The great wealth of poor food

You can see a real chef from the ingredients he chooses to exalt with the creativity of his recipe.

And if the chef works in a land where cooking already has a strong tradition, the difference will be made by the dish in which a handful of humble ingredients, wisely combined, give the richest of flavours.

This is the case of chef Mattia Borroni who, in defiance of the refined setting of the “Alexander” restaurant (formerly a Franciscan convent, then a cinema and now the Borgo San Rocco lounge), has chosen as the main ingredient of his dish, saraghina (also known as “papalina”), a variety of small blue fish, together with mackerel, sardines, anchovies and tiny fish (acquadelle), that are common to the waters of the Ravenna coast, on the tables of taverns and restaurants, as well as in kiosks in the street, in combination with piadina.

A poor food already at the time of the Etruscans, the piadina has become over time “The bread, indeed the national food of the Romagnoli”, as Giovanni Pascoli wrote.

When the piadina is not flavoured with saraghina, it will almost certainly be filled with squacquerone, one of the best known fresh cheeses that goes perfectly with both the savoury Parma ham and the sweetest caramelised figs.

Brother of squacquerone, another cheese that Romagna can boast of, although less commonly used due to its spicy and strong flavour, is Formaggio di Fossa, which was once, however, a privileged filling of cappelletti in broth.

Cheese, bread and wild herbs are the perfect triptych of poor ingredients.

It is no coincidence that Chef Borroni seasoned his recipe of grilled saraghina with portulaca, a weed rich in omega three, and enriched it with a teaspoon of black garlic pasta (garlic produced in the nearby Ferrara province of Voghiera but fermented by a start up in Ravenna).

Like him, chef Gaetano Latino promotes the use of humble ingredients and, in the cuttlefish sauce with strozzapreti, he adds fried stridoli (or strigoli), shoots with broad succulent leaves, excellent in meat sauce, stew and with sausages and meatballs.

Herbs that lend themselves to creating salads, to stuffing omelettes, meat sauce or in the filling of fresh pasta and piadina, are scarpigno (in dialect scarpègn) and tarassaco (sufiòn or pesalèt), with diuretic and purifying properties.

Since 1997, the scalogno shallot, eaten raw in vinegar or, alternatively, as a condiment for pasta, has been awarded the European PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) recognition.

The “king” of the Ravenna pinewoods, historically harvested by the so-called “pinaroli”, who were looking for wild products of the pinewood to sustain themselves, is the wild asparagus or asparagine (in dialect sparaz, sparz, sparazena), a green with a rustic but gentle taste, today cultivated in greenhouses and fields.

Among the fruits of the countryside, there are also the strawberry tree, carnelian (cornel berry), jujube (red date), loquat, sorb, hawberry and the numerous varieties of pears and apples, such as the volpina pear and quince, as well as the Albana white grape, a “white berry” vine (from “albus”), whose origin dates back to Roman times, and which since 1987 has been designated DOGC. The passito di Albana, a raisin wine, loves the company of another simple and straightforward traditional product, the Romagna doughnut.

Among the hundred Italian products to be protected, the Slow Food association has at last chosen “Romagna breed” pork, from swine which live in a semi-wild state and from whose meat, best eaten fresh, cacciatorini, a salami flavoured with Romagna shallots, and ham are made.