Dear {NOMEUTENTE}
when you give something for granted, whether it is a feeling, a product or a person, you always run the risk of ignoring its changes. It may be movements and slight variations, almost invisible in the short term, but which on the long term appear with defined contours.
On this note, we, at Identità Golose, realised that pasta, the symbol of Italian cooking, customs and economy, has been mistreated here and throughout the peninsula. We constantly hear that: «Un piatto di pasta non lo si nega a nessuno» (A plate of pasta is not to be denied) and we believe that, aside from its real meaning, it is important for that plate to be the best among many that are prepared and served every day.
We are pasta eating people, who have been very easily pleased for a long time. We got used to the mediocre quality of standard products, believing that our pasta is great whenever and wherever. We haven’t yet realised that the real and authentic quality of pasta is based on very different standards.
On Monday 1st of February, at the last edition of the congress, we celebrated the Identità di Pasta day in order to define the boundaries of the pasta world and raise the standards, below which it is impossible to talk about perfection. Alain Ducasse shocked many when at Auditorium he said that he will never open a high quality restaurant in Italy because it is a demanding country. He said he could not work at the set standards, because we are the first ones who do not agree on the exact cooking time of ‘al dente’ pasta. He is right. However, this may also prove to be our (as Italians) strength, if we could only bring our knowledge together to create a global and tasty cuisine.
Identità di Pasta has now also become a newsletter, thanks to Riccardo Felicetti and the Felicetti pasta making factory for the strong passion they put into the work and the trust they have given us. It will be a tool to explore the spaghetti & co. world, to deal with various theses and opinions and to offer a chance to discuss and enrich our knowledge.
Paolo Marchi
Texts by Gabriele Zanatta
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How to cook pasta: Elio Sironi and Gennaro Esposito There is an extensive amount of literature on cooking pasta. It doesn’t come from the Neolithic era but certainly people couldn’t even write at the time when pasta was first cooked.
Where are we thousands of years later? According to Elio Sironi, the chef at Bulgari, experimenting with pasta has only just started. Contrary to the strict rules supposedly carved on stones, which ignore the type of pasta, wheat or its drying methods (which are all the fundamental parameters), Sironi differentiates ‘Al dente’ and ‘Alla gengiva’ (on the gum) from the previous step: ‘Spaghetti which require cooking timings of 10 minutes, will boil in water for 6 minutes and will be refined in the sauce for another four.’ But there is still a lot of room to experiment with: for example ‘cottura passiva’ (Passive cooking). ‘I boil pasta on high heat for four minutes, then I take away the pot from the heat and leave the pasta to cook slowly in the water, while it decreases in heat. In this way starch is preserved.’ See, but above all, taste his spaghetti with tomato sauce, lemon peel and goat cheese (Photo Brambilla/Serrani), basically an example of his cooking method.
On this note it is interesting to know what Gennaro Esposito of La Torre del Saracino, in Vico Equense, guardian and hunter of the southern Italian cooking methods, has to say. ‘I truly respect Elio’s work because experimenting leads to creativity. I believe though that there are fundamental principles which need to be followed and there is very little room to experiment with. An example? I am attached to the concept of the ‘al dente’ cooking but not to its extreme: ‘al dente’ means cooked rather than raw pasta, as often happens.’ So, we wonder, for how long should it be cooked on high heat? ‘I have no idea. I never cooked with a timer by my side. I observe the cooking, and taste the pasta, and when I think it’s ready, I drain it.’ However, the real ‘revolution’ that needs to happen is another one: ‘Chefs and pasta makers need to talk to each other and work together and nowadays this never happens.’
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Cedroni and the unstoppable rising of Pasta Risottata As reported above, it already is a very complex matter to agree on the timings for cooking pasta. Imagine agreeing on a well defined formula on which to base the creation of the perfect ‘Pasta Risottata’ (Pasta cooked like risotto). Cooking pasta directly in the sauce (as you do when making risotto) is gaining more and more consensus from the most famous chefs. Therefore, trying to put together a technical manual about it is not such a silly idea.
