When we talk about food, beyond the culinary concept, some new interesting and unexplored aspects can be discovered. On Saturday, March 12, we participated in the 4th edition of Cibo a Regola d’arte, the event organized by Corriere della Sera and Cucina del Corriere and the theme was “Good Food. Chef, protagonisti, cibi e idee per cucinare buono e sano”. Food lab, masterclass with tasting and food talk, threw us into the food and quality cuisine world. I was pleasantly surprised by the food talks because, besides the culinary aspect and recipes, they truly took a deeper look at a very interesting aspect: describing food. Among all the food talks, I found “Raccontare il cibo sano. Storie di foodwriting tra Italia e Inghilterra” particularly interesting, a very captivating debate hosted by Angela Frenda, Food Editor of Corriere della Sera and Artistic Director of the event.
The idea of a tasty dialogue between London and Milan, among the tastes and trends of these two splendid capitals of fashion and food, stimulated my curiosity. I was sure that we, Italians, were about to explain to English people how to talk about food, how to tell the stories of dishes and ingredients, but even in this, England won… Rachel Roddy, an English woman who moved to Rome, described Italian food with romanticism and passion. Her apartment is above a bakery, from where she smells bread, flour, and all the ideal ingredients to bake crunchy and warm bread. Her story, so poetic, so romantic and dreamy, really got to me. With her, Mina Holland, food writer from The Guardian who was talking about Italian food in the same dreamy way.
The debate was full of topics, and it got really interesting when they were talking about the job of the food writer and about the fact that in Italy, this figure doesn’t exist. And I was asking myself, how is this possible? What about all the existing food bloggers? But then, the words of the blogger Roddy replied to my question. “When I write about an ingredient, I talk about a world, a landscape, an instant of my life”. There you go…Instead, in our narrative history there are many recipe books. We talk about how to prepare a dish, but not much about ingredients, colors, tastes, smells. Why? Is it because we are used to all this, to the history, to the asset of all products so we don’t talk about it? Is it possible that we are able to lose this occasion in a field in which we should be leaders? Food writing is becoming a reality and we are feeling the need for it. The desire of describing food, starting from its origins, varieties and curiosities about ingredients, is a way of getting to know its essence in a very deep way. Surely recipes are more immediate and easy to comprehend, but maybe we are neglecting the most passionate side of it, the one that truly characterizes our territories. The stories of how ingredients were born, the unique varieties linked to each single territory, are a unique treasure worldwide and this is what British people surely understood. The future of food is in storytelling and food writing.
That’s why we have started from ingredients, and from a collective wiki food, considering that the treasure of our Country is the knowledge of our chefs and our dishes, not just their deliciousness. We talk about our richness, and we try to use technology as an ally to spread our heritage all around the world. Let’s not let other people do this…Why don’t we start from a wiki food app about ingredients and from mobile devices, which is the future’s communication channel?
That’s why we have started from ingredients, and from a collective wiki food, considering that the treasure of our Country is the knowledge of our chefs and our dishes, not just their deliciousness. We talk about our richness, and we try to use technology as an ally to spread our heritage all around the world. Let’s not let other people do this…Why don’t we start from a wiki food app about ingredients and from mobile devices, which is the future’s communication channel?