Battisti, the carnivorous’ dilemma

I’ve always dreamt of becoming a chef, but I always knew I didn’t have the skills (I never learnt, it’s that simple) nor the personality (I would have made Fulvio Pierangelini turn pale, we’re both so reserved). I just don’t think about it, and it’s okay, it’s more than okay. However, I sometimes ask myself what I would have become if one day, in the mid Seventies, instead of starting to collaborate with Corriere della Sera, I would have accepted to peal potatoes in a starred restaurant in Milan. There’s no answer, but there’s a chef, with his idea of cuisine and his hand, whom I would be happy to replace. And he’s not a multi-starred chef, that would be ridiculous. Like those who, when playing football with their friends, say the have the same dribbling technique as Cristiano Ronaldo or the creativity of Maradona. Pure idiots!

You need to be realistic, when dreams come close to reality. See, had I committed myself, had I studied just like he did, perhaps I could have become Cesare Battisti. With roots in Trentino, born in February 1971 in Milan, Cesare is a down-to-earth person, one who leaves the ground one foot at a time, to avoid stumbling. Today, everyone knows him because of Ratanà in Via De Castillia, in the Isola area (in fact a less and less isola-ted island), and the fact he has gradually added that pearl called Erba Brusca, Hangar Bicocca - always in Milan - and Albergo della Posta in Fobello in Val Sesia.

This article is a way of thanking someone who’s more and more present in the life of Identità Golose, someone with whom I’m happy to confront myself. I admire his capacity of being a prophet of tradition without the mould of the many people who embrace what’s known just for its convenience, and, unwilling, repeat an old music. “When I was a kid, I loved all that went on in the kitchen. When at catering school, I chose gastronomy, with a particular attention to bread and pastry making. I used to live a the end of Via Padova, towards Crescenzago, and close to home there was one of those bakers you can’t find anymore. His michette rolls where crispy – they don’t make them like that any longer, it takes too much work”.

Learning the ropes was like a attending master course: “I was working as an extra in the catering field, at Il Salumaio di Montenapoleone o at Savini’s, for instance. Then I began to work on the Princess Cruises ships, always having the same idea in my head: I wanted to learn everything, all about raw materials, that is. I hate it’s when I find something I don’t know. If it happens, I always try to fill this gap”.

Milan, the world and then the return to Milan: “I love all the cuisine of the planet, but I would like to preserve and valorise the traditions of Lombardy, where I was born. So in 1994 I began to run Locanda Solferino, it was a huge success. We worked hard so that people could enjoy themselves. Those were 10 excellent years. My partner? I met Danilo Ingannamorte there, he’s six years younger than me, he used to study philosophy and in the evenings worked as a waiter to finance his studies”.

Of those times I remember Via San Marco blocked by the crowds close to Leonardo’s gates. It was thanks to Cesare’s risottos - in 2004 he arrived at La Pesa in Viale Pasubio, his other side. The place was called Alessandro Ristorante. After three years a new horizon appeared, beyond the railway tracks of Stazione Garibaldi. This was Ratanà: “We opened the restaurant, Danilo and I, on October 17th 2009, the birthday is coming up. The success? It’s not up to me to explain it. I love cooking vegetables, it may seem strange, given all the meat and lake fish in the menu, but it is the truth. What I don’t love? Products that are out of season, it makes no sense and they’re not good. The dish I will never forget? Luisa’s, my mother’s green sauce for boiled meat, made without bread and without eggs. Her secret? There are two: delicate anchovies (soaked in the water for one day, to desalt them) and two tablespoons of tinned tuna”.

A final note: the hand of Cesare Battisti is present in all of the four events coming up. On Sunday 22nd September we will be at Ratanà for Identità di carne (Meat Identità); from October 4th to the 6th he will cook his most successful rubitt (small dishes) at Identità New York; on Sunday 27th October he will do the same at Opera San Francesco, cooking for the poor, and finally, there will be the Sunday dedicated to Cassoeula, on November 10th, again at Ratanà. Indeed, this vegetable lover is quite a carniverous man.