Hurray for mother yeast!

Using a very short summary, the terms of comparison – a positive and negative one – are ice cream and panettone. The first has the market proliferate with shops passing off their products as “personally made” whereas the only personal choice regards the selection of the largely used industrial semi-finished products; the Christmas cake par excellence, instead, is experiencing the opposite, as more and more large food corporations are urged by artisanal workshops in a contest that is entirely to the advantage of gourmand-consumers.

So, between these two opposites, there’s the first meeting of Figli di Pasta Madre, a project led by Renato Bosco which has already attracted around one hundred members. Many of them were at Identità Expo S.Pellegrino yesterday, where this debut meeting took place.

Bosco himself had the role of telling the “mission” of Fdp. First of all, spreading knowledge and awareness, as «information is essential». Making sure, in other ways, that consumers will be more and more aware of the difference there is when using mother yeast in the production of leavened products, guarding them from more or less disguised counterfeiting.

Of course the mind goes straight away to those sachets with lyophilised yeast (“dead” mother yeast, that is) or even finished industrial products “made with mother yeast” (also dead) which large-scale retail stores are selling more and more often.

Hence comes the necessity of communicating, through members, website, social media. Hence the creation of a recognisable brand. Hence the choice of giving Fdp members a seal they can put on their products, made only and solely with living mother yeast.

With scrupulous rules: 1) do not demonise brewer’s yeast, «the important thing is that consumers understand, through clear labelling»; 2) bind Fdp members to a precise rule, «the brand goes to leavened products that are indeed made with living mother yeast, not to everything you bake»; 3) introduce further obligations, such as the exclusive use of protein-rich, clean and traceable flour, from Italian wheat, even ancient one; 4) define an internal control system.

An ambitious programme, with a further corollary: «We intend to confront ourselves with the Minister for Agricultural Policies, Maurizio Martina. Countries such as France and Germany have already made laws to safeguard those using living mother yeast, we want Italy to follow their example».

Before Bosco, Paolo Marchi introduced the debate: «Battles are not won by people fighting by themselves. This is why I congratulate Renato for his desire to create Fdp. We need to go beyond trends, focus on substance and quality. And spread a concept: until a few years ago, healthy food was considered less tasty. Today this is no longer the case and it must be even less so in the future. You’re in the middle of this evolution/revolution».

The final analysis made by Saporé’s pizza-researcher: «We’ll soon have another meeting to strengthen ourselves and focus on the strong points of this group». We’ve already found one yesterday: it is, indeed, a close and enthusiastic group.