Over the Shoulder Pecorino Holder - the Bra Cheese Festival

One of the cool things about volunteering in Europe, say for an archaeological expedition in Sardinia, is the nightly ritual of relaxing in the courtyard of the dig house with a beer or three and getting to know the other people crazy enough to pay good money to work long hours digging the hard earth with dental tools in search of busted-up pottery. On one occasion, an Australian woman (like our work, unrelated in any way to Indiana Jones) told a tale set in her starving student days. Seems she'd crashed some highfalutin party, got herself all liquored up and eventually decided to steal a round of brie by slipping it into her bra and slinking off casually into the starry night. She forgot about said brie until the booze wore off, which was shortly after she woke up the next morning. The result was not a pretty mental picture, although oddly erotic.

The Bra Cheese festival does not commemorate this private experience. Bra is actually a town in Italy's Piemonte region, a region known for its wine and cheese, as well as being the nexus of the Slow Food movement. Bra has staged a "Cheese - milk in all its shapes and forms" festival since 1997. In 2005 you can get cheesy in Bra from September 16-19.

My favorite exhibition is the "Street of the Shepherds" they've laid out this year. Shepherds--usually alone with their sheep in some really out of the way corner of the world--will be on hand during the festival to sell their hard-to-find, handmade cheeses while they yack with you about their work. Of course, the web site doesn't make mention of the shepherd's wives, who are usually at the forefront of the cheese production and distribution end of the deal. Sheep, after all, need a great deal of looking after, I'm told.

Slow Food Cheese International Exhibition - Bra, Italy