It has just ended the 12th edition of Identità Golose, international gastronomic congress which this year had as its theme “The power of freedom”, with over 100 chefs from Italy and the world to confront the issue and to present their idea of contemporary cuisine.
In this 360° reflection on creativity and conviviality, the topics discussed were various, with an eye to all the new trends, use and manipulation of the ice cream, cheese, coffee, bread, pizza and much more up to get to the world of natural food on which I dwell in this post.
In the room dedicated to the natural food with chef such as Anthony Genovese from Il Pagliaccio restaurant in Rome, the pastry chef Luca De Santi from Ratanà in Milan and Alyn Williams from The Westbury in London, we realized that today even the restaurants cuisine with meat or fish not may be missing a menu with vegetarian dishes, this is because people’s tastes (even omnivores) are changing quickly and we now look for more and more preparations where the vegetable is at the center of the dish. For example of Anthony Genovese lettuce, that despite having in its restaurant menu to a predominantly paper-based dishes of fish, today gives more importance to the plant world with dishes like this. Vacuum cooked lettuce to preserve crispness and flavor, served with peanuts and sheep’s milk mousse. Luca De Santi as a pastry chef brought two desserts inspired by South America where he used not the usual ingredients in Italian pastries such as corn and potatoes, with the first ingredient gave the crunchiness to a chocolate dessert in three consistencies completed with the granita cane BIO Black Elk water and sugar; with potatoes he prepared a pre-dessert made from a sweet potato cream, Amaranth waffles and a dandelion leaf, exquisite.
As far as the cornerstones of the natural food in Italy, they took the stage Identity Natural chef and great experimenter Simone Salvini and clever and artistic Daniela Cicioni. Simone Salvini made us realize what the natural food nothing is wasted, including the cooking water from the beans that used to prepare the meringues candid without the use of eggs and thickeners (I’ll try to reproduce the recipe in the coming days) simply by mounting it with the sugar in the right doses. It announced that this will be the year of the vegetables, to cook in many ways to the healthy recipes and nutritious as well as tasty. And to talk about little-known ingredients presented another recipe from tapioca, tuber by regulatory properties of the gastric system, from which various derivatives to be used in various ways, such as cassava flour that he used to do the Krupuk on which he lies tapioca pearls prepared in three different ways with spices and coconut milk.
Daniela Cicioni as always amazed with its fermentation and its dishes that without cooking ingredients can achieve a unique taste and above all “alive”. His first dish is a creamy raw food pumpkin and cashews enriched by the Indian cumin which helps digestion and gives a sense of warmth as the dish is not hot not being cooked, cream sits on a bean dumpling lactofermentati fermented with the help of probiotics, and finally washers of Brussels sprouts facts soften in water for hours, all completed with red cabbage and sour chili powder to give the smoked aroma. The second course that prepared it was really unexpected, because the fermented bulgur has made of sticks from the sticky consistency that almost resembled a cheese presented with herbs and spices in different textures on a plate which is a work of art.
The last speech made me acquainted with a reality of which I had heard about lately, so niche that I had focused all facets concerning it. At present its reality was Valeria Margaret Moscow, puncture (picker) and chef petite but with an incredible charge, and with a passion that lights up the eyes presented his project Wood * ing Food Lab, a research laboratory use wild food for the food and mixing. Their work consists of first searching, then dealing with training and consulting, as well as the development of environmentally friendly products and tastings. Do you mean to go foraging for wild places and gather wild species suitable to be eaten, one thing was already happening in 1800 when 80% of the meal was of wild origin, said Valeria. One of the basic rules is only collecting the 5% of what you see is available, this will damage the environment. For her today’s innovation means reconnecting with the environment, this supports a diet based on wild foods, they are animals or plants. For his recipes using ingredients unknown to most people, for example it has used many herbaceous species such as ground elder (same family of celery), the roots of wild garlic and dandelion, the Reynoutria japonica, and again used a wild peas and miso blackthorn and kombucha, a fermented tea that does very well. Alongside the use of these plant species, he has also presented us with frog eggs and shellfish taste similar to clams. Really an interesting reality!
I really appreciated all the speeches, and the diversity between different chef with all their innovative projects and environmentally confirmed once again that natural food is rich in tastes, experiments, research, attention … and color ♣
(Photo Credits: Brambilla – Serrani)
