Tag: story

The Spaghetti Tree and the Story of the BBC Prank – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

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For a moment (or perhaps longer) millions of Britons believed in the existence of a spaghetti tree. It happened in 1957 because of a BBC documentary that aired on April 1st. It was supposed to be an April Fool’s joke, in fact: a stunt that no one thought could be taken seriously. Instead it became legendary, even remembered like the first joke ever to air on TV.

The Spaghetti Tree Documentary

Protagonist of the story aired on the main television broadcaster in the United Kingdom, a small Swiss family from the Canton of Ticino which, in a particularly hot spring, finds itself grappling with an incredible harvest of spaghettii: soft strings of pasta that emerge from the tree branches. When looking at those images, the British are struck: almost no one in the 1950s knows about spaghetti, it is considered an exotic ingredient. Those few who eat them buy ready-made spaghetti, seasoned in a jar.

The incredible stories of Richard Dimbleby

But the documentary is convincing, also thanks to the narrative voice of the highly credible BBC television host Richard Dimbleby and his detailed story. A story in which theItaly for “the incredible plantations of spaghetti trees in the Po Valley“, where even “spaghetti grows on trees all of the same length”. «For lovers of this dish – says Dimbleby in the documentary – there is nothing better than real spaghetti, grown at home!. All this with the complicity of the Austrian cinematographer Charles De Jaeger, most likely the mastermind of the joke since shortly after he lets it be known that at school the teacher accused his classmates of being so stupid as to believe that a spaghetti tree could exist. It is Charles De Jaeger who thinks of hanging spaghetti on the tree and, after a series of attempts to find the perfect consistency, i.e. the most realistic one possible, he succeeds and shoots the video.

The result? BBC telephone switchboard down, besieged by thousands of people asking for information on how to grow spaghetti at home so they can eat them as soon as they are picked. «Just put a sprig of spaghetti in a can of tomato sauce and hope for the best, reply the operators, reserving apologies for those who do not grasp the (British) humor of the documentary and protest against the fact that the BBC has broadcast a fake. Whether it’s a joke, many don’t care.

The legend of the spaghetti tree

The fake, however, set a precedent, so much so that ten years later in Australia the Melbourne television station HSV-7 invented it a similar story starring a Sicilian family, with less pleasant implications for the journalist and presenter Dan Webb. After the airing of another made-up story about spaghetti trees, Webb is forced by the publisher to respond personally, with handwritten letters of apology, to the requests and protests of angry viewers because they cannot tolerate attending certain masses on stage.

What happened to the spaghetti tree

Meanwhile, the spaghetti tree has become a legend, so much so that over the years in Anglo-Saxon countries even food education campaigns have been launched (the cover photo is of one of these) which have made it the protagonist. Campaigns to explain to children that no, unfortunately this tree doesn’t exist, that spaghetti comes from durum wheat, but also that the real ones are really good. If they are then seasoned with tomato, they are a delight.

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Girotonno: the story of the 2024 edition – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

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The winning dish

ANNARELLA GIORGIANI

Second place for Brazil by chef Jefferson Elias Ribeiro da Silva, known in Italy as chef Tom; third for Palestine, represented by chefs Shady Hasbun and Samia Sowwan.

Italy, represented by chefs Carlo Biggio from Calasetta, Emiliana Scarpa from Cagliari and Benedetto Di Lorenzo from Palermo, the special prize “Luigi Biggio”dedicated to the memory of the rais of the Carloforte tuna factory who died prematurely a short time ago.

«A balanced dish that follows the tradition of Carloforte and the tonnarotti in also using lesser-known but always precious parts of the tuna. The team made up of several chefs is also an example of collaboration between professionals that has always been – explained the president of the jury Roberto Giacobbo, in handing over the fine ceramic plate with the signatures of all the tonnarotti of the late rais – it is a characteristic and advantage of Girotonno”.

