Before we went to Italy we decided it should be our goal to return with authentic recipes that we could recreate in our "Italian Dinner Series" at the restaurant. During the first night of service I realized something interesting. Between myself, our sous chef, garde manger, and chef di partie, we have behind us more than 25 years of experience with Italian food cookery. This was an amusing thought as we struggled to twist tajarin just right for one of our pasta offerings that night. For what ever reason, we had all grown up working in Italian kitchens. The cuisine we have grown to remember with a sense of pride and nostalgia has always been Italian. It made me question this dynamic as it relates to the next generation of young cooks. What will they look back on as the type of cuisine that formed their first impressions of "this is how it is done" in our area? For the first time I realized I am in a unique position to pass on a philosophy about our craft and how we interact with our land. This model would be directly communicated to my staff as well as the guests that dine in our restaurant. As my own experiences have left impressions on my current work, our kitchen and cooking style will become a source of perspective and nostalgia future generations of chefs. I began to seriously consider what this might mean for our identity as chefs, for our sense of lineage, history, and place. What does this mean for the trajectory of our trade and how it develops in our area? What does this mean for our food culture and what we as consumers perceive as “valuable”?
Italy influenced the perspective I have of my role as a chef. I have always maintained close relationships with local growers and will always give priority to local products on my menu, but something changed in the way I view our area regarding products with inherent regional value. Allow me to explain.
Why is caviar regarded as a delicacy, reserved for the wealthy, enjoyed by the gram on the tip of a mother of pearl spoon? When did this particular ingredient become haute? I'm no food historian, but I can almost guarantee that one day a Norwegian fisherman gutted some fat sturgeon and a pile of roe fell out. Being a good Norwegian fisherman he didn't want to waste any part of his catch so he sold the fish and held onto the guts and roe to enjoy later. Now, being a good Norwegian fisherman he also knew that if he wanted to enjoy his pile 'o guts later that week while at sea, he had better preserve it; he air dried the guts and cured the roe--and there you have it, caviar! That fisherman later shared his roe and someone decided they could sell it all over the world. Local pride combined with savvy marketing created a delicacy.
Assuming that this type of thing happens elsewhere in the food world, I began to ask myself what other items can be looked at as potentially having an "inflated" actual worth. In Alba, I ate mounds of white truffles. They were absolutely amazing, a rare and valuable experience for my young palate. I was, however, disappointed to find that they were SO much more fragrant when they were fresh out of the ground. It made me question the value of serving them at the restaurant after they have been shipped half way across the world. Are they just a regional specialty that should be enjoyed in that area, or are they really worth the inflated prices they fetch internationally so that myself and other chef's can add another delicacy to our menus? It's a tough question, and one I believe helped to shape the strong and well maintained food culture of the Italians.
The pride that Italians have in their local products is incredible. To say "I am from Parma, Modena, or Barolo" is almost always followed by "have you tried our--insert artisanal product here--it’s the best in the world!" I didn't understand this colloquialism at first. I remember thinking "is seems like everyone I’ve met in this country makes the best of something!" And then it hit me. That's what it is, Italians value quality food products, livestock, grain, and wine as mediums to express their personal worth and use the most conducive natural environments to make/harvest products that become so interdependent on a grower-environment-consumer relationship that the people literally become conduits of their terroir. I believe this idea can be translated anywhere in the world.
We too, can be conduits of our land. We should take pride in our local products. My Caviar is finger lime from Cayucos, my Truffles are Chanterelles from the foothills of the Seven Sisters, my Maine Lobster is Spot Prawns from Santa Barbara. We have the opportunity as chefs and consumers to define and celebrate the delicacies of our region, so when these products are experienced we can be proud that they are unique to our area and help to define us as a culture.
When I reminisce as an older fatter chef, I want find comfort in the fact that I served what I was proud of, both directly by purchasing local products and indirectly by asking "have you tried our--insert quality regional product--it’s the best in the world!"
Our area is the source for some of the best agricultural products in the world. If we want to maintain this we need to foster relationships with the most important people in our food system--growers, ranchers, and producers. We are beginning to lose sight of the historical and social importance of these relationships, allowing them to die would destroy what is left of our extremely frail and geographically sheltered Central Coast food culture. Take a few minutes to google the history of our local dairy industry. Do you have any idea how many of our communities were built around the dairy business? Now try to find a gallon of milk produced locally. How can a product that was at one time so important to our local economy just disappear? Now ask yourself, where will this happen next? I don’t want to contribute to this end.
