Le cult Fooding

A cult-something endures over time. In fact, it has won over time. A cult movie, for instance, is a film we recognise by watching only a few frames while we’re zapping. And we stop zapping, it is so irresistible. Food-wise, it’s just the same. There are cult-dishes, where organic matter has different physical states that let our pheromones go wild, just like with a magnet. The crew of Le Grand Fooding, a changing and itinerant gastronomic project born in Paris, chose CULTorama as its name for the 2013 edition. Funny enough, they started from the ingredients, and not from the artists, focusing on icons such as pasta carbonara or couscous. From the 2nd of July to the 4th, in the cult-o-drome all the people in Milan know as Plastic, which on this occasion will be branded by S.Pellegino&Acqua Panna, a food festival will take place, inspired by street food but in fact with the objective of desecrating it.

Le Grand Fooding has always been an “alternative” event, offering food seasoned with entertainment and a touch of wildness. The prerequisites for this year’s edition to be another success are all there. It’s enough to mention the ingredients used during this three day festival to imagine what can happen: 6 international chefs will cook 6 cult dishes in 6 food trucks. The illustrations for the posters presenting chefs and recipes, using parody and an epic style too, are inspired by cult movies.

Bio-guru Paolo Parisi, represented as a Sergio Leone cowboy, will present his Cold fusion carbonara, that is to say raw, prepared with the cheek lard from his cinta senese pigs and his hens nourished exclusively with goat milk. Famous Bernard Chesneau will give a touch of noir to the classic Danish roast pork recipe, namely Flæskesteg, straight from his own truck on which he’s been travelling across Denmark for a few years. Burger-chef Kristin Frederick, who moved from Los Angeles to Paris, will prepare a hamburger from another world, on board her Camion qui Fume. Her richly seasoned U.F.O. are making Parisians go crazy and eager to queue for two hours in order to taste them.

It will be a tragedy if you won’t taste the Aligot à l'ancienne, a French speciality made with pressed potatoes seasoned with lovely melted cheese, by Jean-Francois Ferrié. Or if you don’t join the quest of the Indiana Jones of couscous with lamb, namely Mohamed Ourad, a French-Algerian chef working at Momo in London- Soho. The epilogue of this trip from one truck to the other is left to an Italian super-star, namely Franco Aliberti. About to open his own restaurant in Riccione after all the acrobatics at Osteria Francescana, he’s ready to knock us out with his interpretation of Tiramisù with camomile, pippin apple and wood sorrel. Prosecco “col fondo” and still prosecco by Zanotto together with a selection of beers by Birra del Borgo are an excellent match for these “truck driver” dishes.
Food devotees have only one choice left: get on board the cult-truck.

Le Grand Fooding Milano
2-3-4 July from 8 pm
at Plastic
via Gargano, 15
Tickets: 26 euros, all inclusive (complete meal, still and sparkling water, beer and wine, coffee). 20% of proceedings will be given to CAF ONLUS, Centro di aiuto al bambino maltrattato e alla famiglia in crisi, a charity specialised in abused children and distressed families.