21-05-2015
Massimo Bottura and the enthusiasm of the young Korean colleagues at the end of the lesson held at the Seoul Gourmet Festival this morning (at dawn, in Italy). The chef from Modena held a lesson with his colleague Giorgio Nava, from Milan but living in Cape Town, South Africa, for a long time now. With them, there were also Jordi Roca, Alain Coumont, Pascal Lorange and Juan Amador
It is not a given fact that in a congress held at 9,000 km from Italy, organised by Belgian photographer and writer Jean-Pierre Gabriel for the benefit of the new generations in South Korean cuisine, Italy’s presence would necessarily be a triumph. This, however, is what happened in Seoul, among the “oohs” of the public for Massimo Bottura and Giorgio Nava’s lessons, focused on much more than the spaghetti-pizza-lasagne triplet.
The Spaghetti that wanted to become lasagne is one of the four dishes with which the chef from Modena debuted this morning (at dawn, in Italy) at the Seoul Gourmet Festival. «I grew up under the table where my mother was rolling out pasta», he began, «my cooking, here, starts from an unusual perspective». His following repertoire, in a crescendo in four dishes, is well known to us: crispy lasagne, Psychedelic veal not flamed grilled, the evolution of the Ceasar’s Salad and Oops I dropped a lemon tart.
There’s a heuristic element in Bottura’s words («Vision is a crossroads between rational and emotional. Intuition is when creativity begins»), in his referring to Damien Hirst’s spin painting («We transformed an outline into edible colours»), to the arrogance with which Ai Weiwei destroys the ancient Chinese vase («This is the point of view you must have as chefs: critical, not nostalgic»), the reconstruction of imperfection («In Southern Italy trains are always late and museums are almost always closed without any notice but when you swim in the gulf of Sorrento you forget it all»).
NO FRILLS. Giorgio Nava with colleagues Mala Bryan and Samuele Maio.
BOTTURA BOYS. Simone, Giulio Martin and Jessica Rosval helping Bottura on the stage
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born in Milan, 1973, freelance journalist, coordinator of Identità Golose World restaurant guidebook since 2007, he is a contributor for several magazines and teaches History of gastronomy and Culinary global trends into universities and institutes. twitter @gabrielezanatt instagram @gabrielezanatt