In talking to my customers, peers, and local suppliers I have found that the heart of this message is alive and well on the central coast. It seems, however, that the message is being lost somewhere between purchasing and consumption. You’d be hard pressed to find a local consumer who wouldn’t tout the benefits of eating and buying local, but to what extent? What are the personal costs and discomfort we are willing to shoulder in order to truly stand behind what we believe in? Are we willing to sacrifice certain ingredients, suppliers, supermarket convenience, fertilizers, etc? These conveniences (that’s really all they amount to) make our jobs and lives easier, but at what cost to our community? Are we looking past our local producers to save a few bucks? Do we make the effort to locate and support regional producers? You save a few dollars at a Big Box store, but at what cost to our connection with our land, at what cost to our agri-social consciousness? This is a question for chefs, winemakers, purveyors, and the general public. I cannot speak for the collective “us”, but I can speak for myself, my family, and our restaurant.
Over the last few weeks, I have eliminated a large amount of outsourced ingredients and replaced them with regional ingredients to a greater extent than I have in the past. It requires a more knowledgeable floor staff, as well as more flexibility from my kitchen staff: our nightly menu meetings last longer, many times stretching well past when the boys have clocked out (a commitment that I am humbled by). Preparations might change half way through the evening--thanks for putting up with me folks. More creative methods of recipe development and service are demanded from everyone. This creates a personal, more valuable end product and a means to allow our menu to display the wealth of our area. Our customers are curious about our sources and when they find out they have access to our products on a daily basis, it creates a certain sense of local privilege and pride in what they are enjoying. This might mean that our customers will not be able to enjoy halibut year round, or lobster, lamb or oysters, but they know that what we are offering for the evening is always the best that I can find from our local markets, farms, and waters.
To my customers, providers and fellow chefs: this is my charge and my commitment.
Thank you Italy.
-Jensen
Me in front of the Terra Madre building, day one in Turin
Volunteers pouring shots of espresso for thirsty delegates
One of many translators at the 'Cooks and Places' conference
The old slogan for Pastore's
Grace and I with our new friend Travis and Alice Waters and the US delegate meeting
My favorite find at the Salone, lardo!
An entire pig made into one sausage
Cheese wrapped in tobacco leaves
A white truffle at the truffle festival in Alba
Carpaccio at restaurant Rabaja in Barbaresco
Grace with her favorite course, dessert! A trio of panna cotta, crema caramellata, and panforte
A view of Seralunga D'Alba from Barolo
We tasted with Piero Busso, a small Barbaresco producer, and there was a bottle of Adelaida Nebbiolo on his wall, small world!
The University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo
The Wine Bank, a project that Carlo Petrini started to preserve the oenological heritage of Italy
A cooking class with Chef Massimo at Antica Corte Palavicina, a bed and breakfast and restaurant known for their Culatello production.
A feast of a breakfast at Antica Corte Palavicina, dinner that night was incredible, perfectly executed traditional Italian cuisine, it was definitely one of the highlights of our trip.
Culatello curing in their cellar. Culatello is a portion of the ham removed from what would normally be made into prosciutto. It has more flavor because of it's location on the ham and it's fat content is much higher. It is a specialty of Zibello, a small town in Emilia Romagna. This is the best cured pork product I've ever tasted.
Allocated Culatello for some of the best restaurants in Italy, Armani, the Prince...
...and for the brothers Troisgros... I had a small heart attack when I saw this!
The butcher department at Peck in Milan
I would have taken more pictures but the fascist with the butcher knife told me to stop
Hope you enjoyed the pictures! Here is a list of places we would recommend if you are planning a trip to Northern Italy:
Eataly in Turin
Ettore Germano (winery and agriturismo) in Serralunga d'Alba
Piazza Duomo in Alba
La Cantinetta in Barolo
Le Torri in Castiglione Falletto
Restaurant Guido and the Banco del Vino in Pollenzo
Antica Corte Palavicina in Zibello
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