’s majestic fireplace. For those with enough energy, we can visit some of the nearby sites of interest.

Cost: Adults: €50,00. Children 5-12: €25,00. Toddlers up to 5: free.

To participate register here no later than January 20th. Minimum 15 people. Maximum 30.

Read the past testimonials:

“We had a wonderful Saturday. Thank you for setting that up. It was like a mini holiday far from the business of Rome. The food was amazing, the setting spectacular and the company delightful.”

“We enjoyed the day so much ourselves. We were trying to decide on our way home what our favorite dish was and we all agreed, it was everything! For all of us it was a very memorable day.”

“We had a very nice time on Saturday. So thoughtful of you to order the lovely weather to go with the good food.”

Read what the food experts have to say about Berardino Lombardo:

Luciana Squadrilli (Gambero Rosso):
Berardino Lombardo latest invention is “La Stringata”, an extraordinary example of cured pork and a monument to flavour.”

Faith Willinger:
“Berardino’s organic farm supplies the restaurant with poultry, rabbits, pork, salumi and a garden of heirloom vegetables and fruits. The menu is pure tradition, with local just-made mozzarella, sheep’s milk ricotta, and polenta sauced with sausage, for starters”…”The bread is outstanding, baked in their wood-burning oven”…”There’s local pecorino aged in barrique casks, caciocavallo cheese aged six, twelve, or eighteen months, jam tarts (with homemade jam from organic heirloom fruit), conventuali butter cookies, spiraled with nuts and raisins, and scauratielli, or boiled cookies drenched with honey and orange zest. ”

Luciano Pignataro:
“This is one of those rare places that should be kept jealously secret and revealed sparingly and to those who appreciate the state of euphoria that comes when every pleasurable sense is fullfilled; such as that offered by Berardino Lombardo, anthropological chef-turned-farmer-and-breeder who, with his wife Antonietta, have created a breath-taking restaurant, situated amidst ancient chestnut groves on the slopes of the extinct volcano of Roccamonfina.”

Date: Saturday, February 23rd

Time: 10am - 5pm

Directions:

Take the A1 Highway south (towards Naples) and exit at San Vittore.

Follow the signs for Mignano Montelungo. After 2 km circa you will come to a large intersection with a stoplight. Turn right onto the Via Casilina and continue for 8.5 km. Turn right at signs for Mignano Montelungo.

Cross the railroad, go through Mignano and follow signs for Conca della Campania (or Conca), for another 8.5 kms. There are no signs for Terre di Conca which is on the left before reaching Frazione Piantoli, but the entrance is right after the sign indicating the Parco Regionale di Roccamonfina.