The jury of Girotonno 2024

There technical jurychaired by Roberto Giacobbojournalist, popularizer and host of Freedom, as well as myself it was made up of Giusi Battaglia, face of Giusina in Cucina on Food Network, Leonardo Felician, free lance journalist expert in food and wine, Fabrizio Imas, director of the Food and travel Italia magazine , Andrea Lo Cicero, chef and face of Gambero Rosso Channel, Fabrizio Nonis, expert gastronome known on TV as “El Beker”, Barbara Politi, TV presenter and collaborator of La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, Camilla Rocca, free lance journalist in the food and tourism, Marzia Roncacci, journalist of Tg2 Rai, Gavino Sanna, Italian advertiser now at the helm of the Mesa wineries, Serena Sartini, journalist of Askanews, Gesualdo Vercio, Vice President Programming Warner Bros. Discovery and Giuliano Greco, owner of the Tonnara di Carloforte and, for the final evening, enriched by the presence of the rear admiral Enrico PacioniCommander of the Western Navy Command of the Italian Navy.

Conducting the event – which in addition to the Tuna Competition included cooking shows, wine tasting and much more – Federico Quaranta And Valentina Caruso, Rai presenters. They were the voices of the event and its protagonists on the stage set up on Corso Battellieri who talked about the emotions of the international tuna competition, the chefs and the recipes that were the protagonists of the cooking shows.

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Culinary harmony, when music tells the story of Gualtiero Marchesi – Italian cuisine reinvented by Gordon Ramsay

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What if Gualtiero Marchesi had he not been a cook, but a musician? This alternative vision is suggested by the format Culinary harmonya special dinner in which its historic dishes are expressed through the music proposed byAlinde Quartet. The debut took place on the evening of 94th anniversary of the birth of the Maestrolast March 19, in the only restaurant in the world that brings his authentic gastronomic works to the menu, the Gualtiero Marchesi Terrace at Grand Hotel Tremezzo.

At the table I was lucky enough to be in the company of co-protagonists of this important piece in the history of Italian cuisine: on the one hand the Maestro’s son-in-law and right-hand man, Enrico Dandoloand on the other i Mr and Mrs De Santis, owners of the hospitality facility and family friends. There are many unpublished anecdotes that paint a portrait of Gualtiero Marchesi much more human than what the books want us to believe – for example, those evenings concluded with chocolate ice cream and Crêpes Suzette despite diabetes, described affectionately by Mrs. De Santis (also a great fan of La Cucina Italiana).

Investigating the human side of great figures enriches official portraits with even unexpected nuances: hearing from Enrico Dandolo as he knew Simona Marchesi (volunteering in the Red Cross was a prisoner) and he asked the Master for her hand is exciting to say the least. Enrico was indispensable for 27 years alongside his father-in-law, going from computer scientist to his right-hand man, to put it simply – after all, it was he who computerize the Marchesi restaurant at La Rinascente first, then at the Fondazione. «He came to the office in the morning with a new idea, when there were 100 others still to be developed!, Like the (mis)adventure of Marchesi signature sandwiches for McDonald’s in 2011he says smiling, aware of the great treasure that together with his family he is destined to protect and disseminate.

Seeing your eyes shine Simona Marchesi in the memory of his father he is engaging as are the words he chooses to describe him with disarming sincerity: a harmonious, sweet, affectionate, refined, elegant, always light-hearted, optimistic, humble, simple person with brilliant creativity, very determined and courageous, above all a man free from preconceptions, open and very curious about life, in search of beauty – a man of intellect in search of essentiality. And yes, adds the Master’s daughter, perhaps cooking was not his ambition, but a way of expressing his need to search for beauty and therefore to make the dish immortal through the sublimation of the cuisine used: «as he himself maintained, the cuisine of truth, the cuisine of form, the cuisine of matter. Attracted by art, music and adventure, Gualtiero Marchesi felt the need to develop his inclinations and passions, so he cultivates his artistic talent through frequenting artists, painters, sculptors and musicians. He even starts studying the piano, ending up marrying his teacher, Antonietta Cassisaa wonderful pianist, daughter of art, who becomes his muse.

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