18-10-2017
A focus on India at Gastronomika 2017. And beyond...
It’s now India’s turn! It feels like the time has come to make space for the subcontinent on the roller-coaster of international cuisine, after it’s been relegated to an extra role with no particular quality. The comparison with neighbouring China (they look at each other across a 3,380 km long border) is necessary: many years ago we came across the first restaurants to serve chicken and almonds and spring rolls in Italy, a rough copy of the food really served in Beijing. We then learnt these were a bad caricature of a great tradition, when we had the chance to taste the first versions of Chinese fine dining.
So we discovered that China has at least eight strongly differing culinary schools (plus countless secondary interpretations: like saying that Sicilian cuisine is one, but there’s a big difference between Palermo and Catania…) and we mostly came across the Cantonese one, the most western, for historic reasons: Canton has always been the main point of connection between Europe and China, and the local cuisine had already acquired some essential characteristics of our culinary culture in the 19th century, and so on.
Ritu Dalmia, chef at Cittamani in Milan
Here’s a few things we discovered on this double occasion.
Rogan Josh cutlet, that is to say lamb tandoori with mashed potatoes, tasted at Cittamani
Gaggan Anand at Gastronomika 2017
Gaggan presented Paturi with cedar wood. It’s sea bass marinated in coriander seeds, Bengali mustard oil, green chilli peppers, lime, garlic, cashew nuts and salt, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked/smoked in cedar wood
Manish Mehrotra
Part of the Indian team at Gastronomika
Manjit Singh Gill
The audience at the congress
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