Memory makes bad jokes, sometimes even memory kitchen. The cuisine of memory is a rage in Italy. It is the one that has dusted off the meatballs, the poor dishes, the pans to share on the Sunday table, the long cooking and the whole repertoire of recipes of our tradition, from the orecchiette to the agnolotti. But this is the memory of whom? Of the baby boomers, perhaps, the children of the post-war period and the first economic well-being, with housewife mothers. Before, there was little to eat, and in fact our grandparents had very little to remember; then for us children of the eighties, the story was very different.

We looked at Happy Days, Wendy fast food arrived in Milan, supermarkets became shopping places and shopping carts filled with everything that represented innovation, the future, progress: fish sticks, jars of hazelnut cream, snacks, sofficini, juices to drink with a straw and cheese. Other than typical products, the mills of our age have turned out plastic surprises and sweets packaged in single portions. The butter and jam bread that we regret today as Proust's madeleine and which we order in hipster bakeries in reality at the time seemed to us a punishment. I wanted the Ciocorì and the spinach, not my mother's apple pies! Silence … admitting it now, with the food awareness of the post Slow Food, it seems a blasphemy, a thing to be ashamed of, as if we had been raised by degenerate parents and in us the blood of true gourmets did not flow. Then? We have rewritten the past to be able to invent a new kitchen of memory. And regret dishes that we never actually ate, idealizing and clinging to "it was better when it was worse".

The pasta with the cheese of the chef

Very often, but not for Giuseppe Iannotti, chef class 1982, of Telese Terme (province of Benevento) and with a Michelin star in his restaurant, Kresios. Tireless Junk addict, a repentant engineer, is one who likes to amaze: Iannotti likes to subvert. The menu that offers stubbornness is a sequence of more than a dozen courses in which it puts the first courses at the bottom, before the desserts. And to bring back memories of childhood memories, choose the pasta with the cheese; the genuine one so you can stay out of the fridge for years. The opposite extreme of any gourmet dish arrives at the table even in the plastic bowl and with the child-sized polka dot cutlery. It makes you smile, it's a provocation, yet a great truth.
His, however, is very good, and he does not regret the salts of fusion and the rubbery taste of the cloves of the eighties, but mozzarella di bufala campana. Fortunately, the good times have gone. «We use all the ingredients of buffalo mozzarella, milk, cream and buttermilk, we let them curdle, we put them to drain. A sweet and soft cheese is obtained, with which we maintain the pasta so as to make it almost a creamy risotto ". The perfect pasta that everyone would have wished for at five years now exists. "We serve it in the longest tasting menu, 35 courses, just before dessert. It is the dish that transports between salty and sweet , explains Giuseppe. And what do you do with it? «Alfredo Buonanno, our sommelier (also voted best Sommelier of the Year for the 2017 Espresso Restaurants Guide, ed), serves it with a glass of Krug champagne, aged in wood . Sacred and profane, another kitchen of memory? «To date I am working on a literary memory, of the times of the school, a Cuttlefish bone, a tribute to Montale. And always stay on the menu kiss Me inspired by the favor they read to us as children . It is a lemon marshmallow that reminds the effervescent Brioschi. To digest.
The recipe of the pastina with cheese

Ingredients for 4 people

For the cheese:
0.8 l of milk
0.8 l of cream
6 ml of lemon
6 ml of rennet

For pasta
Pastina (like melon seeds or paddy rice)
salt
Oil
Parmesan Cheese

Method

For the cheese, mix milk and cream in a saucepan and make up to 21 ° c. Remove from heat source and add lemon and rennet. Mix carefully and store in a cool place for about 8 hours. After 8 hours, cut the curd and place the mixture in a sieve so that it loses the excess liquid. Keep the cheese in the fridge.

For the pasta, add water and salt in a saucepan and once it has boiled add the melon seeds and a tablespoon of cheese. Cook for 6 minutes, remove from the heat source and stir in another cheese, parmesan and extra virgin olive oil.