.. articleMetaData:: :Where: Valtourno, Italy
Matthew set up a company event for Maguma and Web.by to go Törggelen at a farm close to his house, Kroftsteiner Hof . Törggelen is a local customn in which you visit with a group a farm, eat freash harvested food from their land, and ofcourse drink from their land. Valtourns is a good hour driving from Merano and after stopping by the office to fetch the directions we headed off to Valtourno. We drove through a lot of small little towns, as we didn't want to bother with the highway and pay toll.
We arrived at the Törggelen quite early, so we strolled a bit around the yard and saw some amazing views. After about half an hour the other people arrived and we went down into a room where the feast was about to start. Wine and apple juice were available in unendless supplies and were used to a great extend by certain people. The meal started with slices of cheese and speck, bread and butter and potatoes.
The second course consisted of Sauerkraut, Schwein and Würstl; all very un-italian food, but definitely Süd-Tirolian food. Although
I'm not too fond of Sauerkraut, the combination with the meat made things much better for me. After the main meal chestnuts and walnuts followed. The chestnuts were all roasted and warm, which gives a nice extra swing to the taste. Sterling took on a bet to eat 7 chestnuts with in a minute, if he succeeded he could borrow Gunnar's BMW for a day. He already knew were to drive to. Of course he didn't succeed in eating them in a minute, but atleast he didn't spit them out :).
After the nuts "Grappa" was brought to us. It comes in two flavors, one with poppy seed, and one with spinach. The seed and spinach are enclosed into a dough like banana. (The picture shows better what it
is than I can described.) The Grappa was followed by some great fresh harvested apples. After those four courses the meal was finally over, except for the local liqueur Grappa, which is usually a liqueur made out of grapes, but there is also a walnut version of it. It's a strong liqueur, and people seemed to like it a lot... drinking shots with one of the employees into the late Saturday night hours.