Mollica and Sodi: of beans and pork

Rita Sodi from Florence is the first co-protagonist of the last lesson at Identità New York number 6, focused on beans. In 2008, after many years at work in the fashion industry, she decided to become a chef and open her restaurant ("My parents thought I was crazy, but in the end I proved them wrong"). This was the start to the adventure at I Sodi, a traditional Tuscan restaurant in the heart of the West Village in Manhattan, where she began to prepare her mother’s old recipes, together with her colleague Jody Williams.

At Eataly she immediately waves a piece of pork rind, which she’ll pair with cannellini beans. Finely chopped celery, carrots, onions and after 10 minutes she adds tomato sauce, then 20 more minutes of cooking. She then adds precooked beans. She cuts the pork rind in thin stripes, and adds those too. You could use pancetta or sausage instead. The preparation requires 1 hour.

The dish makes Sodi recall the ritual of killing the pig, which usually happens in November. Most of all, the chef is eager to point out that «Tuscan cuisine is simple and mostly based on ingredients and love».

It is now time for Vito Mollica, originally from Basilicata, an ace in craveable storytelling. «My region is not very known: even Italians don’t go there», jokes the chef who divides himself between the Four Seasons in Florence (one Michelin star at restaurant Il Palagio) and the Four Seasons in Milan. «It is a region with 600K inhabitants». This is where the ingredients in his recipe, a soup made with beans and cabbage (and Grana Padano), come from. And the pig headtoo. «Ah, pig», sighs the chef, «this is indeed our king. And its head is so good and crispy, and how about its tongue...».

He puts the cabbage on a sautéed mirepoix «Because every pig eats cabbage» and then beans from Rotonda, «an enchanted place, with a magical microclimate». He then adds fresh pig cheek, «the best part, an ingredient that can add a spicy note». He scatters parsley and pecorino cheese on top. The result is a soup which is not a real soup: «It’s a minestra, what the French call potage, a dish that in Basilicata would be made in gigantic pots, heated on the domestic hearth. These were soups that would once feed the entire family. If today as chefs we cook everything slowly, it means we must have taken from someone before us». This is how the curtain falls, in a very romantic way, over the sixth edition of Identità New York.

And from tomorrow, we’re all in Chicago.