Dear {NOMEUTENTE}Last Tuesday all the six speakers of Identità London have unintentionally presented a pasta dish and also the Grand Fooding in Milan was devoted to spaghetti. It ended on Saturday and we noticed that on the first night curiously even Davide Oldani cooked spaghetti: him, who abolished pasta from his menu two weeks after opening the D’O in Cornaredo because he was not sure to offer a valid and steady performance due to the reduced dimensions of the kitchen. The second night it was the turn of the Italian-Brazilian Pier Paolo Picchi with his Trenette with rocket salad pesto, very special because they were made of hearts of palms as Alex Atala made us discover at Milan’s Identità Golose three years ago. Some did not understand, some were delighted, some had cooked those two minutes more but we weren’t few.
Pasta is an incredible universe and the World Pasta Day that took place in Rome confirmed it. I express a dream: shifting attention increasingly more from sauce to pasta to finally celebrate it even unseasoned. In restaurants for the joy of the palates and not at home because on a diet. A few drops of oil to exalt the wheat tastes and reach the soul of durum wheat semolina. Thanks to sauces we have “dressed” many poor quality products; why don’t we start considering pasta a seasoning component instead of a simple support, an accessory and little more?
Paolo Marchi
Texts by Paolo Marchi and Gabriele Zanatta, pictures by Francesca Brambilla and Serena Serrani.
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Rome and the World Pasta Day 2011 Rome, Tuesday, October 25th 2011. It was the World Pasta Day, the day of pasta “Etats Généraux”: 300 delegates among producers, economists, opinion leaders and media were gathering in Rome from all over the world to celebrate the ancient food rich in history and present on the tables of five continents today. The exact meeting place was the Tempio di Adriano (Adriano Temple) in Piazza di Pietra: all the participants debated on the subject “New markets and new consumers of the food that is filling people’s tables worldwide”. At the end, the participation of three great interpreters which keep up the value of pasta outside and inside our borders: Antonello Colonna, Ciccio Sultano and Mauro Uliassi, ready to tell their experiences and to interpret the autochthonous and global aspect of pasta.
Before that, we had an important prologue when at lunch time 8 representatives of the pasta sector went to the Quirinale to be received by the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano. A recognition of the fundamental role of a sector that in Italy has created 3.3 tons of product only in 2010, equal to 4.3 billion Euro, almost a budget package.
«It’s been an extremely important day», Riccardo Felicetti vice-president of Aidepi, Associazione delle industrie del dolce e della pasta italiane, explained «because we could concentrate on the future of pasta and its central role in the Mediterranean Diet for one day. And on its five fundamental adjectives: good, healthy, accessible, practical and sustainable». |
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Riccioli and the great spaghetti meal at Corinthia Massimo Riccioli, a Sicilian settled in Rome for many years, since the end of winter divides his time between the capital city (three days) and London (the remaining four). He does so to oversee the restaurant on the Thames bank, Embarkment metro stop, which bears his name, Massimo, a Restaurant & Oyster Bar inside the revived Corinthia Hotel in Whitehall Place, telephone +44.(0)20.79980555.
The Massimo entrance is on Northumberland Avenue, 100 places in the restaurant, another 40 in the oyster bar and 20 in a very special private hall which is not the usual room isolated from the rest of the restaurant but a special place with a beautiful kitchen ideal for Riccioli to cook for his guests, from a minimum of 12 to a maximum of 20. Last Monday the group was labeled Identità; chefs, cooks and journalists that the day after would have gathered again at the Town Hall Hotel for the third edition of Identità London.
I hope it becomes a tradition given that last year Massimo invited us when the Corinthia was still a construction site and we had to wear a helmet to enter it and reach a makeshift private room where he had placed a kitchen and three tables for 10 people each. The bathroom was in the other corner, astonishing because it was all marbles and shining lights while all around it was only dust and debris.
