Cracco: pasta is a serious business

Pasta is a serious business. Carlo Cracco opened the day (also) dedicated to the food Italians love the most by immediately making his point of view clear: «We can season it however we wish, use the most varied ingredients, play. But I make no exception with the cooking: it must be al dente. If we loose the texture and taste of the wheat, it’s over». In October Cracco opened a restaurant in Moscow too, called Ovo. Even there, the cooking is Italian style, full stop.

With that element in mind, there’s space left for creativity. The chef – who announced his goodbye to TV – takes spaghetti Senatore Cappelli by Monograno Felicetti («Il Cappelli, in the words of Riccardo Felicetti») and interprets them «in a very oriental way»: Spaghetti with matcha green tea sauce, wasabi and bottarga, almost an extreme dish, with a taste for experts.

The other recipe is “easier”, in terms of flavours: Fusilloni with smoked butter and Timut pepper, the evolution of a dish he presented at Identità Chicago, «though in that case there was no pepper and the smokiness was stronger». The butter is essential, «first of all it recalls a classic cuisine, with its pleasantness». It must be very fresh, it is smoked and used to thicken the fusilloni with a very mature Parmigiano made from red mountain cows, and finally some ground Timut pepper to add an extra oomph (surprising citrus and sage notes): «At first it seems a Cacio e pepe, evoking a known flavour, it’s reassuring. Then more complex scents emerge, you’d want to eat more and more».

Another hint to pasta around the world: «A lot of it is treated poorly. Too many people improvise working as Italian cooks. Just think that only in Moscow, which I had a chance to know better, there are some 2000 Italian restaurants! But then perhaps they’re not perfect but at least there’s an idea». A last comment on Russia: «We’re working well, in an interesting context, which has got a lot to give even though they don’t know the meaning of food excellence. They don’t care: in Kamchatka, in the extreme east of Russia, in front of Japan, fishermen throw their nets in the same sea as the Japanese. On one side, you have old boats, on the other, super-technological ships that perfectly preserve the catch. So the same fish caught by the Russians is of bad quality, while the Japanese have excellent one». And it costs twice as much.
Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso