EVOKING RHYMES WITH COOKING...

Article by MASSIMO POLI - Chef of the Ristorante La Taverna dei Poeti

The title of this article is a little misleading, but deliberately so: I wanted to reflect on the central subject of this space, that is, recipes. Where do they come from? Why? What pushes a cook, or even a housewife, in certain directions rather than others?

The starting point of that push is always and in any case the historical moment we are living through. Traditional cooking, Elban cooking included, is the fruit of situations of poverty, of want, of necessity. Poor, essential recipes, sometimes made only in order to preserve products that appeared in abundance in their season and that today have become genuine delicacies forming part of our culture.

But today, what guides us? We have ridden for a long time the wave of locality, of zero-kilometre, of revisited tradition. Concepts that by now should be settled and, I dare say, almost taken for granted, especially in certain situations.

Can we start from something else? In my view, yes!!!

The most beautiful territory, but at the same time the most treacherous to explore, is precisely ourselves. Sometimes, paradoxically, we take ourselves for granted and fail to stress instinctive details of our culinary thinking that are in fact wonderful and worth bringing out. An example: I love talking about boiled octopus, a typical Elban recipe, almost a symbol!!

But a little while ago I paused on what I say when I tell its story. Yes, it is true, I talk about local octopus, about cooking it al dente, about tradition and so on, but then I always dwell on the detail of the "glass of forks". Custom had it that the forks were not "disposable" but that everyone drew from the same jug full of hot water and from the same cutlery. A way that is, if you like, hardly hygienic and unthinkable today, but telling. We can bring a dish into the world by highlighting, beyond raw materials and tradition, precisely this detail, trying to let our guest relive at least the visual and evocative experience of a gesture our forebears made and made again!!

It can be done, and how!!! Recalling gestures and images that in their small way made our history has the same value as using an excellent raw material or going to a local supplier.

Having another vision of cooking, more evocative without forgetting quality: this, in my view, is the further effort we shall have to make.