This time both the Corinthia and Riccioli gave their best to chefs Sultano and Oldani, Scabin and Cannavacciuolo. The dreaming face of their assistants was a wonderful sight. After the starters, (I made a corner in West Mersea, Rock Loch Fyne, and Rock Irish Oysters) Massimo has tossed with Daniele Gallotti oil his Linguine with Piennolo of the Vesuvio tomatoes and basil, his Rigatoncini with mullets and three-colored cauliflowers, perfumed with anchovy sauce and his emmer spaghetti with squids perfumed with porcini mushrooms. As second course turbot fillet with Chardonnay, pumpkin sauce and crab coral with French beans. In the glasses also the Zibibbo Serragghia by Gabrio Bini. (Pictures by Roberto Ciani Bassetti)
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Scabin, Felicetti and The Ultimate Pasta Experience Rice and pasta reloaded. This is the mark on the forehead of the ram used by Davide Scabin to shake violently the strong-box of Italian stereotypes in London. But there is one more horn, risotto, that is added to the “traditional” revolt about pasta. Traditional in inverted commas because those mad about Scabin already know the Ink (carbonara-style) Spaghetti «which is Pizza Margherita Spaghetti which succeeded in finding a curve», the Conchiglioni of Combal sushi pasta «aligned like a Felicetti Empire State». Tracks running along a law to know by heart: «if we want to review our way to see pasta we have to concentrate on it instead of its seasoning».
Talking about the right cooking of pasta abroad is already difficult (and after all even in Italy, it’s enough to eat it in Milan and then in Naples…), still less when Scabin turns upside down all perspectives and certainties. However, in this way we have the umpteenth confirmation that cooking is continuously changing and if sometimes it appears still to us it is just for lack of ideas.
Davide’s lesson in London arrived two weeks after the presentation of the Spaghettone Felicetti, an innovation of the company from Trento, at the Combal.zero in Rivoli, to the north of Turin. The chef has created a tasting journey called The ultimate pasta experience, first pasta and the “naked” spaghettone, and then the latter “dressed”. First Act: Com.Bar sushi pasta (conchiglioni stuffed with oyster and lemongrass, burrata and sea urchins, crayfish and wasabi), Cauliflower ganache and emmer stilton cheese broth, Surrealistic Felicetti Island (soufflé of macaroni with ragout served in the middle of a frame with even the sea), Black is black with Asian style fish soup (Ink spaghetti in a fish broth).
Second Act: Underwear for naked Spaghettone that is the spaghettone cooked in boiling water for half time, then the flame is turned off to let the spaghettone steep while preparing an emulsion of water, oil, pine seeds, chili pepper, tomato and basil for an Italian-style spaghettone.
Later The Classic Italian Dress, a glutton, strong Amatriciana. Pasta peeps also in the dessert since the cannoncino puff pastry is replaced by a tagliatella cooked in water with sugar and then rolled around a small cylinder. Clever. |
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Cannavacciuolo and bread as sauce for linguine In the picture the now famous Gragnano Linguine with baby squids and Coimo bread sauce. It is perhaps the most renowned dish by Tonino Cannavacciuolo, chef at Villa Crespi on the Lake Orta. Its creation dates back to 2005, when the giant chef used the bread produced by Eugenio Pol in Fobello (Valsesia) instead of this one. In London the bread from Coimo, which is a suburb hamlet in the municipality of Druogno, in the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, made its début. Also called Pan Negar, it is the most ancient bread of the Vigezzo valley, rustic bread with brown crust and dark dough. The revolution by Cannavacciuolo is in the use of the bread as a sauce, a happy trick. Known to us, the dish has excited the unaware London palates in a day which ended up with the intervention of the giant chef. Who, answering a question from the food critic Matthew Fort underlined that it is «a dish from the South acquired by the North, a lucky combination between the sweetness of the squid and the acidity of bread». |
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The journey on the cold spaghetti by Paolo Lopriore «Evolution and not revolution» was the mantra at Identità London 2011. Paolo Lopriore too has said it. His evolution about pasta was called Cold spaghetti, celery, herring eggs and anise. A vehicle pulled by spices «which bring with them the meaning of their journey» he explained in the suite of the Town Hall. Like the wandering DNA of the chef: «I was born in Como», he specified in London, «I work in Siena, my mother comes from the province of Naples and my father from that of Bari». Therefore, cold spaghetti “is a dish telling a bit of the history of our country. Each one of its ingredients has something to say not because of the changes that I do but because of its innermost nature». Ingredients are actually full of meaning as the words of Lopriore: «eggs are always a gentle concentrate of fish». Or «taste has its waits like wine fermentations: there is a peak, a defined time of expression», deep gastronomic truths which imply surgical inspections in the impalpable folds of raw material. |
