The Taste of Second Chances

There are evenings when food does something more than nourish. It tells stories. It connects. It transforms.

On 6 March 2026, from 7:00 pm, at Hotel La Perla in Corvara, something will take place that looks nothing like a charity dinner – and has no intention of doing so. "Taste to Taste – No Waste" is a solidarity evening born from a gesture that is both simple and radical: waste nothing, and ensure that this "nothing wasted" becomes something concrete for those who have less.

From Bruneck to Soddo, through the kitchen of Hotel La Perla in Corvara

The idea was born with four final-year students of the Hotelfachschule Bruneck: Anna Sofia Gamper, Rosalie Tratter, Anna Ellecosta ed Emmy Crazzolara. They are the real driving force behind this evening. They designed and built a zero-waste menu – a gastronomic journey in four courses where every ingredient has a story, and that story does not end in the bin but returns to the table transformed, with care and knowledge.

They are accompanied by Riccardo Forzan, Executive Chef of Hotel La Perla, who worked with them to give concrete form to dishes capable of speaking about identity, territory and technique applied with awareness. And Riccardo is no stranger to Ethiopia: years ago he crossed that country alone, backpack on his shoulders, from south to north, encountering people, cultures and silences. A journey that has never quite left him. Casa Costa Foundation ETS will also be present, bringing its own vision to the evening: building relationships between places, skills and people so that lasting change can grow from those relationships.

The participation fee is 85 euros per person. The entire proceeds will go to the Busajo Campus in Soddo, Ethiopia – a project that takes in street children and young people, offering them education, vocational training and psychosocial support. Not assistance, but skills. Not pity, but future.

A menu that tells the story of two lands

The tasting menu created by Chef Riccardo Forzan and the group of four students is a journey through the flavours of the Alps, the ancient techniques of fermentation, and the ingredients that conventional cooking tends to discard. But those who know Riccardo's story understand that this menu holds something more.

The starter speaks plainly: injera bread with Jerusalem artichoke and carrot. Injera is Ethiopia's fermented bread, made from teff flour, which Riccardo came to know not from books but on the highlands of that country, crossed with a backpack years ago. It is the bread broken without cutlery, shared from the same plate. Bringing it to the table in Corvara – with alpine roots, with technique – is a deliberate act of memory. And the buckwheat of the first course, the tortelli with malga ricotta and Ignaz cheese, carries the same logic: humble, identity-bearing grains that nourish deeply. Like teff. Like sorghum. Like all the seeds that in the highlands of East Africa are an act of faith before they are food.

The second course brings to the table marbled alpine trout with fermented vegetables – cabbage and beetroot prepared seven days in advance. The vegetable dish is a millefeuille of red beetroot with a mock skin of chia seeds: few ingredients, precision, surprise. To close, the Gravensteiner apple with white chocolate mousse and rosa moscato kombucha – acidity, sweetness, memory of the land.

Of that journey in Ethiopia, Riccardo wrote a few lines, with the voice of someone who still carries something that cannot be set aside:

"On the highlands of Ethiopia / the earth is not just earth. / It is waiting, it is sacredness, silence, the scent of Africa. / Every crack in the soil is a prayer. / Every seed is an act of faith. / The hands of mothers knead the teff, / the injera breathes on the round fire, / and the scent becomes a promise. / Whoever breaks bread / is not alone."

That bread will be on the table that evening. And it will taste of two places at once.

To train is to build

There is a thread running through the entire evening: education. Anna Sofia, Rosalie, Anna and Emmy are not there to be given a stage. They are there because real training is measured in real experiences, in responsibility taken on, in relationships built with professionals who have something to pass on. Bringing one's own students to design and run an evening of this scope is an act of pedagogical trust, before it is a professional one. And this is precisely what Casa Costa Foundation wants to support: skill as a heritage that multiplies, territory as a living laboratory.

From Corvara to Soddo

The distance between Corvara and Soddo – a small city in southern Ethiopia, in the Wolaita region – is around 5,000 kilometres. But on that evening, for a few hours, those distances shorten. Not through a symbolic gesture, but through a deliberate choice: to use gastronomic excellence as a lever to create resources for those who do not yet have the same opportunities.

The Busajo Campus in Soddo is not an emergency shelter. It is a campus that accompanies street children and young people along a structured path: education, vocational training, psychosocial support. A place where the future is built. It is the same principle that guides Casa Costa Foundation's work in every project we carry forward in South Tyrol and Tuscany: you do not help people in difficulty by giving them something, but by building together the tools to become independent.

Why it is worth being there

There are many ways to support a project: a donation, a shared post. These are worthwhile gestures. But being there – sitting down at the table, tasting, listening to the stories of those who cooked, understanding where the proceeds will go – is something different. It is participation. It is choosing to make one's own time count for something.

Registration is open until 25 February 2026, at a cost of 85 euros per person. Come. Not only because it is a good cause – even though it is. Come because it will be a fine evening, made by people who believe in what they do. And because some distances, at the table, really do shorten.