CULTURE: Reality Bites
Happy New Year! My global foodie family and friends are part of my favourite people sometimes portrayed in my stories. They all have been source of inspiration to me since my early years working in culture, education and art.?
2022 promises to be no different.
Gilda Carbonaro, chef by the Academy in Florence Cordon Bleu Scuola D'Arte Culinaria, is a family friend who lives seasonally between the U.S.A., Mexico and Italy. In her book, A Tiny Kitchen in Florence, an unpretentious publication, Gilda shares her family bites of a cuisine which main strengths are quality, simplicity and freshness.
No food is a testament to the imagination of Italian fare better than pasta. So it was only until last autumn that we could road trip around the heart of Tuscany to finally reach Chianti, and make Pici al'Aglione. This, for some fieldwork and to experience firsthand ‘the pasta-road’. Here three interesting fun facts to share:
One. That the average Italian person is thought to consume over 20kg of pasta every year—quite a lot! This, to the point that farmers in Italy aren’t able to grow enough of the hard kind of wheat, its essential ingredient, to meet demand. Therefore today, grains are locally grown, as imported.
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Two. Cooking in Italy, as it happens with passionate chefs from around the world, is about depending on who you ask. Food is a touchy subject for many hard core Italian friends not always in simple contexts. Yet, with Gilda, complicated ideas turn into simple -and fun- concepts.
Three. That even after highlighting the above, Italian top chefs are open about breaking cooking barriers by allowing to “contaminate” themselves with other chefs they respect. Some of them usually reveal some of their secrets at Milan’s Identita Golose cooking convention.
Enough talk, time to watch.
Here more reality bites —kind of a cooking lesson— making Pici al'Aglione directly from Italy with Gilda’s Culinarian Expeditions, inclusive of naughty cashmere goats!
*Drop by my YouTube channel or Instagram to watch Pici al'Aglione part I.
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