In English, when we speak about our place of origin, we sometimes say “I belong to...”. We see ourselves as being permanently linked to a given place. It’s as if the place in which we were born and grew up exercises a sort of property right over us.

We tend to acknowledge less the rights of places over the food they produce, but without those places there would be no food. If they were simply pieces of land, the mere physical means of food production, we’d have calories, lipids, proteins... But food is more than that: it’s the edible part of our identity, of our history, of our climate, of our biodiversity, of our way of standing out from others—which is the only way for us to get to know others and ourselves.

2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, which also means variety of food and culture. This is why, at the Salone del Gusto 2010, we’ll find places that will steer us towards food products and food producers, describing the bonds that have brought them into being. We’ll have an overall view, but we’ll also be able to move in close, very close, to pick out the details. We often experience places in a disjointed way; it’s moments like the Salone that help us to put the pieces together and make sense of that experience.

Sense as meaning and as perception, two halves of the jigsaw puzzle we’ll assemble in Turin: Terra Madre, where people and their relations with the problems and ideas of places emerge, and the Salone del Gusto, which presents the products of the places those people come from. The places to which they belong.