There is a saying among chefs in english “what grows together goes together”, which clearly expresses the idea that ingredients that grow close together or in the same areas also go well together in a dish, but maybe the reality is often a little more complex.
Just how do you create a dish? How can a dish represent a concept? And how can you balance the flavours within it? And how to connect memories, places or even moments within at the same time?
These are just some of the questions that the creative aspect of being a chef brings with it.
Today I will try to describe a pasta dish composed, like many great classics, of only a few components: tagliatelle, butter, lake garum and persimmon, paying particular attention to the last two ingredients. When I find myself explaining this dish to guests at the table, I often note disconcerted faces when I get to explaining the preparation of garum, a recipe that dates back to the time of the ancient Romans but has now disappeared from our tables but has been rediscovered in recent years by some of the best restaurants in the world; in short, these are whole fish, including bones, heads and entrails, which after being ground, and with the addition of salt, are left to rest for around nine months in jars or demijohns. Time, and the enzymes present in the fish&´s innards transform this mush into a liquid with an extraordinarily intense and enveloping flavour, reminiscent of anchovy sauce. Now you have at least some idea of what it might resemble today.
It’s a kind of flavour that I haven recognised ever since I was a child when my grandmother (from Puglia) would put anchovies in salt in the summer then use both the finished product and the sauce as a condiment. In my particular, when I set about my own production I use the seasonal fish that the lake provides, usually shad, burbot, whitefish or tench, fish that nowadays we rarely find on restaurant menus, even though practically any fish, both fresh and salt water, can be used. Garum standing alone is excellent but it releases all its potential when combined with butter and there are studies that appear to demonstrate how the combination of salt and fat stimulatesthe release of dopamine in the brain and provokes a strong feeling of pleasure and reward. And it is precisely on this principle that our dish revolves. The final ingredient needed to counterbalance these intense flavours is the persimmon, which I am
lucky enough to be able to pick in what is certainly one of my favourite places in the whole of Valchiavenna: the palazzo Vertemate Franchi at Prosto: the historic 16th century mansion that I have visited countless times and that has fascinated me since childhood. Over the years I have been able to "explore" almost every corner of the building and its surrounding areas always with the youthful fantasy of discovering a trap door or a secret passage - worthy of the best adventure films. From the cellars to the top of the bell tower, from the press to the orchard and it is precisely in the latter that we discover the five trees of two different varieties of persimmon from which, for some years Ralph the custodian has allowed me to source for my kitchen endeavours since they have always been left uncultivated. But now harvest time brings with it an almost magical atmosphere when it takes place between autumn and wintertime;
yellowish leaves, half-bare trees, snowcapped peaks and a totally deserted building, the temperatures dropping and one’s breath becoming ever more visible as the crates of ripe fruit fill up nicely. Once harvested, persimmon is a very versatile fruit, usable even at different stages of its ripening: they can be blanched in water and hung in the air whole until they reach the consistency of dates, used fresh in both sweet and savoury recipes or in jams. It&´s To add sweetness to our dish, we chose to use persimmon in two ways: segments of fresh pulp and a powder (dehydration is in fact a very suitable technique for this fruit since it causes it to lose a good part of the tannins present in it) enhancing the presence of persimmon within the dish. The final element having been introduced, our “simple” dish is ready and balanced, a play across the palate of intensely savoury and sweetly tannic flavours, between lake and mountain, rudimentary condiments and elegant stately homes.