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The blade clanging by Ciccio Sultano The chapter written by Ciccio Sultano in the Identità London 2011 booklet was called Spaghetti worked with carrot juice in Moorish taratatatà sauce and smells of lemon verbena herbs. “Taratatatà” is a sauce having Moorish origin and onomatopoeic etymon: it reproduces the blade clanging of the Arabs struggling against the Normans. On the whole the dish is a match of opposites between the metal bitter of the tuna fish eggs and the sweet of the carrot juice. An addendum from which floral aromas blossom, «contrasts of opposite worlds which are the mark of Sicilian cooking» he explained. We of Identità di Pasta already knew the steps of the preparation. We write again the explication by Sultano: «After working spaghetti with carrot juice and semolina, cook them and place them on a cold base of lemon verbena herbs, garlic, oil and chilli pepper. Spoon onto the spaghetti the cold taratatatà sauce made of fish eggs, cinnamon, lemon juice, orange juice, very little sugar and vinegar and bread crumbs. We end up with a couple of fresh anchovies on top. Never mix the three levels before tasting: in this way, the cold-hot-cold stratification arrives confused in this sequence to the palate». |
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Ravioli, the container of ideas by Massimo Bottura To Massimo Bottura London meant going over the stages of the Francescana from the very beginning to adult age. An educational way unrolled through the dishes symbol of these 16 years. The only pasta dish presented, the Cotechino 365 days a year was the only dish of stuffed pasta presented on that day, as is fitting for a native of Emilia. «The result originated from a trip to Hong Kong following an invitation from the Consorzio del Cotechino» he explained «The zampone, the last part of the pork, makes us come to mind two things: it’s heavy to digest and we generally serve it almost only the last day of the year, with lentils». How to break up these two aspects? The idea arrived while walking along the streets of the former British protectorate «where people always eat pork in the streets, even with 40°C. It has to be steamed». However, back to Modena, he didn’t immerse it in liters of simple water: «I used Lambrusco wine. 22 hours of spraying which, at the end of the process, have generated a jelly, mixed with 3 types of lentils: Castelluccio, Colfiorito and Decorticata». There was only to find the dress. Not the Chinese dumpling but the Emilian ravioli instead, «my container of ideas». |
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RECIPE/The brand new spaghettini by Viviana Varese Spaghettini with smoked broth, clams, squid, tarallo powder and candied lemon zests by Viviana Varese. Dish in the brand new menu of the restaurant Alice in Milan.
for the smoked broth
500 g skate bones
4 g smoked black tea
2 l water
10 g salt
Boil for one hour over a low flame and filter.
for the clam sauce
500 g white or National clams
50 g extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
parsley
Brown garlic and herbs in oil, add the clams and a ladle of fish broth. As soon as they open, cool them and keep the clam sauce aside.
for the tarallo powder
whip 50 g of wild fennel tarallo
for the candied zests
2 lemons from Amalfi
70 g water
50 g sugar
Cut the lemons using a potato peeler and avoiding the white part, cut into julienne strips and put in a saucepan with water and sugar for 10 minutes. Keep in a cold place.
other ingredients
60 g squid cut into julienne strips
extra-virgin olive oil to cream
300 g spaghettini
pepper to taste
Procedure
Place the clam sauce into a pan large as the spaghetto, pour the same quantity of smoked broth and boil. When boiling, put the spaghetti and cook for two minutes, stirring continuously. The time elapsed, add the clams, the squids and a teaspoon of chopped candied lemon, cream for 30 seconds with a drizzle of oil and pepper. Spaghettini shall cook for no more than two minutes and 30 seconds. Decorate with tarallo powder and lemon zests. |
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The tribute of Davide Oldani to the Unity of Italy Spaghetti with tomato, basil and D’O selection Grana Padano, dish presented by Davide Oldani
at Identità London, October 18th, 2011, as a tribute to the 150th anniversary of the Unity of Italy. The spaghetti is first boiled and then fried; basil, tomato and Grana Padano cheese are three sorbets. At the basis there is a slightly caramelized biscuit. (Picture by Francesca Brambilla/Serena Serrani)
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