Tag: biodiversity

The goodness of our biodiversity – Italian Cuisine

In conversation with a teacher of food history, a wine consortium and with a historic company projected into the future. To taste the beauty and plurality of our excellences

This new series of webinars on the ilfuturocheciaspetta.gordon-ramsay-recipe.com portal starts from a question that is also the symbol of a lifestyle: Why is there always talk of cooking in Italy?

Maddalena Fossati Dondero, Director of La Cucina Italiana talked with Massimo Montanari, Professor of Medieval History and History of Food at the University of Bologna on the multiple identities of Italian cuisine, but also of seasonality, and of the cultural and historical value of our diet «everyone in the world has Italian cuisine and our symbolic dishes present. But in reality our cuisine is made up of different things. The Italian national identity is something that denotes belonging, but this identity is made up of a plurality. Example? There is a national archetype which is unquestionably pasta. But how many recipes does the pasta make and how many words and how many toppings are there for the pasta? There are 300 formats alone and more than 1700 different ways to call them: it is truly the triumph of cultural biodiversity ", commented the scholar with a fitting example.

Shopping? More and more Green

Here is one of the big questions of our time: "Is it possible to buy ethically in the supermarket?". We responded thanks to the invaluable help of Sergio Bertini, Director of Iper Arese and Valter Businaro, owner of the Azienda Agricola Businaro, addressing the question starting from the earth, from the seed.
We asked ourselves to find out what the role of time is in relation to the quality and variety of the products we eat (do we find the different types of vegetables in large distribution? Do we take into account the seasonality of the ingredients?) And sustainability (can we respect the environment when we shop?).
From the field to the supermarket counter, to the menu of the restaurants present in some stores, we have taken stock to understand where we are going and how consumers are behaving.

What will the weather be like? Ethical viticulture starts from the Prosecco Hills (Unesco Heritage)

What impact does climate change have on wine production and landscape protection? We talked about it with the doctor Diego Tomasi, just appointed director of the Prosecco Superiore Consortium of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene and with Piero Benvenuti, emeritus professor of Astrophysics at the University of Padua.
That of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene is among the few wine areas in the world protected by Unesco as a World Heritage Site; as the director Diego Tomasi recalled, it is characterized by a landscape "rich in steep hills and biodiversity, forged over the centuries by the skilful work of man who still practices many of the processes in the vineyard by hand, including the grape harvest".
To protect it, a viticultural protocol has been developed which, with the help of the most modern technologies, guides winegrowers in choosing the best practices to undertake and has the ambitious goal of making the entire grape production organic in the near future. The area has already banned for some years the use of glyphosate, a synthetic molecule for the management of grass, which is mechanically cut here, thus making Conegliano and Valdobbiadene the largest area in Europe where this chemical product harmful to the environment is banned. A commitment for the future that passes from the countryside to the bottle, in an indissoluble way.

Espresso and Milan: a story of love (and contemporaneity)

We retrace, between history and small legends, the history of espresso, the great pride of our tradition, known throughout the world and retrace its evolution in a short story. A story that intersects with the Gaggia company and begins in Milan in the 1930s. In the historic heart of the city, in viale Premuda, the brilliant bartender Achille Gaggia, The search for the perfect espresso begins in the warehouse of the family bar. After many attempts and experiments, on 5 September 1938 he filed a patent that will change its history and create a tradition that has evolved up to today. We also discuss with the company the issue of sustainability, of the virtuous recycling of coffee grounds to the 100% Italian production of the machines that have brought the pleasure of the "Italian way" cup around the world. Finally, we discuss the internationalization of bar coffee, typically Italian espresso, through professional home machines, which have made it possible to tailor the "cup" to customization.

Thanks to Iper La Grande I, the Consortium of Prosecco Superiore of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, Gaggia Milano for their collaboration.

Let's save biodiversity – Italian Cuisine – Italian Cuisine

Carlo Cracco with IFAD to discover microcultures threatened by climate change to support rural communities in the most remote places in the world

The kitchen has given him notoriety, and Carlo Cracco has decided to put it to good use to help others and the environment: there are several projects in which the starred chef is committed to building a more equitable, sustainable, supportive future, without poverty and without waste. Among the most important, for five years, there is Recipes for Change with IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, which aims to support rural communities around the world, helping smallholder farmers to adapt to the impact that climate change has on their lives.

