Tag: history

Identità Golose 2024: Italian Cuisine present and «disobedient – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

Claudio Ceroni: I have always done things that didn’t exist before, the last but also the most important founding Identità Golose with Paolo Marchi.

2. What does kitchen disobedience mean?

PM: Close the books and be yourself.

CC: Simple: innovate. Breaking the mold.

3. If tradition works well (it has within it the seeds of self-regeneration), does it make sense to disobey?

PM: If it weren’t like this, the world would stop. He was more important than many Icarus
fearful little men.

CC: Tradition is successful innovation, this has become a cliché, but it is also the truth. Disobedience as an end in itself makes no sense, but only if it has within itself the positive seed of creating something new that is destined to remain.

4. The Futurists from the pages of The Italian kitchen they denied pasta, a disobedience that made little sense, a pure provocation. What would you never disobey?

PM: In being myself.

CC: Disobedience should not be confused with rebellion as an end in itself. Not all disobedient people are innovators and not all innovators are disobedient. I would never disobey the duty to give credit for success to the work of all those who helped me achieve it.

5. Sensible disobedience, that is, based on knowledge of the past, awareness of the present and future vision, becomes tradition: The Italian kitchen with its 95 years of life it is an emblem of this. Do you have any anecdotes or personal memories regarding our magazine and its being “sensibly obedient/disobedient”?

PM: Thirty years ago I wrote an article about The newspaper dedicated to bear radicchio, a spontaneous salad that grows in the Adamello Brenta park. Once I left, someone from the management let me know that its collection was prohibited. I asked why The Italian kitchen had written tons of it without any problems and I was told: «Be up The Italian kitchen it is an honor”. I understood that as authority varies, any bans also vary.

CC: Mine is not a memory but the awareness that the present of The Italian kitchen it is the best proof of how a great renewal can arise from a fruitful history. Thank you!

All of us in the editorial team of The Italian kitchen we will be present in our stand during the days of the congress. We are waiting for you to browse the pages of our history together.

Allianz MiCo, via Gattamelata – Gate 14 – Milan. identitagolose.it

Between history and flavour, the original krapfen recipe – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

The origins of donuts they date back to the Middle Ages, when they were prepared as part of carnival celebrations. Their diffusion has consolidated over the centuries, becoming an inevitable element in pastry shops and on local tables during the celebrations of the most famous masquerade party in history. There original recipe of the donuts Germans requires top quality ingredients, with a dough based on flour, yeast, sugar, butter and eggs. Its magic lies in the careful and meticulous preparation, where the preparation is taken care of, until all the ingredients mixed together reach a light and fluffy consistency. Subsequently, the round shape is created through manual processing or with the help of special molds. The ideal time to enjoy the donuts it is during the Carnival season, a festive and cheerful period in which donuts become the protagonists of the celebrations. The tradition of consuming these delights during this period has its roots in the practice of enjoying sweets before Lenten abstinence, a last indulgent taste before the time of renunciation. The combination offered by German Carnival donuts it is balanced and delicious. The sweetness of the dough blends with the softness of the cream or of jam used to fill the inside. Variations can also include a heart of vanilla, chocolate or fruit jam, adding a variety of flavors to satisfy the most demanding palates. The preparation follows a series of precise steps. After kneading the main ingredients, the mixture is left to rise until it doubles in volume. Subsequently, the donuts are formed, which must rise a second time. The cooking takes place in hot oil, to then obtain puffy, golden and irresistible donuts. From a nutritional point of view, German krapfen provide a significant amount of calories, mainly deriving from the sugars and carbohydrates present in the flour. However, a small exception is allowed every now and then. Don’t miss the opportunity to bring a touch of celebration to your Carnival and, following our recipe, prepare German krapfen too. You will be won over

Cooking and music: what do they have in common? The winning combinations – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

What are the agreements and disagreements between cooking and music? There pasta calls parmesan (or pecorino) and rejects the polenta; L’roast call the garlic (and rosemary) and repels basil; The cotechino calls the puree (or lentils) and rejects the salad. These are the “food associations” that Fernand Braudel spoke about, underlining the need for those who study the history of nutrition not to focus on the single ingredient or single product, but on their combinations; the “associations”, precisely.

Designing a few years ago for the M9 museum of Venice Mestre the exhibition Taste! Italians at the table 1970-2050together with Laura Lazzaroni and Marco Bolasco we thought of dedicating a special one section on the theme of “agreements”, that is, the ingredients that in the gastronomic field – just like notes in music – are recalled almost automatically, as if they were “natural” associations. Which, however, are not “natural”, because there is always a cultural choice in preferring and choosing a certain agreement rather than another. This applies in cook like in music: parallelism that we have already discussed, which I am happy to return to. In music, a chord is the combination of some notes that are played together and appear “right”, well harmonized with a dominant note: in tonal music, if I start from C, the simultaneous sounds will be E and G. Other cultures, ancient and modern, they love different combinations. Something similar happens in the kitchen, where a certain cultural tradition – for example the Italian one – will get me used to associating it butter and sage with low-fat tortelli, tomato and basil with spaghetti. German culture will not fail to associate frankfurters with mustard, speck with gherkins (in turn combined with vinegar), boiled pork with potatoes and sauerkraut…

The parallel between notes and flavors is recurring in literature. It was suggested, among others, by the Englishman John Evelyn, who at the beginning of the eighteenth century published a treatise on salads largely derived from Italian works. «In the composition of a salad he wrote, «each plant must play its part (…) in the same way as musical notes. In this search for harmony, even dissonances are welcomed, because they “strike and enliven, so as to distinguish and make the rest emerge better”. It was the ancient principle of the contrast of flavors, not only a gustatory theme (a pinch of bitter makes you appreciate the sweet better), but also nutritional: Galenic medicine taught that each flavor expresses a different quality, and putting them together (the qualities) is good for your health. For this reason, Salvatore Massonio from L’Aquila – one of Evelyn’s sources – recommended mixing herbs “adjusting the hot with the cold, the humid with the dry, the sour with the sweet, the bitter with the sweet”. Here then are the dissonances, the “agreements-disagreements”, not only between one herb and another, but between all sorts of products: melon and ham, cheese and pears… tasteful solutions that have remained over the centuries.