Category: recipes of Italian cuisine

What do you eat at the Oscar ceremony? – Italian Cuisine

The stars await the award ceremony on an empty stomach. But then they are repaid by a menu … from Oscar, of course

It's when the spotlights turn off that the real show starts. Even at the night of the Oscars where, exhausted by the anxiety and the speeches on the stage, the guests can finally enjoy a well-earned rest and an excellent dinner. Unlike what happens at the Golden Globe delivery, with the candidates banqueting round tables already during the ceremony, the Oscars foresee that for the food there is a moment apart. It happens at the Governors Ball after party: an opportunity to congratulate the winners, pose for the usual photos and, above all, put something under the teeth. But what exactly provides a Oscar menu?

The evening, which every year takes place at the Ray Dolby Ballroom with about 1500 people including actors, actresses, directors, producers, candidates, stars and starlettes to feed, finally allows to refresh as it would be. The ceremony at the Dolby Theater, traditionally, makes them stay stubborn and the only, very welcome, exception was the initiative of the presenter Ellen DeGeneres who, in 2014, thought well to order pizza for everyone. Meryl Streep, the actress with the highest number of nominations in the history of cinema, came to the top of the steaming cartoons, but there was certainly no problem raising a slice even at the risk of getting her dress dirty. In 2018, chef Wolfgang Puck, who has been guiding the Oscars "stoves" since 1994, made sure that the guests were welcomed by an ice bar where they served a parfait of caviar with golden leaves, crab claws, lobster and raw scallops.

Following the menu was a Japanese Wagyu beef tartare with black rice, taro tocos (a typical Polynesian root) decorated with lime wedges and aubergines. With the stars, however, it is better to arrive prepared, and here is also the vegan option, with baked pasta with late truffle and cheese and homemade spinach bells with peas, baby onions and baked tomatoes. As a dessert, Puck's proposal, which in Los Angeles has made an important name thanks to its restaurant WP24 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, the result of the contamination between Californian and Asian cuisine, was all about the petite pâtisserie: macarons, tartelletes pink and litchi and seven thousand chocolate figurines in the shape of an Oscar winner. The classic, however, never dies and the images stolen in 2016 by Leonardo DiCaprio that was stuffed with grain donuts shortly after winning the Oscar will remain epic. And that the best wins.

"Writing about taste": a course to become a gastronomic critic – Italian Cuisine

Taste and judge, here the difficult task of the food and wine critic. But to be able to express an authoritative and professional opinion it is necessary to have some skills and to refine others. Knowing how to write and communicate, train the palate, experiment with new flavors and combinations, nourish your gastronomic culture. In short, you need to know the world of catering. These are some aspects that identify a professional who, in freely and consciously communicating his opinion on the experience he has at table, has in some way the delicate "power" of influencing and orienting the fate of a restaurant.

Gastronomic criticism has its own ethics, but according to the masked critic Valerio M. VisintinThis is an aspect that is increasingly neglected. With these assumptions the ithe course Write about Taste, which focuses on food as a culture, from cooking to writing. The training path that will take the away in Milan in April 2019, is organized by Sasso / Paper is doof and directed by the Corriere della Sera critic who visits incognito restaurants.

The lessons, addressed to writers, journalists (professionals and not) or simple enthusiasts of the sector, will have an approach interdisciplinary e they are conceived as drafting meetings. Therefore, all students will be immediately involved in the drafting of editorial plans, receiving specific tasks from the editor-in-chief, to immediately acquire a method to write a gastronomic review. After the lessons in the classroom and the workshop part, of exercise, writing, but also of relationship and debate, will be born EATMI, an independent guide to the catering of the Lombard capital. The first guide created by an educational editorial staff, under the direction of a critic like Visintin and published by Baldini + Castoldi.

Knowing how to write a text, use the correct writing techniques and build an article starting from a tasting, are just some of the topics that will be addressed. The teachers they come from the catering sectors (Antonello Maietta, President of AIS), food (Anna Anghileri, nutritionist), journalism (Alessandro Galimberti, President of the Lombardy Order of Journalists) and the media (Massimo Bernardi, director of Dissapore).

The future professionals of gastronomic criticism, afterwards 8 lessons and 5 workshops, from April to July, they will directly know the food and its specificities, will develop curiosity and critical spirit in order to communicate the potential of a product and the territorial excellences. Moreover, the field tests, including tastings, food and wine tours and dinners in restaurants, will complete and enrich the training, passing from theory to practice with tasting techniques, the physiology of flavor, but also the importance of the room with sommellerie and reception, organization and service.