The places that the chef visited with IFAD, he says, «are far from inhabited centers, often in the middle of the mountains or in the desert. It is not easy to get there and it is not easy to live there . Morocco, Cambodia and Bhutan these are the destinations discovered so far: Cracco, like the other chefs involved in IFAD, has created recipes with local products, to give visibility and support to the inhabitants. "I hope I have connected the public with the daily reality of these small producers, and with their difficulties".

Another Cracco initiative is instead in favor of 6 SOS Villages in Italy: a starred delivery service dedicated to companies, which can give employees, customers or suppliers an exceptional lunch; the funds raised offer individualized school support to children in need. Finally, for a sustainable cuisine, he responded to the initiative of Too Good To Go, an anti-waste app which, on the occasion of the first International Day of Awareness on Food Waste and Losses established by FAO (29 September), involved several chefs with a "Chef Box", complete with an anti-waste recipe, to be collected at their restaurants.

simple dishes, popular prices and human biodiversity – Italian Cuisine

In Milan there is a bistro that was born to protect not only natural but also human biodiversity. It is the Teca, in the San Siro area

Like a bistro, much more than a bistro. It is the Teca, in via Caccialepori 8, on the edge of the popular district of San Siro, in Milan. Coffee bar, kitchen with oven, in the evening too wine bar is jazzoteca. But there is more. Behind the wooden counter, under the soft lights of vintage bulbs, in the kitchen, between the tables. You can't see it with the naked eye and that's certainly not the reason why you come here. For Raffaella the strong point of Teca Bistrot the dishes remain, made with the right raw materials, in season, that come from trusted suppliers, cooked with care. The good" allows you to keep your accounts in order. The right" is a direct consequence of sustainability.

To safeguard biodiversity, not only natural but also human

"I chose to call him Teca because it is a word that in Greek means coffer, small case. When I wrote the project for the competition of ideas announced by the Vercellese Cooperative, owner of the space, I imagined a place where not only natural but also human biodiversity could coexist. I wanted a place that held the sacred right to be different. Raffaella, 53, a son of 16, a brother with Down syndrome. The border between his profession – for years has been social worker – and the private sphere has always been very weak. Much of her life has been spent dealing with people with disabilities, especially psychic ones. In his spare time he never stopped cultivating passion for cooking. As a young man he lived in France. There a Berber girl taught her the grammar of Middle Eastern "smells". An art that he cultivated in every project he worked on.

Teca Bistrot in Milan, "a fairy tale that is realized every day"

The former Psychiatric Hospital Paolo Pini was in charge of the Garden of Aromas, a non-profit organization that promotes the social reintegration of disadvantaged people through orthotherapy courses. From that experience came the idea of Full-flavor aromas, a cooperative that offers vegan and vegetarian catering and delivery services and involves psychiatric users. Teca Bistrot it is nothing but the natural outcome of his journey. Here they work there eight people, in addition to Raffaella, all with psychic problems, "Yet" he explains "since we opened they have an impressive table of attendance. Everyone lives alone, everyone has a current account, without needing a support administrator: in the case of a disabled person it is not so obvious that he can have his own money. This for me is the answer to the discomfort created by being "different". This is a fairy tale that is realized every day ".

Simple dishes, genuine products, mix of flavors, popular prices

THE bakery products – bread, croissants, cakes and biscuits, including vegans – are prepared on site, using only mother yeast. At breakfast you can choose the continental formula, with scrambled and plum cake, or the traditional one. For lunch and dinner the menu offers a selection of simple dishes to a popular price. Some are typical of Italian cuisine, like the Bolognese lasagna, others related to the seasonality of products, others that recall i Middle Eastern flavors, such as chicken curry tajine with basmati rice. For the aperitif there is the formula tapas tasting, a selection of organic wines served in combination with a series of Spanish tapas that do not have much, apart from the name, given that the ingredients are mostly local. In the kitchen Raffaella and the master chef, a couple of guys work alongside her. The selection of wines, instead, is the work of Max who, as a true enthusiast, is always looking for best labels of small producers.

Not only in the center, even in the suburbs the lights are always on

The job is not lacking. The restaurant is open from morning to evening and quickly became a reference point for the neighborhood. The mix of people who attend it is not given only byintegration operated by Raffaella at work level. Thanks to the location between the popular area and the residential area and by word of mouth, the public is growing and is increasingly diverse. that's how a window has been turned back on who risked being left with the gate lowered for who knows how long.