Copyright does not exist in the kitchen, and the recipes are considered a collective heritage of knowledge. They cannot be legally patented, but this does not mean they do not have an inventor and it is legitimate to copy them.

No one will ever know who made the first pasta with tomato sauce, we know (maybe) how pizza Margherita was born and disputes over the primacy of some historical recipes are part of folklore rather than of the true story. Someone, however, will have made a Carbonara for the first time, the problem is only that we don't know who. What is under everyone's eyes are the recipes that, decade after decade, have become a "classic" of Italian cuisine, without a name and surname but with a flag printed above. With risotto Risotto with red turnips and Gorgonzola sauce of the chef Enrico Bartolini the same thing is happening, and posterity there will be witnesses.
Just open the book by Pellegrino Artusi, in the last hundred years we have not added much to his science in the kitchen and the art of eating well, and 126 years later that collection still faithfully photographs our gastronomic geography. In the Italian kitchen encyclopedias of the next century we will certainly find a purple risotto.

A ubiquitous recipe

That risotto with beetroot with a cheese sauce, so fashionable today and served in fact more or less faithfully everywhere, from the catering, to the houses, in the trattoria, did not exist until the summer of 2005 when an unknown boy from Pescia cooked it for the first time (even before the opening of Le Robinie, the restaurant where in 2009 he took the first Michelin star that dedicated him to success). The pairing is a classic of the Nordic cuisine, the one between beetroot and goat cheese or blue cheese and perhaps he was not the first to put beetroot in the risotto, but this dish is uniquely his because thanks to him he traveled the world. Today of stars, Enrico Bartolini has 3 at his restaurant at MUDEC, and others scattered throughout Italy in the places where he signs the menu. Otto, the maximum number ever achieved by a chef in Italy.

The original version

The original version of Bartolini is meticulous, the beetroot present and persistent, the gorgonzola sauce dosed to counter the difficult taste of turnip. It is sweet and penetrating, spicy and comforting, beautiful to look at and universally good to eat. Everything is played on techniques and seconds, but it is also a recipe that can be easily replicated in the general idea, which is simple to redo and therefore very well covered. Today it is found in cooking magazines, in books, in restaurants abroad as well as in Italian ones, and every now and then it is even served by poor Enrico, who can only smile. Needless to invoke the originality of the recipe and the application of some new law to protect the made in Italy, the Louis Vuitton fake handbags on street corners did not remove the market from the Montenapoleone boutiques, indeed.

Put the credits

Enrico Bartolini, also thanks to that risotto, now counts (Italian record) 8 Michelin stars: Three Michelin stars at the restaurant "Enrico Bartolini" on the third floor of the Mudec, two stars at the Glam at Palazzo Venart in Venice, won in the 2020 guide. having received three stars at one time just four stars, today with eight (out of five restaurants) he holds an absolute record that had never happened in Italy before. Copy the recipe as well, but at least don't look ignorant, put the credits.