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2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:20
When the theme is the mountain cuisine you come across these two bulwarks of thought alternately (or in the worst case, simultaneously):
1) The mountain air makes you hungry;
2) Stew / goulash and polenta, what a delight! (some also associate a sigh of nostalgia towards the holiday of memory).
If you, like me, are tired of banality and are curious to go beyond the timeless but stationary goodness of dumplings and strudels, a tour in Val di Fassa, one of the most harmonious valleys in the province of Trento, is for you.
Prepare your hiking shoes, massage your calves and fill the water bottle. We'll take care of lunch (not packed, though).
Let's start with the basics (not only in a metaphorical sense): herbs, flowers and berries.
We have read with admiration but to the point of exhaustion of the chefs in galoshes who practice foraging in the midst of mosses, branches and forests (do we name that name so we forget about it? René Redzepi - Noma restaurant - Copenhagen, that's it).
Well, here foraging is less haughtily called "gathering herbs and flowers in the woods", an activity that has been practiced for decades. Few ceremonies, good knowledge of the varieties, organoleptic and nutritional properties included, the desire to remove them from the botanical books to make them appreciate inside the dishes.
In this way, you have to believe it, memorable and surprising dishes were born cooked by a compact and close-knit group of chefs from the valley.
Forget the ridiculous tuft of hay that garnishes the dish: we're talking about rowan risotto, lemon grass broth, mountain cheeses, plantain and elderberry, chamomile, hay and thyme ice cream.
And the rest of the forest? We have not forgotten mushrooms and plants, here in fact mushroom broths come out of steaming coffee pots or risotto with larch broth.
I hear you, you are showing the first signs of intolerance towards herbs, wondering when you get to the point.
Don't worry, I'll answer immediately with fresh pasta, game and freshwater fish.
To be precise: ravioli al buon Enrico (wild spinach), potato gnocchi so elegant as to undermine the most free-range canederli, roasted venison fillets, very soft venison saddles, char marinated in apple vinegar, whitefish with mandarin mayonnaise and trout.
We immediately explain the two reasons why we have chosen a couple of all the chefs in the valley (do not be offended by the others).
1) They are messengers of the forest, they accompany the luckiest customers among the paths hidden by the trees, explaining the properties of herbs and flowers; they explain how a dish is built by proceeding by continuous arrangements that do not forget the lessons of home cooking from where it all started.
2) They have the Michelin star, in both cases deserved.
PAOLO DONEI - MALGA PANNA, MOENA
The first name is Paolo Donei, 42, chef of the Malga Panna restaurant in Moena. Star conquered at the age of 19, even disarming humility, deep love for the old family home transformed into a refined restaurant (a hut in the middle of the woods of which he says "when I open the window in the morning I really enjoy").
The rowan rice is hers, the elderberry and plum tortelli with chamomile ice cream are hers. Finally, his maturity of those who proceed calmly but stop only at the summit, like an expert climber.
Haute cuisine in the place that has the right name of the hut with an expense between 48 and 100 euros.
STEFANO GHETTA - THE CHIMPL FROM TAMION, TAMION
The second chef is Stefano Ghetta, 41, in the kitchen at "L Chimpl da Tamion" (restaurant of the Hotel Gran Mugon in Tamion, a hamlet of Vigo: if you can pronounce the name correctly, you win a tasting menu, I am dislocated the tongue in the attempt).
The Michelin guide defines him as a “very talented” chef, capable of illuminating himself by talking about trout and roe deer. In addition to a prodigious saddle of venison with silene and red cabbage compote, he signs a dessert like the “Walk for Tamion” that you wouldn't eat even though it is beautiful.
To experience his creative cuisine, you spend between 37 and 44 euros.
If two names aren't enough and you want to know who the others are, reach Val di Fassa soon.
You have the summer months to taste the mountain in its least banal form. Thanks above all to an appointment called “Fassa off the menu”, with 10 chefs from the valley to follow among Ladin snacks, gourmet trekking with cuisine in the middle of the meadows and more comfortable lunches in their restaurants.
If you can taste everything, you will like it and together you will discover a desire to tell the mountain through dishes very far from the cliché of the mountaineer who is not inclined to sociability, eternally grappling with a lucky gastronomy but which seems to go no further than speck, black bread with seeds fennel and fried egg.
And excuse the banality but when you taste, close your eyes and inhale deeply. What you feel is exactly the flavor of the forest. Without the hassle of pine needles in your teeth.