Dear {NOMEUTENTE}As Carlo Passera finely illustrated on Identità’s website, Davide Oldani was the first Italian chef to cook a dish with a 3D printer. To me it sounds truly unusual and I find it hard to understand the surprising implications of a machine destined to leave a clear trace. However, I’m particularly happy because any possible use of a 3D printer in the kitchen revolutionises the concepts of kitchen, cook, cooking and meal.
Paolo Marchi
Content Gabriele Zanatta |
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Felicetti: entranced by the Cerea’s spaghetti For once I would like to break the rules of this column and speak of one dish alone because it is one of the best I’ve ever had the chance to eat in my life. It happened in Brusaporto, a few days ago, at the great Cerea’s, a dynasty that in a few days’ time will celebrate half a century of history and deliciousness.
It’s called Spaghetti “Ajo-Ojo”, squid and peas and can be currently found in the restaurant’s menu. The texture of the pasta – which wasn’t cooked very al dente but just right – compensated the missing texture of the fried squid and the soft peas. It was a blast of incredible flavours with a very wide range of textures.
Bobo Cerea was brilliant in creating an extraordinary balance between taste and texture. I will remember this dish for a long time.
Riccardo Felicetti
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Romito’s spaghetti and tomato: This is Italy On Saturday 7th May, Niko Romito had the honour of opening the two days of lectures at the Seoul Food Festival. The patron chef of Reale Casadonna in Castel di Sangro, in the province of L’Aquila, in Abruzzo, following a well tested format, marked the rhythm of his speech with images of his most successful dishes, from the Assoluto di cipolle (2009) to Verza (2016) to Carciofo (2013).
After remembering that «cooking is memory» Niko launched a huge picture of spaghetti with tomato sauce. The audience was in awe, their mouths watering: «This is Italy, and, please note that these are not the spaghetti and tomato you can find a bit everywhere but Spaghetti and Tomato in which the tomato doesn’t cover the pasta and the spaghetti really play the main role». |
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Jun Lee: Korean tajarin  Cow parsnip leaf & tajarin. This was a dish presented not by someone from Piedmont but by Jun Lee, patron chef at restaurant Soigné, Contemporary cuisine of Seoul. This is what Paolo Marchi bumped into during a very recent trip to South Korea.
«Jun learnt the ropes at the Culinary Institute of America», said the founder of Identità Golose, «then in establishments such as the Lincoln Center where the then chef Jonathan Benno taught him the art of egg tajarin. He presents them with toasted garlic and turnip leaves in the customary tasting menu as in restaurants of this kind, the menu list is almost abolished, in every corner of the planet».
«His offer portrays the multicultural identity of the Korean capital, a mix of Italy, France and America experienced though local ingredients. He could well throw away the truffle oil, while it’s weird that a chef who defined his cuisine as 50% Italian has never worked in one of our restaurants».
«The latter point becomes even more significant if you think Jun Lee is also the owner of Doughroom. And this does not refer to the rice, buckwheat or soy noodles you can find a bit everywhere in Asia, but to our pasta: pappardelle, garganelli, cavatelli, agnolotti, cannelloni… Do not laugh thinking of who knows what obscenities with regards to cooking. Stefano Di Salvo, in charge of the Italian restaurant at the JW Marriott, guarantees the food is good. I wish I had half a day extra to taste it personally». |
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Spaghettone cabbage and mint by Baronetto This dish with strong notes is signed by Matteo Baronetto, chef at restaurant Del Cambio in Torino. The name in the menu: Spaghettone with red cabbage, bread and mint. A new chapter prolonging the legendary epic of first courses by the chef from Giaveno, who’s been working (very) hard for 2 years now in Piazza Carignano.
«It’s a bit like an evolution of the series we launched in the Cracco days with the Spaghettone with pepper juice and dry anchovies», he says, «in this case, the centrifuge/concentrated juice is made with red cabbage, reduced in the pan until its colour is shocking pink», a colour that looks almost fake. «I remove the spaghettoni from the water 4 minutes early and finish their cooking in the pan, so the pasta’s pores are in the best conditions to absorb colour and taste».
Once again durum wheat absorbs the personality of the sauce: it is soaked with a sweetish and vegetal taste making vegetarians happy, «yet not celiacs», he points out. How about the bread crumble? «It replicates the Sicilian custom of the crumbs of stale bread on spaghetti with sardines. Or my own: when I was young I’d make spaghetti without tomato but with bread on top: it was my ‘poor people’s parmigiano’». Mint is the balsamic and refreshing seal: «Here in Piedmont it is commonly used, so much so that they tease us for the way we pronounce it». Do you like the spaghetti with cabbage and mènta? Oh yes. |
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Regine & Re di Cuochi: half a century of pasta Always Spaghettone, always Piedmont. The photo was taken in the rooms of the Game palace in Stupinigi, right outside Torino, where until the 5th June there’s an exhibition titled Regine & Re di Cuochi. These are Spaghettoni with camomile, calendula and jasmine. It’s trip to the vegetable garden of Antonia Klugmann, chef at restaurant L’Argine in Vencò (Gorizia). She’s perhaps the less known of the 33 chefs in the team that curator Marco Bolasco chose to represent Italian fine dining, a brave choice we at Identità totally support.
