In the organic heart of the Marche / 2

(see part one)

If you drive down the roads that in the Marche go from Urbino to Fermo, it’s not hard to understand the quality of Prometeo’s products. The Marche there are full of cultivated fields, one after the other, among which one can also find the experimental ones grown by Oriana Porfiri, an agronomist who dedicated her life to the study of cereals. Prometeo’s spelt is born in Oriana’s field. Immersed among her ears of wheat, she looks far ahead. Around her, one can find all kinds of cereals.

The task of an agronomist is that of studying and safeguarding the diversity of different species in order to obtain new crossbreeds. The work of Oriana is a complex one: it can take even ten years to obtain an optimal variety. She says «it is necessary for me to preserve the variety so I can choose the best product». In her archive she classifies the various varieties of seeds she preserves. In fact, however, according to the agronomist «the best archive is the field itself». In the fresh air one can classify seeds and study their development. They are all there, these different ears of wheat, differing in colour and size, displayed as in an open-air archive. Porfiri explains how fascinating the agronomist’s job is, because in this job there’s all the uncertainty that one can only find when it is necessary to come to terms with nature. «My hands are callous, just like those of the two Massimo whom I work with». One is Massimo from Prometeo and the other is Massimo from Pastificio Mancini.

Oriana Porfiri supplies Pastificio Mancini too. Among them, there’s a close collaboration that converges most of all in the production of turanic wheat. Turanicum is a sub-species that belongs to the same group of durum wheat. The precise classification is Triticum turgidum subspecie turanicum. The species originates from the region of Khorasan (in North-East Iran) and its population can be found in the Basin of the Mediterranean sea and even in Italy, but was forgotten in modern times. They are characterised by large ears, often with long black awns, a large and long grain, a robust and tall plant with excellent vegetative capacity. Thanks to the latter characteristics, turanic wheat varieties are particularly recommended for organic production.

As of 2006 Prometeo, in collaboration with Porfiri, analysed the different lines of turanic wheat, structuring a true productive supply chain, from the seed to the first transformation. Thanks to the study of the variety, a very interesting element emerged, with regards to the peculiarities of gluten, which is not strong, and thus highly digestible, even by those who suffer from food allergies. Azienda Agricola Mancini has been committed, during the last year, in finalising methods and instruments for the production of pasta that would best interpret the richness of these grains. A specific drying recipe was thus defined, and a new bronze wire drawing machine was developed that could express the potential of Prometeo’s stone-milled-wheat.

The pasta factory is located on the hills of the Marche, in Contrada San Rustico in Monte San Pietrangeli, in the province of Fermo. Massimo Mancini explains how important the location of the pasta factory is important to him: «I didn’t want my company to be built in an industrial area. I wanted for it to be based among the fields of wheat, close to the product that inspired my business». So this is what happened resulting in a modern building on the hill, partly built underground in order to respect the harmony of the territory. «A seven-metre-tall building would have been out of proportion and in contrast with the landscape».

There are many differences between pasta Mancini and industrial one. For instance, the pasta is dried at 40°C while in large factories they do so at 100°C. It takes turanic wheat over 46 hours to be ready for packaging which is done in a specific room, in which each format is packaged in a different way. Even the care paid to packaging is unique. The pack of the turanic wheat recalls old drawers, in which pasta producers used to keep pasta before selling it.

2. the end