The quality of the chefs may certainly be low in Italy (I’m being ironic, of course) and the logic consequence is that “for quite some time we’ve stopped eating well” as Ilaria Carla Anna Borletti Dell’Acqua in Buitoni, 58 year old vice-secretary to Cultural Affairs declared in an interview published in Panorama which is creating quite a racket. It’s a two-footed tackle, one for which a footballer would receive a red card. There has been no other time, such as the one we’re living, in which our cuisine and our creativity, our products and our chefs, had received such a high opinion all over the planet.
Of course, everyone is free to think as he wishes, but when you hold a position in the government, it would be best to go beyond your own palate and inform yourself in order to understand if your own judgement is a mirror of reality. And once you have understood that the truth is a completely different matter, you should act accordingly. The world wants to eat Italian food and 90% of the Italian food eaten outside our borders is not produced in Italy. In the same way as there’s plenty of fake Italian restaurants and products. But if many people accept mediocre food, just as long as they believe it is Italian, it means that the desire for Italy and Italian food is so strong that those who are in our government should take this as a starting point from which to develop culture, knowledge, economic and distribution strength, in order to support our chefs and our artisans, to praise them while fighting frauds and fakes.
I’m super sure, and we read it often, that if we ask those who visit Italy why they’ve made this choice, one of the three reasons is certainly because of the food. Then of course everyone choses based on their taste and budget, and it’s much easier to have crowded pizzerias, trattorias and tourist traps, in comparison to starred restaurants, but this happens everywhere, unless you believe that high couture sells more than prêt-à-porter and luxury cars more than family ones.
Brothers Christian and Manuel Costardi's carbonara
Well, in France, people who think like this wouldn’t have received a place in the government or, at least, after expressing such thoughts, they would resign. Not in Italy. We keep on punishing ourselves, on destroying all in which we are good. The world wants to eat Italian food and those who should work hard to help our chefs, our products, our ideas, are the first to rant against
Bottura,
Alajmo,
Esposito. Brilliant. After all we are living such a rich moment that we can take the luxury of crippling one of the few sectors in which we are still protagonists. Despite those in our government.
Let’s hope that the multitude of complaints the vice-secretary is receiving will induce her to question herself with regards to a world which, despite her surname, she knows little of.
Times change, you need to update yourself and the three day event of the Roma food&wine festival, on the last floor of Eataly Roma, demonstrates the variety of cuisine and ideas that make the Italian restaurant scene good and lively. Exactly as it was on April 28th at Harrods in London, when the English were caught by a green, white and red fever. This while our government says that food in Italy isn’t good.
Yesterday there were three chefs at lunchtime and as many in the evening while at the stand of Grana Padano you could taste some grana with 16 months ageing or a 24 months reserve.
At one o’clock, it was the turn of Cristina Bowerman’s Chicken with pepper, a typical dish on the Roman tables on the day of Ferragosto, of brothers Christian and Manuel Costardi’s rice carbonara, served in a tomato tin, and of Alice Delcourt’s Couscous with spring’s early produce – she won the two latest editions of the Cous Cous Fest in San Vito Lo Capo.
Cristina Bowerman and Alice Delcourt: nice and curious
Last night it was the last appearance for Couscous with
Fabrizio Ferrari’s – of
Porticciolo in Lecco – sea version (he also was a success at the latest Cous Cous Fest); the two carbonare by
Luciano Monosilio and
Alessandro Roscioli –
Nabil Hadj Hassen, in Rome for 25 years now, and more Italian than many who were born here. Finally yhe Salted codfish with its tripe and a cream of beans by
Gennaro Esposito, who will soon start the 2013 edition of
Festa a Vico, in Vico Equense (June 2-4).
So the Roma food&wine festival experience has began. We will take further care of the details, the knots, the satisfaction. Our objective? To grow well.
