The restaurant industry in Bologna pours into the deep earth, between the clay with a record level of potassium at Podere San Giuliano, in San Lazzaro. This is where this spring Federica Frattini, owner of a prosperous farm with agritourism and gourmet restaurant, made hectares of land and her know how available to a small group of lucky chefs: at the moment, there are 3 fields 15 metres long cultivated for commission for Claudio Sordi of La Piazzetta, Mario Ferrara of Scacco Matto and Massimiliano Poggi of Cambio; soon there will also be Irina Steccanella of osteria Vini d’Italia.
By paying a symbolic amount of money for the rent, the chefs can choose which vegetables eighty-year-old house-farmer Fernando will cultivated for them. After assessing the point of maturation, the vegetables are bought at an agreed price, the products being delivered a couple of times a week. As for the chefs, they drop by every 15 days to verify the situation and start the necessary process for the future (starting from the seed, one should count at least 3 months).
Does someone want some purple artichokes from San Luca?
After the deluge of
asparagus from Altedo and
purple artichokes from San Luca, as if it were raining, it’s now time for strawberries (sold to the clients of the restaurant, behind the counter), and broad beans especially, mixed salad and chicory. Soon other assets will arrive as well.
Sordi preferred French beans of all sorts of colours, cherry tomatoes and beefsteak tomatoes, trombetta courgettes, turnips and mangetout; this in view of the reduction of mercury that will make the soil good for pumpkins and cabbage (including the Savoy cabbage for his beloved
cassoeula).
There are various advantages: very fresh vegetables obtained with a method that is halfway between organic and integrated agriculture, available at unusual maturation stages and most of all intact, so that leaves, roots, pods and wastes can be used for stocks, infusions, decoctions, even in a coffee maker. «This is changing my way of conceiving a dish», says
Sordi. «I’m more concentrated on the product. The first vegetable from Podere that I tried was a black cabbage that immediately inspired me a dish, in the shape of a liquid with fried fish. I currently satisfy around 70% of my needs».
Massimiliano Poggi is equally enthusiastic: «The vegetable garden is the future, against pandemic homologation. I also manage to cover 70% of my needs, giving up on onions, carrots or celery for the benefit of those vegetables that only need a minimum processing. This is where the difference stands out. For those who work in the city, like us, it’s not easy to source quality vegetables. And knowing that at 7 someone is picking what you will cook at 9, is truly priceless. Even the creative process of a dish changes, because months in advance you start to think about a product and you await it in trepidation».
The land, the real protagonist in this project
He decided to plant black-eyed beans, various types of tomatoes, leaf and stick chards; while
Ferrara opted for rhubarb, horseradish and more: «I couldn’t believe it when Federica explained the project to me, one year ago. I was born and grew up in the countryside, I was used to pick tomatoes from the plant, and fruit from the tree, I have a clear memory of the taste of real things and this is my daily research. With this vegetable garden I will at last have the vegetables I want, freshly picked. I even gave her some seeds of my own, of a bean variety from Basilicata which will be ready in September, to test if the soil is suitable. Then it will be the turn of autumn products such as turnip tops».
As for him, the home chef,
Riccardo Facchini, is very jealous of the encyclopaedic assortment of aromatic herbs that are his exclusive perk. Trained in Lion and at
Il Pagliaccio, he’s already been the chef at
Al Pappagallo for two years now, and
Federica’s business partner for the past year. The latter, before moving to the dining room, used to press her green thumb on the rolling pin. Until, being aware of the excellent products she had in her hands, she looked for someone who could create adequate recipes built around those products.
Besides vegetables, the must are the pigs from the Po valley, raised in the estate for the purpose of the restaurant since they are still suckling, celebrated in the knife chopped meat sauce made entirely with pork (for the tagliatelle, rolled out just before serving; while mini-tortellini are prepared with duck eggs to reduce the thickness of the pasta) and by the various cuts cooked in different ways. But there’s also creativity: the
Margarita beef is excellent, a slow roasted cheek, seasoned with iced salt, blended with lemon zest (to avoid the aromas warming up) with vaporised tequila.
