Vissani turns 70: “My kitchen? A love story between tradition and innovation “

“For heaven’s sake, don’t wish me well in advance”. Gianfranco Vissani will turn 70 next November 22nd and, speaking with Adnkronos, he shows his superstitious side together with the humble one: an aspect of his character, the latter, to which we are certainly used to thinking of the volcanic and often irreverent chef of Baschi. “70 years of life and activity that I have carried on with joy and pain, like any love story”, says the owner of Casa Vissani, who does not hide a melancholy streak thinking about the company created in the 60s by his parents, “Carried out stone after stone, with great sacrifices, by my father and mother and later by me”. “I accepted the challenge of staying here – he reveals – in this small town in Umbria from which everyone escaped after Enel built the artificial lake of Corbara. But I could have gone to America, where there was unbridled luxury, where a thousand clubs open a day and – it’s true – two thousand close, but I’m sure I would have been successful there. But then I decided to stay in the family business and not abandon it, to cultivate the tradition, just like a farmer. My job – he adds – was to innovate regional cuisine “. Among the dishes he has revisited over the course of his long career, Vissani fondly remembers some of them linked to his childhood, such as “the pizza cooked under the ashes with broccoli and sausage, really unattainable, the omelette with onions he used to prepare for me my mom, the fried rabbit and finally, a must on Sundays, the beef steak that my father cooked on the grill … and then the pasta that my grandmother brought for dessert and that as a child I waited with trepidation “. Covid and catering, “Today the government would need a decision-maker like Craxi” Memories that are part of other times, and perhaps of another world, for Vissani, a critic instead of today’s catering: “Instead of cooking, chefs aspire to go to television, where you earn and have no expenses. But cooking is one thing and spectacle is another; when I was doing Uno Mattina – he points out immediately, breaking free from a possible and easy objection – I gave advice and recipes, I corrected the errors of viewers in the kitchen, I carried on and spread the culinary culture, I didn’t do a show. Instead, today we are surrounded everywhere by people who pride themselves on knowing and who snub you, and by radical chic who know nothing “. “The plant, my father used to say, bends when it is small – continues Vissani talking about young cooks – otherwise afterwards it is too late. Today agriculture suffers, there is no staff. They all want to be managers and chefs immediately, they don’t want to do sacrifices, they consider themselves ‘slaves’, while above all at the beginning it takes humility, as well as a great sensitivity. Even the black jacket they now wear in the kitchen is the sign of the times: they feel more fashionable, already arrived, while instead they should dress in white to see if they are dirty with sauce. Again – he insists – young people should understand that the starting point is always linked to tradition, not to dishes that are made with siphons and nitrogen. While the chefs, I would like them to give me the gift for my birthday not to be jealous of their recipes: secrets are useless and it is right that professionals pass on what they know to children. “Finally, he talks about the” leap into the ravine “, in detail of catering, which he would never have imagined after so many years of work: “Who would have expected something like Covid two years ago? Then, as soon as he arrived, I immediately realized that this was not a joke and I said that it would take at least five years to get out of it. The green pass, the no vaxes and those who for a thousand reasons do not get vaccinated, the battles for reopening: we have faced everything, but the fear of closing at Christmas remains, and there are those who gave their lives to reopen. Today – he concludes – the government would need a politician like Craxi, a decision-maker who was really the tip of the balance and who made the difference ”. by Cristiano Camera