The Cookbook Project

Bread is Gold: Extraordinary Meals with Ordinary Ingredients

When a Cookbook calls you to contemplate more than just the food..........

Lets see what happens, 400 pages and approximately 170 recipes to discover

Somewhere along the way I have been contemplating the idea to find a cook-book that I would go on to actually cook every recipe in the publication.  The theory being that I learn some new skills in the kitchen, perhaps find some fresh recipes I can rotate on the family menu, perhaps take myself into new territory in the land of cookery and food.  I have been thinking about this for about a year now.

In the middle of creating the podcast ‘A Writer in Italy’ and refining what I wanted to get out sharing and talking about Italy I was on a merry mission to cook more and possibly share my Italian inspired meals.  I enjoy cooking and listening to podcasts when moving around the house, gardening or whatever.  And with a family of five at this stage the food thing predominates in our house.  

A while ago I came across a lovely interview with Stephanie Alexander the Australian Cookbook author.  I sought out some of her books as I only have one on Tuscan Cooking she created with Maggie Beer. I love a cookbook that not only manages to inspire you to cook but shares stories and antidotes about the persons life and travels.

For a while her book, The Cooks Table: 130 Recipes to Share with Family and Friends was the book I was leaning towards as a happy little side project.  I loved that she has traveled extensively and reminisces about the food she shared with friends in Italy, Peru, France etc and the Cooks she admires is a really nice touch, and I figured the French recipes would test my fortitude indeed.

I had a strong pull for the The Cooks Table, of course with years of kitchen gardens and inspiring kids to grow their own vegetables in school plots Stephanie Alexander has raised much awareness and change in Australian attitudes to eating seasonally and locally in Australia.  And her books are dearly loved and coveted around the world.  I have enjoyed her stories of Elizabeth David and Sybille Bedford and her forays into the south of France and Paris.  So certainly I felt a connection to this book and I adore the menu planners she includes, just brilliant.

The only thing that was not sitting well was the fact that it is predominantly a large mixed bag of cultures rather than focusing on the one that I have been mulling over the past six months, Italy.  Having a predilection to buying cookbooks anyway I kept thinking about the book ‘Bread is Gold’ by Massimo Bottura and his legacy as an Artist of life and Chef. In the end it didn’t really matter, it was an experiment, truth be told I was a little intimated by The Cook’s Table…I just didn’t know if I could really rise to the occasion. Although certainly it would have been interesting to give it a go no less, a grand experiment and such a beautiful book. I spend more time looking at the artwork and beautiful pages rather than cooking from it, which is funny and a testament to the publisher and writer.

I have watched the Netflix documentaries on his evolving relationship to food a number of times and have felt a kinship to his focus on seasonal, local cuisine, his connection to the landscape, the farmers, the people and his conversation about surplus food and food waste as not only an environmental concern but a humanitarian one. 
On a personal note, I have made the decision to be at home a portion of the week so that I can not only grow my own food but to make sure that what ends up in my kids lunch box is not going to be seen the next day lining the school fence after a wind blows through.  The wrappers and plastic have troubled me for many years, (this is my last year of walking children to school after fifteen years so it has been a constant rub)  I  bake and cook most of our food at home and give any waste to our chickens or my neighbours chickens when I can. It is not that there is a wrong or a right here, I just feel better by not adding to the problem.

A Cookbook that donates all its Royalties to www.foodforsoul.it

‘Bread is Gold’ is a book about training yourself to not only limit your food waste but to utilise it in new ways.  Massimo Bottura is known for many things..... His restaurants, his art, his passion and most importantly his can do attitude to life.  Sure his restaurant Osteria Francescana has the No.1 Restaurant in the world accolade and there are a few of his fine establishments splashed around in cool places like LA and Dubai, but underneath all of the Rock Star status is someone who cares not only deeply about food and its origins but someone who cares about the people and the emotion surrounding food and the culture.

One of my first recipes to try Banana Peel Chutney, one great way to use up the banana peels, a legendary recipe from the team at Gastromotiva. From Brazil with Love….Gastromotiva shares their belief in “Social Gastronomy” See Page 154 for the backstory…

Although I have jumped ahead a little for there is more to this story that I have been researching.  ‘Food For Soul’ is a not for profit organisation that Bottura and his life and business partner Lara Gilmore founded in recent years.  In 2015 Refettorio Ambrosiano was born: www.foodforsoul.it

An abandoned theatre in Milan became the first place where people from challenging means in society could meet for a meal around the table.  A place where the foods that restaurants and businesses neglected to use that usually ended up in bins and landfill could be delivered and transformed into wonderful meals when many would just go hungry.  Not only was the space available but transformed by Artists and Artisans to create a location that was not only comfortable, modern and warm, but spiritually uplifting for the community the for the people who would donate their time to cook and clean and share their talents.

There are three things at work here that are equally important.  The need to feed the hungry and disenfranchised and the need to minimise the amount of unnecessary waste that our modern world creates.  And last but certainly not least, the community that benefits as a whole from not only the deep nourishment of good food but the connection and value people feel at a social and spiritual level.

‘Bread is Gold’ is a book that brings people together and the recipes and menus from the Chef’s who donated their time and culinary expertise in the kitchen at Refettorio Ambrosiano.  There is a collaboration of recipes and know-how that utilises a mixed bag of ingredients and cultural backgrounds with creativity undoubtedly at its heart. There are approximately 170 recipes and 400 pages to explore.  All profits from book sales are directly donated to the ‘Food For Soul’ Organisation.  Bread is Gold is a fabulous read even if you are not a cook and is published by Phaidon Press London.

Right now it is summer and lucky for us there are lots of fresh beauties like these zucchini blossoms on hand….

Resources:

Netflix:  Theater of Life Documentary, 2015 

Documents Bottura opening the soup Kitchen for the needy using the food waste from the 2015 Milan Expo..........

Netflix:  Chef’s Table......Season 1

If you don't already know Massimo Bottura this is the story behind his rise to No 1 Restaurant in the world. 

Fantastic and an incredible journey to be one of the most influential people in the world. 

Bread is Gold: Massimo Bottura & Friends, Extraordinary Meals with Ordinary Ingredients. 

Buy it at your favourite bookstore or online.........Published by Phaidon

P.S This Chutney is the disrupter of the century, hello possibilities. Richard cannot stop eating it by the mouthful standing in front of the fridge.....laughing to himself that he is eating banana peels that usually end up in a heap for the compost.....