News message Gianni Cosetti 
Giampiero Rorato
speech at the conference in honor of Gianni Cosetti
Tolmezzo, Museum Carnico, July 5, 2009
pictured
Gianni Cosetti To determine if it has something to say and to teach the chefs of today, especially young people, those who attend the schools of hotel and, of course, their teachers, but also to those who work successfully for years in restaurants, I think it is useful to make a reflection on what was happening in Europe in the years when Cosetti began his adventure in Rome Tolmezzo.
I mean the early seventies, namely 1973, when the French food and wine journalist Henri Gault and Christian Millau made known to the world through their magazine, the changes taking place during the French restaurant, provoking a lively debate in France between chefs and food critics, because, with those changes are not superficial, was called into question the "great French cuisine," as codified by Auguste Escoffier in The food guides in 1903.
Escoffier (1846-1935), called still alive "king of chefs and chef of kings", had laid down the lines, recipes and even a pop-cuisine elitist, just came in the restaurants of major hotels, in France and abroad, and made known in Italy even the great reformer dell'hotelerie, Cesar Ritz (1850-1918), called to indicate the criteria for generous hospitality and give a modern face with some Italian hotels, such as the Grand Hotel in Rome, the Villa Igea in Palermo, the Grand Hotel delle Terme di Salsomaggiore, which once looked at many other hotels of the time.
The cuisine of Escoffier, even after the Second World War and until the 70s of last century, was followed and implemented with extreme care, often with hair-splitting, in the great restaurants of Europe, among which are including those of the Ciga luxury hotels in Venice, created or renovated over the years of the Belle Époque, as was present in Grado, Trieste, Cortina d'Ampezzo and I think that the last chef worthy of being considered a faithful disciple of Escoffier , was the Friuli Fernando Alzetta one of the last great chefs who have worked in major hotels in Venice.
change of French cuisine, in the late sixties and early seventies the already established by two journalists as "Nouvelle Cuisine", was started in Lyon in the restaurant of Paul Bocuse, Michel Troisgros in Roanne in Paris by Alain Senderens Crissier, in Switzerland, Fredy Girardet (owner and chef of the Hotel de Ville) and some other of their colleagues and was not only an act of liberation from the levy in this sacred cow that was still Escoffier but the claim of a new, more natural and do actual cooking, most satisfying food needs and better able to better satisfy the gourmet.
The use in the kitchen with fresh produce market, the reduction of ingredients, proper cooking, much shorter than those taught by Escoffier, the presentation accurate, aesthetically beautiful, so as to satisfy even the view, the ' abolition of the cooking, the apparent ease of execution characterized the great new kitchen that found immediately Gualtiero Marchesi, who was six months in 1976, the Troisgros brothers, who took her to Italy, adapting to the needs and Italian tastes of customers.
And when Marquis opened in 1977 as a Bonvesin de la Riva in Milan, his restaurant, though starting from the French, still visible today in traditional dishes Erbusco present paper, the famous flat "marchesiani, gradually moved away from those experiences in order to reconstruct the modern forms traditional Italian cuisine that became milestones which inspired many of his students, now chef who also important and highly regarded culinary experts.
In the same seventies another great Italian chef, Angelo Paracucchi (1929-2004), sadly forgotten by many, was on its behalf and no matter what happened in France or Gualtiero Marchesi of Milan, a great innovator in the kitchen Italian, leaving his legacy to many young chefs who have brought in the food of our country and its higher education abroad.
Paracucchi behind him a solid professional experience in large international hotels and restaurants mostly in London and knew how to combine this experience with an extraordinary genius.
His contribution to the renewal of Italian cuisine can be summarized as follows: study and development of the vast heritage of the best Italian products, from field weeds to vegetables, meat from animals of the courtyard, as the sheep and cattle, fish from the sea to the freshwater the many fine cheeses of our house, Italian extra virgin olive oil, wine carefully matched to the dishes.
Some decades before that check the design of the Kilometer Zero, launched a few years ago by Coldiretti, he taught to draw the products close to home, to meet the production rates of the seasons, to package simple meals, light, tasty and beautiful , as shown in the book he published in 1986 and entitled "Creative Italian Cuisine", where creativity was a brilliant interpretation of traditional dishes, even those farmers, even those worthy, if properly interpreted, to enter the restaurant more ambitious and demanding.
Paracucchi's cuisine, which he realized in his Amelia the Angel Inn, near La Spezia, came immediately to the attention of critics and experts, and many Italian chefs and restaurateurs and was invited to teach in more prestigious hotel schools in the world, from America to Japan. It was called to inaugurate and lay down the lines of the Carpaccio restaurant in Paris, the first Italian restaurant to take a few years ago, in Paris, a Michelin star, the young chef David Bisetto Veneto. And I was honored to attend the inauguration of the carpaccio and I also visited other times and also just won the prestigious Michelin.
Why this long preamble? Why
in the same years, since 1969, when he was thirty, Gianni Cosetti, after four years in the Trattoria Cooperative ", in the center of Tolmezzo, begins an adventure of its own, in" Rome "and bringing in a few years this "his" restaurant to a reputation that transcended the national onfini.
And in his Rome Cosetti remains just thirty years, having operated for four years what was the Trattoria "Cooperative". What Cosetti
Gianni was making, drew Tolmezzo the biggest names in the food and wine journalist, intellectual, gourmet gourmet Italian and foreign, who came to Rome to try and enjoy his creations, original, of course, but always deeply rooted in the values \u200b\u200bof the area.
Cosetti surprised even experts savvy and demanding to leave a strong mark on the Italian restaurants of the time, continuing for three decades in an intelligent search and re-evaluation of meat products, processed food remained in the expression of a unique genius.
