14-07-2017
S'Apposentu di Casa Puddu, with Roberto Petza in Siddi, Marmilla, in the inland of Sardinia (photo Tommaso Malfanti)
Roberto Petza is a solitary giant, a visionary with a sense of reality, a model for all. He’s a man, before being a great chef: real, passionate, determined, brave, with an aware courage that sometimes must leave place to pessimism, in the daily meeting with the difficulties of an almost titanic enterprise, with huge conscience and civil value. People say, often amiss, how about institutions? Well, in this case they should really support the project, follow the – even entrepreneurial – activity that acts as a pacer for a possible rebirth of a beautiful and wretched land, rich of opportunities, but with a deserted economy due to foolish ideas (ridiculous industrialization, welfare plague) and demographic downfall.
Roberto Petza in the photo by Alessandro Congiu
The dining room at S'Apposentu in a photo by Pietro Pio Pitzalis
We slept at Sa domu de tzia Ernesta, a cosy hotel created by Petza a few metres from Casa Puddu
The dining room staff at S'Apposentu: left to right Francesco Tuveri, Patrizia Atzori, Domenico Sanna, Martina Moreal (now at Cucina.eat), Rina Petza and Djime Sidibe
Appetizer: Sheep tartare, mayonnaise, red pomegranate sauce, Venere rice chips and pork, Marinated prawns and salicornia
Oyster, onion sorbet, lettuce and sea lettuce and marinated turnip
Eggs, onions, pancetta, potatoes and scorzone truffle from Laconi
Mandarino grasso
«Marmilla is a land of pulses»: here’s Chickpea cream, mullet puttanesca, cheese gnocchi
Raviolini with Margherita onion, powdered onion, pepper sauce and pecorino
Six years ago, he says, the last elderly people here were cultivating land as a hobby and for their own consumption. There were no professional farmers. «Today there are 2 or 3, after they realised the restaurant offered a real opportunity. They farm what we want and how we want it. This is the right choice for our future. We must stop supporting industries that don’t work, help business men who discover we exist only when it’s time to ask for (public) money and then disappear as fast as they appeared in the first place. All this, while we have a huge wine and food heritage – one of the largest in Italy, which is already very rich – and it’s still all to be discovered».
Oxtail terrine, celery sauce, baby potato crumble
Pecorino matured 2 months with raw milk, it is only lightly cured with salt
Passeggiata nell'orto, a delicious dessert: chard sponge, Jerusalem artichoke, strawberries, orange, beetroot...
Petza says: «I’m sorry people judge me only once a year in the guides. I’m sorry people often forget about us». There’s not much we can say: he’s right. Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso
An outdoor trip or a journey to the other side of the planet? One thing is for sure: the destination is delicious, by Carlo Passera
by
journalist born in 1974, for many years he has covered politics, mostly, and food in his free time. Today he does exactly the opposite and this makes him very happy. As soon as he can, he dives into travels and good food. Identità Golose's editor in chief