Alessandro Gilmozzichef of the El Molin restaurant, in Cavalese (Trento) he is a mountain man by definition, he later became a chef. He planned to become a carpenter and shape wood, so much so that he still personally crafts the handles of the knives he uses.
The chef Alessandro Gilmozzi
A professional of rare sensitivity, in silence and away from the spotlight, he began to use cooking techniques that over the years have become (even too much) fashionable, in times when ‘social’ life did not yet exist, practicing the foraging before the term was acquired in common language. After all, with a mycologist grandfather and a botanist aunt, the road to knowledge of the subject was certainly less uphill.
The Cavalese woods are the terrain of research that materializes in completely original dishes, in which it is perfect the synthesis between wild and technical, served in a unique context, created in a seventeenth-century building from the last of the 48 mills remaining in the Trentino town. It goes without saying that when we ask him for advice on how to organize the basket for a picnic in the mountainshe had already thought about it, making it a real format within his activities: «I’m right now organizing a small event for around forty Americans, I’m taking them foraging and learning about the world of the wild».Equipping them with a snack that is called here marendol or holmitocin other words, today’s version, but faithful to tradition, of the package that local women made for their lumberjack husbands.
Not only delights to taste, but also a real one handbook in the trash can El Molinto learn to experience the mountains while respecting its flora and fauna
«I saw my grandmother make it for her brother and grandfather. They brought polenta with them conzàdaor the polenta from the day before rolled around a luganega, the sausage, all in a greaseproof paper package. It’s really fun to see how people react to this sort of hot dog, in which polenta replaces bread. If they had to guarantee lunch instead of a snack, then they brought a small jar with coffee and milk inside, where they soaked the potato roast, composed of polenta and potatoes cut into julienne strips and baked like a cake.” And then again: «The rye bread with a piece of soft speck, to be sliced roughly with the knife that we now provide with the wooden cutting board and Kaminwurst freshly made.”
Dessert cannot be missing, therefore mature cheese, I formed a reserve, hey apples in tochi, the cooked apples in pieces, the ones that are at the base of the strudel, in the glass jar. Plus there are of course also red fruits. As far as drinks are concerned, there is cold herbal tea from Mas Vinal – a local farm – contained in a glass bottle but, he adds Alexander, «for the most demanding there is also Trentodoc». Everything is completed by an ad hoc equipment with backpack, plaid and glasses.
Walking through the woods with a chef Gilmozzi
A separate chapter, but of great importance and absolutely essential, is the theme of the respect owed to the mountains: «First of all, you leave your car in the designated car parks and from there you continue on foot. It is also essential to take your waste to the valley: in your backpack there is a biodegradable bag in which to put it. Plus, there’s a little handbook in which we give some indications of behavior. An example? You never tear gems if you don’t know how.”