Without going into details of his kitchen, then giving it to note, I think we can make thoughtful comments on his legacy, see what was and what is his teaching, if teaching is still valid and current, if it deserves further deepen its work as a researcher and as a chef, though his work can be shown to schoolchildren hotel, the chefs of today and tomorrow, here and elsewhere, as proposed expert, still valid and current , inspiration.
I have not mentioned in the first case, the nouvelle cuisine and the chef who created it, I did not mention Angelo Paracucchi and Gualtiero Marchesi to make comparisons, but if these two great chefs have contributed decisively to the renovation of the kitchen Italian and if the signs remain in full force today, the same can be said of Gianni Cosetti, though, with some exceptions, has not found someone who, outside the regional boundaries, at national and European level, he knew fully understand and make known its value and its relevance today, not less, in these respects, to that of the Marquis and Paracucchi.
Carnia, you know, is out of the big trades as well, often unjustifiably, curiosity and interest of the media for outstanding cultural events, such as that for some years held in a tiny, picturesque village of this city, illegible, and if, for this, because of its location alone, the meat has been able to maintain sufficient intact its heritage of traditions and values \u200b\u200band gourmet food, the important experiences in this region, as precisely that of Gianni Cosetti, have not found the attention they deserve. In Friuli Venezia Giulia
estimators Cosetti there were and there are, as there were and there are cooks who, having understood the wisdom of its operations, the modernity and high quality of its food, continue to make concrete in their kitchens his teaching.
In truth, it is also said that the kitchen and food traditions carniche, so rich in expressions and proposals, different from valley to valley, were not found in the past who would lay in the coded and written to ensure that generations followed each other, to know them and enjoy them in their originality. It is a heritage handed down in the houses and transmitted orally from mother to daughter and mother-in-law to daughter in law - a chain now increasingly blurred - and I think it was the first carnico Peter Adams in 1985 to publish a cookbook in the kitchen carnica reasoned, running from house to house, interviewing , eating, finding and sifting through old documents, writing, after appropriate comparisons, as he was told.
And if we compare this first volume of Adam, come back now completely revised and greatly enriched library and read carefully "Old and new kitchen of flesh" that Gianni Cosetti published in 1996 editions of the Graphic Arts Friuli, we discover that the base thing or the kitchen is also found in the work of Adams, products he recounted, in the dishes that reported in the documents and traditions that have brought to light. That Cosetti
Gianni, as we tasted and enjoyed at Rome until the '90s, and as we read it in its volume, it is therefore true cooking meat, then the local cuisine, able to express fully the values, history , culture, traditions which have accrued over time. That thing or is natural cooking and not only because it draws on meat products and follows the seasonal pattern, but because it is the raw material of serious cooking, healthy, free of extraneous additives, no chemical inputs, then clean the kitchen, and high certain quality, carried out with common sense and intelligence.
is a kitchen capable of giving real emotions for the intelligent composition and aesthetic beauty of the dishes, for their great balance, the harmony of flavors, clean and precise, for its lightness, for the pleasure it offers, because is a kitchen that reminds you a kitchen that has created so much nostalgia.
If this is the kitchen of the great Gianni Cosetti, and this is really, because the great culinary press, after sitting at his table, after it is excited, he almost forgotten?
Perhaps his, and I doubt this can not melt, is the fate that has befallen the flesh itself, unknown to many, many, even among those who follow the gastronomic events?
Finally, to understand its message, it is worth a look, though fleeting, the volume left to us by Gianni Cosetti. In it he divides the recipes reported in three categories: the "typical original", the "typical renovated" and "recipes of Rome." And if we take those
Cosetti defines "typical original, follow the signs to achieve them with elegance, so that even the old flat with him carnico becomes an expression of haute cuisine.
And now here's a lesson fully present, not be neglected, seems to say, the tradition that is, to quote David Paolini, a "gastronomical" of great cultural value, able to overcome the changing times and fashions, a heritage that ennobles and a kitchen where the chef and restaurateur intelligent can not be separated, wherever they operate. Although, as Cosetti teaches the traditional dish is prepared with great care, how to make a great creative dish. It is not exactly like Nadia Santini at Canneto sull'Oglio?
Another lesson thing or the recipes can be found in "typical renovated. In these commodities are the traditional ones, the ones who used their grandmothers and great grandmothers carniche, then the products of the territory, only that the implementation of the dish is done with new criteria carefully studied in order to get dishes made better, more in line with the nutritional requirements of the new times. Again Cosetti taught to draw on tradition, but not fossilize in it. The professionalism and the culture of the cook should always be able to make those adjustments and improvements required by the nutritional and aesthetic needs that are changing over the years.
Finally, a few words on "recipes of Rome," his recipes.
Cosetti The course indicated by its volume, the same is repeated by the great chef has to cook the food from the territory, possession, know the products and their features, you know the link had been created during the time between meals and events, including meals and festivities, including meals and seasonal dishes from land and civilization. Once you know all this, after that who knows the products, the cooking and dishes, and who know how to create a professional, you can graduate to the second level, which is to update those dishes, looking first of all products only serious and quality, and then resort to cooking the most suitable, even to those, of course, that the tradition of the house did not know and maybe still do not know, and then prepare dishes able to immediately attract the attention of the diner.
Finally, after years of hard work, Gianni Cosetti teaches us, you can go to the third level, that of dishes that express the creativity of the cook mature, which must be of high quality from every angle.
If all of us and those who have not been able to know Gianni Cosetti and the cuisine of Rome, we study carefully the contents of the volume that has left us, which is his testament Gourmet, we understand how current her teaching and what would do well our institutions and our hotel schools and those who already work with them in the kitchen and not only in the flesh, not only in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, to listen and ponder its message, which was and remains a great and meaningful relevance.
