Tomato, a winning identity

Three days, 18 chefs, six lessons and two gala dinners: these are the numbers of the fourth edition of Identità New York, which was held at Eataly, just like the previous editions, both in the Scuola overlooking West 23rd Street and in the Birreria, from which you can look at the stars and the roof of the Flatiron Building.

This piece starts where the previous one ended. I’m referring to the piece dedicated to Daniel Boulud and Massimo Bottura, a total of 6 stars and lots of desire to always keep in touch because cuisine means moving, and those who stop are lost. So on Saturday afternoon an American yet very Italian chef such as Sara Jenkins and volcanic Mauro Uliassi confronted themselves with tomatoes as their theme. Mauro, after debuting with his “sorri, ai dont spik inglisc”, which is almost a constant among our chefs, read for half an hour in English, bringing all those present to the seafront of Senigallia thanks to his raw prawns with a cream of tomatoes and plums.

Jenkins, who owns Porsenna and Porchetta, divides herself between Manhattan and Cortona where her parents bought an estate in 1971 and where they still produce oil from the leccino cultivar. She said something very true: “Those who don’t understand tomatoes, will never understand Italian cuisine”. And off she went to prepare some Spaghettoni with tomato, using cherry tomatoes of different colours and flavours, six or seven different kinds.

Sara then added some garlic when the sauce was already cooking and an American guest asked why: “Because I don’t like burnt garlic, and I also remove it early because I only want its aroma. The sauce appears to be little but this is desired. Americans love to drown pasta in tomato sauce. I, instead, believe pasta should be of good quality and its flavour needs to be savoured”. I agree.

On Saturday night there was the second dinner on the roofs of Manhattan, a dinner that was opened by Ennio Ranaboldo, CEO of the Lavazza group in America, who handed the Premio Lavazza to Lidia Bastianich “for having valorised the Made-in-Italy gastronomic culture in the United States”. It’s important to stress “Made-in-Italy” because this is the mother country of the Italian sounding, of products that arrive from everywhere except from Italy.

Then we all sat for dinner, our mouths already watering thanks to Cesare Battisti’s nibbles, called mondeghili, such as the mini fried rice with Lobster caprese and burrata produced by Fortunato Nicotra (Felidia), which was followed by the first course: Pasta or potatoes? Substance or appearance by Massimo Bottura – the fake amatriciana spaghetti, fake because they were made with potatoes, recalling the morning class. The fish main course was by Moreno Cedroni, a Bouillabaisse with starred anise of which I had three portions, while the meat main course was by Viviana Varese: a Beef cheek lard cooked in Birra Moretti and presented with a hundred colours. The chocolate dessert was created by Katia Delogu (Eataly New York).

And yesterday, on Sunday, the last two lessons: first with Matthew Lightner and Carlo Cracco on rice, then with Jeremy Bearman and Viviana Varese on cheese. Matthew struck me when I dined at his restaurant, Atera (no signs on the street, though...) because Andoni and Redzepi are his points of reference but his cuisine is his own and this is good because he’s not one who copies. Then there was Cracco’s rice pasta, Bearman’s gnudi, Varese’s parmigiana – the inspiration for the next article.