In general, the exhibition is worth a visit just for the detailed reconstruction of two millennia (!) of ‘Italian’ cuisine on a curved maxi-board at the entrance, tracing with a straight angle the highlights in our food civilization from Marco Gavio Apicio to Massimo Bottura. Right after that, there’s the focus of the show: 33 multimedia silos, each dedicated to the most important “Interpreters of national identity and contemporary culture”, from Massimiliano Alajmo to Gianfranco Vissani.
In this scenario, pasta calls for its dominant role, both in the fresh and filled versions of di Lidia Alciati’s evergreen Agnolotti del plin, «the pinch is like the sublimation of the gesture and the ultimate model», or in the dry one, back to 1965, and the Durum wheat spaghettone with fresh shallot and chilli pepper and a drop of oil and basil from Liguria by Aimo Moroni. Having said that the picture of the Tagliatelle with broccoli, baby calamari and sea urchins by Gennaro Esposito (2010) recalls inebriating flavours just by watching it, one must also reflect on the fact that first courses such as that by Klugmann or the Tagliolini with cypress and clams by Piergiorgio Parini from Romagna (2012) catapulted the genre into a dimension and concept that we could have never imagined half a century ago. |
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Marianna Vitale, 100% pasta Those who attended Identità di Pasta 2015, and the lesson of Marianna Vitale, chef at restaurant Sud, surely have recognised the dish: this is Spaghetto Pizza Margherita and its uniqueness is based on the fact it was roasted for three seconds on the grill and then served at room temperature, which helped the full release of its bitter/roasted notes.
We cover this dish again because it is one of the 5 in the “a tutta pasta” menu that the chef from Quarto (Naples) has conceived as of this spring to exalt durum wheat. «Five dishes from starter to dessert, for 40 euros», the chef told us, «which initially were aimed at those foreigners who, despite the logistic and driveability difficulties, mercifully take a detour from Naples to get here». Except the tasting menu then became incredibly popular even among Neapolitan guests: «Indeed, when I think about it, I do the same when I dine somewhere, pasta is a must, just like coffee in the morning».
Success and instinct encouraged her to take this road. Hence the “a tutta pasta” menu was launched this spring, with different formats from different producers: «Pastificio dei Campi, Felicetti, Garofalo, Divella... Because the pantry of every Neapolitan never has just one brand». For further details on the other 4/5 dishes in the menu, read here.
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Alberto Riboldi in Brescia: back to black Total black! This first course has a bold look to say the least, worthy of one of the most fearsome MIB, while it is in fact a surprising dish thanks to its capability of uniting elegance and intense taste at the same time. And the fact it’s not banal, despite being based on an established combination of ingredients.
Perhaps the dark element must be interpreted as a hint to the night: a luxurious and lustful dish of midnight spaghetti. Hence the mystery behind “Il successo 2015”, a dish in the menu presented by chef Alberto Riboldi at Castello Malvezzi (Brescia) is unveiled: Selezione Monograno Felicetti cold spaghetti with squid ink with chives, citronette, stewed scallion and Calvisius Siberian Caviar (served on a plate made of slate). A bundle masterfully unravelled, horizontally, in which the perfect juncture of multiple elements (does the word “successo” refer to this to?!) takes place: the black spaghetti, almost at room temperature, are perfectly al dente and well lubricated, without being watery and without too much seasoning (a good extra virgin olive oil conveys the aromas of the citronette, the stewed scallion and the chives without being overwhelmed).
Riboldi reveals: «I cool the spaghetti in a pot, not under running water». Beside, to be added as one wishes, 10 grams of Calvisius Siberian Caviar, a touch of very elegant marine-iodine sapidity which makes every forkful take off, literally. Back to black!
Errica Tamani |
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Peppe Zullo’s legume pasta  Peppe Zullo, chef at Orsara di Puglia (Foggia) and an old acquaintance of Identità, launched Felicia, an interesting line of pasta made with legumes. For now, the range includes two varieties: Fusilli made with a flour of 100% organic peas and Sedanini made with 100% organic red lentils flour. Sold in 250 gram packages, they are gluten free and suitable to those allergic to milk, yeast or wheat (and vegans too). «In the past», the chef from Orsara explained, «legumes were the poor people’s meat. Today, at last, they have all the requirements to take their revenge». To find out more, pastadilegumi.it |
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Salvatore Bianco: Buatta and other stories  The picture depicts the Buatta [Can] of tomato pasta in the tasting menu at restaurant Comandante inside the Romeo hotel in Naples. Inside the can there’s tubetti pasta with a sauce made with three tomatoes, in the dropper next to it there’s extra virgin olive oil with strong vegetal aromas and on the tablespoon, some basil granita. This is only one of the interpretations of pasta that Salvatore Bianco, an ace in the field, prepares in his menu. We wrote about it in detail in the Identità website. |
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Pivato: cacio e pepe inside the ravioli Ravioli cacio e pepe with crispy pork jowl, the climax of a pleasant lunch-break prepared by Paolo Pivato, chef at bistro La Bottega del Vino in Milan. The cacio e pepe sauce is in the filling, in the fashion of the famous Heinz Beck’s Fagottelli alla carbonara. |
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