Although most people tend to think of spaghetti as an Italian dish, some of the world’s finest spaghetti is actually grown just across the border in the mountainous cantons of Switzerland. The annual Swiss spaghetti harvest is getting underway this week, and it’s a wonderful cultural tradition that all homeschoolers should know about. Here’s a classic two-minute documentary produced by the BBC:
Sadly, many of these traditional farming practices have declined in recent years under the pressure of modernization, but artisanal spaghetti growers are still keeping them alive, sometimes with subsidies from the Swiss government.Β π¨π

You can find a beautiful map of the alpine nation of Switzerland on plate 69 in your River Houses atlas (10th and 11th eds.), and you can learn more about the annual Ticino spaghetti harvest on the helpful website of the Swiss Board of Tourism.
What other ancient and honorable cultural traditions are you celebrating in your homeschool this Leo Term? π
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