For example, Romano, in Viareggio, boils the paccheri for half the time and leaves them for a long time in the pan. Alfonso Caputo, at La Taverna del Capitano in the Penisola Sorrentina cooks pasta with zucchini by mixing it constantly in a bowl and slowly sipping in hot water. And then there is Moreno Cedroni (Photo by Alessandro Castiglioni) of the Madonnina del Pescatore in Senigallia (Ancona) and his ‘psychedelic spaghetti’. It is a very clear example of Pasta Risottata, revealed in the first edition of ‘Identità Golose’ in 2005. These spaghetti are cooked with seafood and clams and are changing and multicolour (that is why it is psychedelic).
À propos Cedroni says: ‘The starch of pasta continuously interacts with the sauce, instead of being erased by the boiling water.’ Obviously, the sauce must be very liquid, otherwise it damages the pasta. ‘This is because, as the concept of pummarola in coppa (the tomato sauce served on top of the pasta) tells us, the sauce needs to solidify slowly until it becomes creamy. I say no to spaghetti with tomato sauce, but yes, for example, to aglio, olio e peperoncino (garlic, oil and chilli) as long as the sauce is continuously added with water, as I did with my clams sauce. The most important thing is to keep sapidity low, while cooking.’ Otherwise the dish becomes too salty, as it happens to the worst risottos.
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Christophe Martin, the supporter of the cast-iron cocotte In relation to ‘Pasta Risottata’ what you see in this picture is called a Pasta Pot, designed in 2007 by the young designer Patrick Jouin for Alessi. He followed a concept by Alain Ducasse who had been strongly influenced by the ancient tradition of olive pickers. They often had very little water and used to cook pasta directly in its sauce with a small amount of water (like making a risotto). Today, every chef of the Ducasse Empire (The Dorchester in London, Louis XV in Monaco, The Plaza Athénée in Paris…) uses it.
Everyone, but one: Christophe Martin, chef at the Trattoria Toscana in the Tuscan Maremma estate of L’Andana. How does he dare to do so? He doesn’t violate the rules imposed above. He explains: ‘I don’t use the Alessi Pasta Pot in steel. Instead I simply use the cast-iron cocotte by Le Creuset. It performs the same function but it is more coherent with our local cooking traditions, which are originally rustic.’ However, there is also an emotional reason: ‘When I was a child, my grandfather gave me one of those cocottes and it was there and then that I decided to start cooking.’ And a scenographic reason too: ‘The food I cook in my cocotte is very often served directly from the pot.’ As a matter of fact, the cast-iron does look better. ‘Cooking pasta like risotto is very important as it links the pasta to the starch, enhancing the taste of the wheat. I make a ‘Calamarata’, which is made of paccheri with squid and zucchini. I also make all sorts of short pasta, which is generally small and strong, like rigatoni o strozzapreti. Long pasta shapes, like spaghetti, are better boiled the usual way.’ If you taste the trenette with squid ink and Sicilian mullet botargo, you will understand why.
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All you ever wanted to know about Kamut The ones who like healthy and tasty food, will be pleased to hear so much about Kamut. It is a pity however, that very few are able to define its meaning. For this reason we spoke to Riccardo Felicetti of the Felicetti pasta making factory in Predazzo (Trento), who knows the cereal very well. First of all, Kamut is not a cereal, it is a brand. ‘It’s like Nutella or Rimmel’, Riccardo explains. ‘It’s a trade mark. The American farmer Bob Quinn owns it, in order to preserve the real cereal: the Khorasan, ancestor of the modern durum wheat. It is a symbol of organic farming as it protects soils that have been destroyed by the intensive exploitation of crops, as often happens in the US. Simply think about the amount of crop picked which is about 1.5-2.0 ton per hectar compared to approximately the 4.5-5.0 ton of intensive farming.’
