LAWN. Chef Cristiano Tomei will be the special guest of “Tuscany in mouth”, the two-day event dedicated to Prato food and wine starting tonight at the Emperor’s Castle.
Histrionic in his ways as well as brilliant in the kitchen, fresh winner of the “Dish of the Year” at the Taste Awards and an appreciated television face, chef Tomei is at the helm of the “L’imbuto” restaurant and is considered by many as one of the pinnacles of cuisine Italian creative. We reach him on the phone while he is traveling to Rome at the end of a long working day and while he is driving, «I like driving alone» he confesses, he also tells us his personal idea of cooking, which mixes emotions, territorial identity and nature .
Tomei, what will you tell the participants of La Tuscany in mouth?
«I won’t go to Prato to give a lesson, I will talk about my idea of taste and cooking. For me, cooking is a very high cultural act: just think that language developed precisely to exchange information on where to find food and that our country is the only one where we talk about food while eating. In short, we draw from an immense, thousand-year-old cultural basin. And Prato is also a good choice to talk about food and cuisine: it has always been a crossroads of people, of merchants. It’s true that it has always been in the shadow of Florence but it has managed to maintain its own identity and has also done so in the kitchen.”
How?
«Just ask yourself what food is: it is evidence of the contamination and inclusiveness of a place. This is why I say that we need to talk about territoriality. It means considering the influences left by those who passed through that place over time. Stuffed celery, for example, can only be found in Prato but it would not exist if the tomato had not arrived from Peru. It is a monument to be preserved. Another case of contamination is Vermouth. Vermuth is made in Prato, but it is thought to be made only in Piedmont. But Vermuth is a German word, it means mugwort. However, no one knows the Bozza di Prato: perhaps the people of Prato no longer buy it, they prefer to go to the supermarket and buy that bread that goes limp after a few hours. There is a need for awareness: we need to talk about territoriality and defend it tooth and nail. It is a revolution that takes place in small steps, in everyday life, day after day.”
She often repeats that cooking is above all about sharing.
«Mine is a category that is both unlucky and privileged at the same time. Whoever creates a personal kitchen shares their life, their emotions. In my dishes there is everything, they tell of travel and love, or death or sex. And since I became a father I cook better, my children are green fuel in my engine. The other day I had these boxes of freshly harvested carrots and I ended up with a pasta filled with carrots and pine nuts. They were carrots but for me it was the feeling of a walk on the Viareggio seafront. When you can put this exercise into practice, in my opinion you are a person who understands cooking. But when a chef starts making drawings, that’s the end.”
Without forgetting nature, another passion of his.
«Because it is nature that dictates everything in the kitchen. It is normal to talk about spontaneous herbs or seasonality, it is nature that gives the times. In the Roman galleys there was the one who beat the time for the rowers. In the kitchen, what beats time is always nature. Even if we continue to treat her badly.”
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
