Masterchef in Cagliari, restaurateur Francesco Rizzo: "A wasted opportunity."
«Sardinia and its flavours deserved a detailed and in-depth story»Per restare aggiornato entra nel nostro canale Whatsapp
A missed opportunity. Francesco Rizzo, a Cagliari native and owner of Cascina Ovi, a restaurant in Segrate, doesn't mince his words when commenting on the MasterChef episode set in Cagliari: "I was curious, even happy, to see one of Italy's most popular cooking shows set in my hometown. That's precisely why I was so disappointed."
According to Rizzo, the episode missed the main goal that had made many of the format's outdoor runs memorable in the past: "Even in areas with lesser gastronomic credentials, MasterChef has often managed to create 'great cinema', showcasing even simple products (a cheese, a tuber, a raw material) while explaining their use, meaning, and history. I didn't see all of this in Cagliari ."
The main regret concerns the lack of a true narrative of Sardinian cuisine: "I didn't hear the origins of a raw material, the history of a dish, the reason for a tradition explained . Many excellent products were showcased, but not a single one was given the recognition it deserved and could have deserved ."
A passage Rizzo calls "emblematic" is the one dedicated to filindeu, often called the rarest pasta shape in the world: " They've given visibility to this masterpiece of Sardinian culinary art, but without explaining what filindeu are, why they're so precious, or the fact that the women who still know how to make them can be counted on one hand. Bruno Barbieri tried kneading them and then dismissed the result (decidedly far from tradition) with a 'they're not that bad.' I wonder what would have happened if the same scene had involved tortellini or another pasta symbolizing one of our Italian regions."
"Filindeu," Rizzo continues, "are an absolute rarity, a cultural as well as gastronomic treasure. The public couldn't understand what they are, what value they have, or how to eat them. Nothing remained in the eyes of the spectators. " "As for the dishes prepared by the aspiring chefs... let's forget about them. More than a celebration of Sardinia, it seemed like a kind of picnic to me."
"Once again," concludes the owner of Cascina Ovi, "Sardinia hasn't been portrayed for what it truly is: a profound, complex, and cultured culinary civilization. MasterChef had an extraordinary opportunity. They squandered it."
(Unioneonline)