What are the features of the Khorasan, branded Kamut? ‘Firstly, it has a high percentage of proteins, which is higher than average and varies naturally depending on farming and soil. Its gluten is easier to digest than the one of the usual wheat, as it is pure and not genetically modified.’
Above all, however, what matters is the taste. ‘When my father, Valentino, tasted it for the first time, he felt the Ratatouille (the movie) effect. He was thrown into a conundrum of tastes and flavours dating back to 50 years ago. From that moment onwards we started researching the mono variety wheat.’ After ten years of research, this type of pasta is classified among the top rankings on the gastronomic charts. Its ensemble of complex notes, supported by a decisive casein-flavour, appeals to the sense of smell. While a domination of edible flowers and sweet buds appeals to the sense of taste.
‘The pasta is no longer maid to the sauce. It has become an irreplaceable queen of the main course’ concludes Felicetti. The pasta made of Khorasan wheat of the ‘Monograno Felicetti’ range includes: spaghetti, linguine and tagliatelle (made only with Kamut not eggs) and 4 types of short pasta: rigatoni, penne rigate, fusilli and chiocciole. Depending on the chef’s work, this pasta can be made in many different ways and it is easily adaptable.
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Assenza and Reposo: pasta comes as dessert It is true that pasta (more than rice and risotto) is the queen of main courses. However, its realm does not end at starters and main courses. This is only a partial use of it. The most famous chefs recognize the sweet nature of pasta which is fully compatible with desserts.
Ahead of its time (at Identità Golose 2005), Corrado Assenza revealed the concept of ‘Il simile è attratto dal simile’, ie Like, in this case that light and sweet characteristic of wheat which enhances the best pasta, attracts like every other sweet ingredient which goes with pasta (as long as it is not heavy). At the time, the chef from Noto (Ragusa) cooked the spaghetti in water sweetened by orange flavoured honey. He then paired it with a ricotta ice cream with honey and fresh Sicilian oregano extract and flavoured the dish with a honey syrup glazed cherry tomato. ‘It was a timeless course’, Assenza recalls, ‘which is good from breakfast time until the evening’s after dinner dessert’. This is a very broad approach, and ‘when you are lucky enough to have a highly refined pasta, the sweet ensemble can be fantastic’ Be careful, however: ‘not to belittle the sweet, delicate and elegant characteristics of the cooking wheat. The ideal procedure is to drizzle it with salt and sweeten it with honey and not sucrose, as it erases the cereal’s natural sweetness. Afterwards you can couple it with natural but non-added sugars, otherwise the dish will be deprived of any taste.’
Galileo Reposo, the young chef from Milan, knows this very well. An example are the citrus tagliolini with ricotta cream and orange, yoghurt and fennel parfait, which you can try at the Park Hyatt in Milan. (Photo Brambilla/Serrani)
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The ‘Cacio and Pepe’ pasta, like you’ve never tasted before The Cacio, pepper, juniper and chocolate spaghetti of Enrico Crippa, chef at the Piazza Duomo in Alba: (Photo Brambilla/Serrani)
Ingredients
750gr of spaghetti
To prepare the Cacio infusion: 800gr of water, 150gr of grated cheese.
To prepare the Cacio sauce: 500gr of the infusion, 40gr of Tapioca Flour.
To finish use enough black pepper, ground juniper, 100% pure chocolate, lemon peel and glazed lemon.
Procedure
To prepare the Cacio infusion: Heat the water at 90° and put the grated cheese in infusion for about an hour.
To prepare the Cacio sauce: mix the tapioca flour with the infusion and reduce the latter to a third.
To finish: cook the spaghetti and mix it with the Cacio sauce. Sprinkle the two lemons with pepper and juniper and cover with chocolate.
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Rigatoni ‘trafilati in casa’ with scorpion fish by Alfonso Caputo The home made Rigatoni trafilati with cooked and raw scorpion fish ragù by Alfonso Caputo, chef at La Taverna del Capitano in Marina del Cantone, Massa Lubrense (Napoli), presented at Identità Golose 2010 (Photo Brambilla/Serrani). |
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