Monday,
December 03, 2007
Iconic Italian Foods - Not to Worry about
Decline
The
ANNOTICO Report
Where
so many societies experience a gravitation away from
agriculture to urban jobs or professions, and a resultant loss of crafts or
iconic foods, or a diminution of quality,
The
succeeding generations are mostly too dedicated to the "art" of food,
plus, there are many examples of "reversal", where young Italians are
returning to the land which their parents wanted to leave, applying new
business skills to boost efficiency without losing quality.
For
instance, Giuseppe Censi uses a robot which looks
like a lawnmower with arms - more R2D2 than C3PO -- that
trundles slowly along a track, reaches in, seizes each one of
the 24,000 cheese wheels in the hangar, pulls it out, rotates it 180 degrees
and then slides it back, a process that goes on 24 hours every day, because the
cheese must be turned once a week during the two to three year maturing
process.
Another
case study: Nicola Zanda's grandfather ran an
engineering company that built bridges around the world. His father was a
professor of medicine at
The
"Mother Cuisine of
The
Sydney Morning Herald
David
Dale
From
Good Living
December
4, 2007
The icons of
Italian food are being refreshed by a new generation.
As
you approach the dairy just outside
After Giuseppe emerges and says hello, you ask what the sound is. He looks
baffled for a moment and then realizes what you're talking about. He's been
hearing it for so long he no longer registers it. "That's my robot,"
he says. "Come and see."
He opens the doors of the hangar and displays his treasure: 24,000 wheels of parmesan,
stacked from floor to ceiling on shelves which recede to infinity. The robot,
which looks like a lawnmower with arms - more R2D2 than C3PO -- is trundling
slowly along a track between the shelves. It stops, reaches in, seizes a wheel,
pulls it out, rotates it 180 degrees and then slides
it back. That process goes on 2 4 hours of every day, because every cheese in
the hangar must be turned once a week during the two to three year maturing
process.
Giuseppe loves his robot. "Making parmesan has been a sickness of my
family for 200 years," he says. "I work at this from 5 in the morning
till 8 at night. It would be longer if I didn't have the voltatrice automatica
(automatic turner)."
The robot allows Giuseppe to take a two hour break most days for family lunch
and siesta - which is essential for any civilised
Italian. It's the only piece of automation he's prepared to consider, in a
process that requires constant human involvement. He makes 37 new cheeses a
day, each weighing 39 kilograms and selling (after months of maturing and
turning) for around $2,000.
He has to check the wheels constantly to make sure they don't contain air
bubbles, which he detects by listening for changes in tone when he taps the
surface with a silver hammer called an orecchio. Only
then can he be sure of getting certification from the authorities in nearby
It was inspiring to encounter Giuseppe as I was researching a book about the
food of north western
I was afraid we might find that the icons so close to the hearts of
Australians, Americans and Britons - like parmesan, prosciutto,
extra virgin olive oil, and balsamic vinegar - are becoming endangered species,
as peasant skills disappear and traditional dedication is replaced by factory
production.
It turned out the opposite is true. Soffritto reveals how young Italians are returning to the land whic h their parents wanted to leave, applying new business
skills to boost efficiency without losing quality.
A prime example is Giovanni Bianchi,
who runs a prosciutto-making enterprise called
Pio Tosoni in the town of
The company produces 100,000 legs a year, from pigs fed on the whey that is a
byproduct of parmesan making. It uses machines to massage the meat to tenderness,
but employs 26 people to trim the legs into shape, rub on the salt and
continually check the thousands of prosciuttos that
must hang for more than 12 months before they can be sold. Checking still
involves thrusting a needle made of horse bone into the meat and sniffing for
hints of bacteria.
The secret of the flavour, Giovanni says, is the Langhirano air. On days when the wind is in the right
direction, he opens the windows and lets the slightly salty breezes dry the
meat. Only a member of the family can judge each morning whether the air is
right and press the button to raise the shutters of the storerooms.
Near
Zanda's grandfather ran an engineering company that
built bridges around the world. His father was a professor of medicine at
"I started in 1997, from no knowledge," he told us
. "I read about the disappearance of this race of pigs and I
decided it was a project I could undertake. I had inherited 100 hectares of
forest, and I realised the pigs could wander in the
forest and eat the acorns."
Now he keeps 200 animals that earn him a modest income and huge satisfaction.
He's made his operation "organic" and "free range" simply
by following standard procedures of 200 years ago. "I would say that
tradition is the future here in
Back in Emilia Romagna, Italo Pedroni would
agree. In the
He cooks the pulp of Trebbiano di Spagna
grapes for 24 hours, then puts the liquid into
100-year-old mulberry barrels. After two years, he moves it into a smaller
barrel made of chestnut wood. Then it proceeds through barrels of cherry,
juniper and oak, absorbing the flavours of each wood
and becoming more concentrated.
He's willing to let you taste it after six years, but it's not interesting
until 12 years, and at its best after 25 years,
when it's a thick, purple syrup more like honey than vinegar.
He makes only 500 litres a year and is certified by
the local consorzio to call it "Aceto balsamico tradizionale di
Italo Pedroni says the most
important ingredient of his product is time. Fortunately for us,
Soffritto - A
delicious Ligurian memoir, by David Dale, is
published by Allen and Unwin ($49.95).
David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today
(Allen and Unwin). For observations on Australian
attitudes and behaviour, go to www.smh.com.au/tribalmind.
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