Page 81 - PROTAGONIST 114

it is incredible how in spring, invariably and methodically, the grains of rice
076-081_Alajmo Smontato_114_eng.indd
react differently. Perhaps because the matrix of the seed keeps it alive:
every ingredient has its soul, which pulsates at the rhythm of the natu-
ral cycles.” Variations have occurred every time the menu changed,
with several milestone recipes. “Saffron risotto with liquorice pow-
der, for instance, was created as a taste relay: one ingredient
enters bitter and comes out sweet, the other manifests in
the opposite direction, so as to produce sensory extension.
And then, they are the extremities of the plant, the pis-
til and the root: a concept of light, strength, sunniness,
and energy. We revised it later by adding incense and
juniper, which transform the relay race into a mini
marathon. Almost a request to slow down, so that
it is possible to concentrate on the sensations and
allow them effortlessly to penetrate deep down.”
The current version with beetroot sorbet and eel
gremolada is a cold sun, to the eye and on the
palate. Much more than a chaud-froid.
“Our cuisine tends to have Mediterranean fla-
vours, but adding heat to heat would not be
pleasing. Cold can also help us to create an en-
try ladder with the fragrances, like a cocktail on
the rocks, allowing you to work separately on
the gustatory and olfactory senses, which chan-
nel the emotions. As in music, contrast can cre-
ate a break, emphasizing even more the sen-
sation of warmth or a comforting flavour.” Saf-
fron, too, is actually a Mediterranean flavour.
It comes from Italy, in this case highlighting its
smoky finale in synergy with the other ingredi-
ents. The smoked eel first of all, in a gremolada
version without lemon but with parsley that re-
calls Venetian cuisine, and with the marrowbone,
the chewing of which calls for attention, as it cre-
ates a second creaming in the mouth. And then the
raw beetroot sorbet, convened to quench the fiery
gustatory intensity, which exudes a fragrance of dam-
ask rose, but also smoky hints. In the gustatory and, at
the same time, symbolic machinery, you can detect the
ticking references and recurring themes of Alajmo’s cui-
sine, such as the intense beef and chicken broth, a French
throwback, and the evocation of lactic sensations in absentia,
through creaming using a base of Parmesan cheese, smoked wa-
ter, oil and soybean mayonnaise that replaces butter and removes
its dampening effect. It joins in with an enchanting reductio ad un-
um of the ingredients: elsewhere, dried fruit or even fish scales are meta-
morphosed into milk and its derivatives, the amniotic den of ancestral taste.
from sensitive towards spirit; with the flavour ever to the fore, in the manner of the literal
sense, which for Dante “must go onward, like he in whom judgements of others
are enclosed, and without which it would be impossible and irrational to relate to others”.
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