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Dall'Italia Retrobottega a Roma, una tavola con l’ingrediente al centro
A 100% Italian pastry-making memory from Monday 18th September at Molino Quaglia’s school in Vighizzolo d'Este (Padua), from Franco Aliberti’s Facebook page. He’s chef and pastry-chef at Presef in Mantello (Sondrio), the first to the left. After him, there’s Corrado Assenza, Piero Gabrieli, Chiara Quaglia and Rolando Morandin
After announcing it on this website, click here to read the note, on September 18th Molino Quaglia organised a day to present the new phase in a project that dates back to five years ago. We’re talking about Pasticceria Dinamica® as opposed to a tradition the owners of the mill, Chiara Quaglia and Piero Gabrieli, find limited. She said: «This tradition, though beautiful and livened up by excellent professionals, is too homogenised with French culture, so much so it leaves little space for people to express themselves. One can easily see our chefs have found their way, but not in the sweet world and indeed there’s a boundary in the restaurant between savoury and sweet».
Tart with Italia grapes, the first dessert presented, like all the others, by Corrado Assenza. All the photos are by Carlo Baroni for Molino Quaglia
Please note we refer to pastry-chefs in restaurants. So much so that Corrado Assenza, the emblem and engine of this movement, recalls how «pastry-making is cooking, it is born with fire and develops, in the menu, right from the choice of starter. Today this is not always the case because next to meat, fish, vegetables, cheese… we have the industry of semi-finished products: it flattens everything and eliminates differences between territories».
And after the morning debate, in the afternoon we moved from theory to practice with a few dozen young pastry-chefs, because tasting is essential. And I thank Cristina Viggè for the notes on the “sweet itinerary”, in the words of Corrado Assenza.
Assenza focuses on pastry making capable of changing not only the seasons, but a day too. In order to meet the needs of a balanced breakfast or snack, of an alternative aperitif and an end-of-the-meal that is a wise consequence of the menu. As in the case of the tart with Italia grapes, in which almond flour, sponge cake and double fior di latte cream with chocolate create a debate between different textures.
Then it’s time for the sweet-non-sweet, which brings things back to their primordial state. «I start from wheat, the humblest ingredient», says Corrado. Who, recalling the Sicilian cuccia – a tradition from the 13th of December, dedicated to Saint Lucy – presents cuturro, a wheat that is profoundly wheat. Soaked in water, cooked in a steam oven and then “broken” in the cutter. This results in evanescent flakes that are seasoned with honey and matched with an emulsion of almonds from Noto of the Roman variety. And to finish? Fruit in syrup: white melon from Paceco (cartucciaru, a Slow Food Praesidium), left in osmosis with vanilla, cinnamon and lemon zest; baked peach and rhubarb. «Cuturro made me discover how much sweetness is naturally hidden in wheat. Interpreted in a dessert that shows sapidity», says the pastry-chef.
born in Milan in March 1955, at Il Giornale for 31 years dividing himself between sports and food, since 2004 he's the creator and curator of Identità Golose. twitter @oloapmarchi
Previews, personalities and establishments in the sweet side of the food planet