"Gastronomic criticism? In Italy it does not exist, except for heroic exceptions – states Valerio M. Visintin – In the most noble cases, sector journalism has renounced it due to lack of economic resources and excess of realism. But they are very many to interpret the role, betraying the mission with shameless and systematic ethical violations. We want to teach the culinary critic's job, recovering its cultural dignity and ethical syntax. And we intend to do it, tracing an alternative editorial perspective."

Details about the course, costs and the complete program can be found on the Sasso / Carta website.

Mariacristina Coppeto
February 2019

Cover photo: Pixabay

With the Italian walnuts from Bleggio, we also make walnut salami – Italian Cuisine

The walnuts of Bleggio are a Slow Food presidium, now rare (like all Italian walnuts in truth). But so special that you make pizza and even salami: the Nocetto

There is an area in the lower Trentino, the Bleggio, where it was once customary to plant a walnut tree on the occasion of the birth of a child. "Who plants a nut, does not collect the fruits ", it was said, why it is an act that is done for the children, since it takes about twenty years to catch its results. For this reason, over time it has been preferred to plant other varieties such as the French ones, which bear fruit in less years, just as we have started to import bigger nuts from abroad, especially from the California. The result is that today in Italy we produce only 10% of the nuts we consume.

The Noci of Bleggio

Walnuts are a product inseparably linked to the territory of Bleggio. It will be because in the past every family had at least some trees, as they represented an important economic entry: "pan and nos magnar from marry", That is bread and walnuts to eat as bride and groom. Yet, over time cultivation of Italian walnuts, like those of Sorrento or precisely of Bleggio, was progressively abandoned, especially in the seventies, due to various factors: the escape from the countryside to the factory, the general abandonment of land, the mechanization of agricultural practices. And to produce even a single walnut, there is a lot of work behind it, so much so that it is said "there is the gos that the nos", That is more the gesture and the work that the walnut itself takes. But the Bleggian variety has recognized such unique characteristics even at a national level, such as a sweet, spicy and very aromatic taste, that first then someone had to rethink to recover it. In particular, it was Rodolfo Brochetti who, followed by a dozen producers, took over and revived the Bleggian variety, smaller and more expensive, and therefore with less demand than others on the market. In 2008 they also gave birth to one Brotherhood, Born almost in a goliardic way, which in reality turned out to be a fundamental tool for protection: in 2016, in fact, they created a seedbed for the production of grafting plants (since it reproduces only by grafting) and have recently inaugurated also a path, the Sentiero della Noce, which crosses the country roads bordered by walnut groves, farms and cultivated fields. Moreover, every November, they organize a party in his honor, after the two months of harvest in September and October. And it's the first walnut in Italy Slow Food Presidium.

Use in the kitchen

The first use of walnuts in the kitchen has always been more in the desserts, in cakes and biscuits of various kinds; secondly, another product of the Bleggian tradition, is the bread with walnuts, as for example they do it to the ancient Riccadonna di Rango bakery; and the nocino, prepared with walnuts harvested on Saint John's Day. Then the Bleggians also appear in some dishes, like the spatzle with cream, speck and walnuts, or with the potato gnocchi, another typical product of the area. That genius of the chef Cristian Rossi of the Don Pedro restaurant Comano Terme has created a pizza that is the most sincere and successful tribute to the products of its territory: the pizza De Val with Noci del Bleggio, mountain potatoes and Ciuìga del Banale; always he also prepares the Trentomisù, an exquisite cream of local ricotta with berries and cake with Noci del Bleggio. Finally, the company Il Noce, held by the young and creative Marco Brochetti who followed in his father's footsteps, has created a line of original products all based on nuts: candied walnuts, green walnuts in oil, walnut oil is Pesto Walnuts, perfect for seasoning pasta. But inventions do not end here …

Il Nocetto: walnut salami

Salumificio Salizzoni was founded in 1999 to design a new product first, which is not part of the local tradition: the salami with Noci del Bleggio. At the beginning he did not believe the balance between two tastes so different as salami and walnut could work so well; then, instead, after numerous attempts, it turned out to be a very respectable combination suited to the best occasions.
The main ingredients are 100% pork, kernels from Noci del Bleggio, salt and natural flavors, which after a good dough are stuffed into natural beef guts and seasoned in a cellar. Here, once again, it is the Bleggio air, between the Dolomites and Lake Garda, that determines the uniqueness of its products, guaranteeing this salami an exaltation of unique flavors of its kind.

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