02-02-2017
Niko Romito speaks with Massimo Di Cintio and Antonella De Santis at Meet in Cucina, the congress dedicated to the cuisine of Abruzzo that took place in Chieti
Hands shaking, smiles, selfie requests: Romito is thrilled. Nearby, there are also Enrico Crippa and Mauro Colagreco, but he’s the superstar and rightly so: after all, we’re in Chieti, he’s playing at home, he’s the celebrity of Abruzzo. Catering students surround him, he’s ecstatic: «It’s fantastic!». He has sewn well and now gathers the deserved fruits, I think: «My students at Niko Romito Formazione are also giving me plenty of satisfaction. Many are opening their own restaurants, even in the surroundings» and he lists those who opened in Pescara, and those who are about to do so in Avezzano or who knows where...
I say: chef, they’re all your children, workwise; you could roll out a map of those who now have their restaurant, don’t you think? «No no, it’s too soon, I’d look old» he jokes [for the record, here’s a later episode they told us, but it’s too tasty to leave it sleeping in a notebook. Two young men approach Niko: «Can we take a picture with you?». And he, friendly as always: «Of course». They say: «Thank you! We’re also friends on Facebook! You’re Gianni Dezio, right?». He let it slide).
The chefs at Meet in Cucina. Romito is the only one missing
Meet in Cucina successfully represented a nice growth, in three steps, as illustrated in the invitation flyer. It showed the faces of the featured chefs, in different sizes: the masters where larger, and on top – Crippa, Colagreco, and king Romito in the middle. “Beginners” were below, we’ve already mentioned them: D’Alberto (Br1 in Montesilvano), Dezio (Tosto in Atri) and Mancini (Bottega Culinaria Biologica in S. Vito Chietino). Finally those who are part of a special group, very significant in this area, and all over Italy, were given an intermediate position and size: the family stories. Di Cintio chose two: Spadone, Mattia and Marcello, at La Bandiera in Civitella Casanova, and Tinari, Arcangelo and Peppino, at Villa Maiella in Guardiagrele. Both cases feature a father-son succession.
Enrico Crippa in Chieti
It was the first time the chef from Mirazur visited the area, «my family was poor, my grandfather was a teenager when his father died, so he lost every contact with his homeland». So when Mauro left Argentina for his adventure in Europe, also without a cent – in 2000 – he chose France instead of Italy, because he had some connections there, but not here in Italy. A lost chance. For us, of course.
Seeing Colagreco in “his” Guardiagrele, in that temple of food and hospitality that is Tinari’s Villa Maiella, was a nice sight. He listened with fascination to the tales of patron Peppino on the recovered black pig, a real trademark for the family. Or even to the Spadone family, on stage during the congress, as they praised the «fantastic local rooster, because we have people supplying us», and they then transform it into a delicacy, Gallo e granaglie, that is to say the bird then becomes food paired with what it used to eat.
Eliodoro D’Orazio, regional president of Slow Food was also walking near the stands at Meet in Cucina: «Many young people return to agriculture. They’re mostly small producers who want to recuperate cultivation and turn over abandoned fields left in the exodus of the Seventies. There’s interest in their work and more and more restaurants choose them as suppliers. They’re the new keepers of an extraordinary biodiversity».
I ask him if there’s a product or story that’s particularly dear to him. He apologises: «There are many. It would be wrong for the others». Then he says: «Fagiolo di Frattura, it’s a bean from a village destroyed by the 1915 earthquake in Avezzano. It now belongs to the town of Scanno, on Gran Sasso» the same where the great shepherd and cheese maker Gregorio Rotolo, Bio Agriturismo Valle Scannese, makes heroic pecorino and caciocavallo currently travelling to my home in Milan. But let’s return to the beans: «They only grow there. They’re unique. They were disappearing, now there are small harvests, only 80 kg per year, but they sell like hot cakes», thanks also to some young people. D’Orazio thus depicts them, with rough brushes full of pure, stubborn Abruzzo: «They’re four tough guys who set their minds on producing these beans», is there anything to add to that?
An outdoor trip or a journey to the other side of the planet? One thing is for sure: the destination is delicious, by Carlo Passera
by
journalist born in 1974, for many years he has covered politics, mostly, and food in his free time. Today he does exactly the opposite and this makes him very happy. As soon as he can, he dives into travels and good food. Identità Golose's editor in chief