The food (and wine) blog phenomenon has been strongly expanding for some years already in Italy. In fact, new blogs dealing with the Italian food-and-wine conoisseurship in its various aspects come out every day (you can find a properly up-dated list in the blog “Lo Spazio di Staximo”). The bloggers are both professionals in their own field and simple food-and-wine lovers who wish to share their cooking experiences, their own recipes or cooking experiments and would like to receive a feedback from the public. The power of these blogs lies exactly here, in the opportunity to create a comparison that makes it possible to spread the information more quickly. The crucial aspect, as it often happens in the web world, is the large quantity and variety of information that, sometimes, can clash with the quality of the contents.
So how can you cope with the “mare magnum” of the food blogs?
One of the possible replies to this difficult question is: to know the sources directly (and personally)!
This is what we have done, as members of Italyculture, by partecipating in the Maisazi Food Event (with our “correspondent” Alberto), in Milan, on 2nd March 2007.

What was it about?

This event was organized by Francesco and Mariangela, two keen food-bloggers who have created the interesting Maisazi blog, dedicated to the creative cooking, to the wine-and-food products , to the cooking tools. The goal was to summon some food-bloggers in an informal way, for an exchange of both theoretical and practical experiences.
As for the seat of this meeting, there could not have been a better choice than the prestigious Altopalato cooking school, founded and directed by Terry and Toni Sarcina, who placed their big experience at the participants’ disposal.

The theory…

It is exactly Toni Sarcina the person who started the forum by giving some notes about the Italian Renaissance cooking, which all the dishes of the modern cooking come from. In our opinion the interesting fact is that, after a long period of decay, the Italian cooking is living a “new Renaissance” (we hope that our French friends will not be angry with us …) starting from the last postwar period.
Then Francesco de Francesco talked about the importance of the cooking and cutting tools (pots and pans and knives), underlining that “the best tool does not exist, while you can find the most suitable one, according to the use and the operative contest”. By the way, would you like to have more information? So please try to bear in your mind that Francesco is holding an innovative course (corso innovativo) about this subject on 28th April, in Milan!
Mariangela Balsamo went on and raised a discussion about the psychological approach to the food. Different opinions came out, but with a point in common:the importance of giving the right value to the meals, as pleasant and vital moments of the day, above all as a form of respect towards ourselves and our health.
Marco Grossi, who is the blogger of Imbottigliato all’origine, dealt with the food-wine combination by explaining some possible different mixing standards, from the most “scientific” to the more “empiric” ones.
Finally Francesca Valerio, of the Francescav blog, has traced an outline of the “food blog” phenomenon, in particular by deeping the benefits of the spread of the recipes inside the network.

…and the practice

and after talking … they moved into action! Some food bloggers who were present at the meeting measured themselves, with the precious supervision of Terri Sarcina, with some cooking experiments that rejoiced everybody’s taste. Here we want to excite your curiosity simply with the photos of some dishes. As for the recipes, you can refer to every cook’s blog (we render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s…).

Francesca, who belongs to Francescav blog, prepared some little pizzas with shrimps and a savoury plumcake with tomatoes and marrows.

Alessio, of the PescaOk blog, presented the fillet of trout with apples.

Francesco, who belongs to Maisazi, prepared the beech and coriander smoked trout.

Mariangela, who belongs to Maisazi too, delighted everybody’s taste with some crepes with chocolate (nutella) and raspberries.

Franci, who belongs to Cipollina in agrodolce, completed everything with her little tarts with chocolate and raspberries.

Could we do without wine? Thank you to Marco, too, of Imbottigliato all’origine, for having offered some really remarkable Trentino white wines.

Thank you everybody!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 2:18 pm and is filed under italian cooking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.