Imagine the last time you found yourself sitting at the table with all your relatives, friends and friends of friends. Whether it was Christmas or a wedding reception doesn't matter. Instead, focus on the feeling you felt when you realized that you would all eat together, the same thing, simultaneously. Ready to toast, to talk, to sit next to whom you never see or who you have never seen. You remember it that feeling of light happiness? The one that doesn't need a reason to explode, the one you feel every time you share good food and good wine with someone, what some call conviviality. And now, multiply it by 1000.

On September 3, 1000 people, including myself, met in the historic center of Parma to take a seat at a 500 meter long table and taste the best local products transformed by the creativity of 60 chefs called to represent Parma Quality Restaurants and ChefToChef Emilia-Romagna Cuochi. Also invite the stars to dinner. Those in the sky who showed themselves timidly from 22 onwards, and the three of Norbert Niederkofler who, in addition to preparing an unforgettable crackling dessert, participated in the Thousand Dinner to welcome the recognition Parma UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy.

"We have decided to assign the UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy Parma Award to Norbert Niederkofler because we consider it the emblem of the modern cook, intended as a thinking chef: a figure who, with his talent and skill in the kitchen, combines the work ethic, respect for a territory, its traditions, and the environment. In the case of chef Niederkofler, aesthetics, ethics and gastronomy find a wonderful synthesis in the "Cook The Mountain" principle: because only by respecting the culture, traditions and environment that surround us, is it possible to do haute cuisine. A timely and highly relevant message for young people who are now entering the cook profession commented Mayor Federico Pizzarotti.

The menu

What do a thousand people eat at the same table? 4 courses, to say many things between one dish and another and not leave out any creative cue, starting from the appetizer: Pisarei millefeuille, Parmigiano Reggiano DOP creamy, Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Reggio Emilia PDO. ChefToChef Emilia-Romagna Cuochi (the association chaired by Massimo Spigaroli) has signed a dish created to be a marriage of taste between the provinces of Parma, Piacenza and Reggio Emilia of which the main product is exalted.

The first and the second course instead were curated by Parma Quality Restaurants, the association of 28 Parma chefs chaired by Enrico Bergonzi who commented: «By accepting the strength of the message of chef Norbert Niederkofler, who is doing an extraordinary job to enhance mountain cuisine, we decided to rediscover the roots of our peasant cuisine: we returned to the fields, the woods, along the rivers to look for raw materials that risk being forgotten but that in reality are able to tell our territory and its identity at the table in a unique way. The goal is to trace a new gastronomic journey, for years to come .
Here then Novecento, a potato dumpling, embellished with river sauce, milk cream with garden herbs and small vegetables with anchovies and cereals. The second course Returning to Parma instead it is the pig, with its meat, anolini and chard.

The highly anticipated dessert signed by Norbert Niederkofler, assisted by the sous chef Michele Lazzarini and the pastry chef Diego Poli, it is a personal interpretation of the traditional Buchteln. His Buchteln, apricot mousse & yoghurt popcorn they arrived still crackling on the very long table, catching by surprise the guests who gave way to a choral and amused applause.