Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Letter from those who left the Maremma.


The kitchen is also this ... a hectic journey without time to stop and write something more reasoned about the experiences you go through. 

I am a Tuscan man who loves the scent of the earth and who, thanks to the excuse of cooking, has the opportunity to get to know and speak with many people. I take the cue to bring back a "private letter" between a chef and one hotel director that after many years to recite the poetry of the Maremma now lives among the seas of the south to do what he did here with less stress definitely and more desire to experiment.

This made me ask who is doing the right thing ... or at least .. I would like to be in this story?
 Hello S.

What I choose out of Italy was to live a life with greater quality and greater hope. As you may have guessed, I'm not a simple person. Although I have a great love like you for the Maremma, I must admit that at the same time it is a quagmire that comes out of it if you do not have a large shell. My luck or misfortune perhaps is that of having lived many years out of here, then as an emigrant or I'm trained to adapt to different environments and mental exercise that there is always "the solution" when the obstacles you advance, you simply have to generate it, without looking for excuses.We say that it is not enough to chase your passions you have to do something more, and then not to die inside you have to put everything into question and dig where you have not dug late, about putting everything into question, especially when you've been doing something for everyone thinking of everyone's happiness, enjoy this without asking for anything in return, because just the act of supporting people has represented my currency, a more 'probable career in prestigious marketing companies set aside when I chose to live here and not in some city' to mimic a cool life.
Ironic part: in the Maremma the word Marketing was used to indicate a good person to sell in advanced shops ...... Public Relations made them in the disco, and the Events were Weddings ... too funny!
I told myself ok, let's try to survive with the Press Offices; unhealthy idea when you made yourself aware that they were asking you where you had the typography. In short, this is the probable professional situation that loomed me, friends as always when you need a word and a council are dissolved facilitating the natural selection, so what to do to stay in Maremma or leave? I look at my parents here on the sea before the war and do not give up. Like all people born and experienced at the sea have that dreamy look always ready to wait for a sea breeze that blows on your face and to narrow your eyes widening a smile. Ok I stay. While I dig a fellow restaurateur light years away from my living environment invites me to get a coffee 'to have a chat. He knew me and studied me for some time, he had taken accurate information, he was interested in two things about me: honesty and the ability to manage people. In short, he tells me he wants to start a restaurant by the sea, but having another restaurant that commits him in the evening, he needs a person who can help him organize it. I think ... I accept immediately! He had been pragmatic, sincere, and had come to the bone of things in a moment. One thing that never worried me was working. I never get tired, my heart brachicardico allows me not to experience fatigue and when others start to gasp I too pretend to be tired or to share the effort with the staff.
A beautiful experience that lasted years where functions, relationships, sudden substitutions, births and deaths and reborns and remnants have intertwined. No time for you and for those passions that are not work ............... I finally managed to get out of the idea of ​​living and dying in a restaurant or hotel to be a manager. Even the industry has put his own to get me away from this unbalanced role on the ephemeral and just on the obsession to be mentioned / a, remembered / at all costs, to pack only to feel less alone and emerge in very sad conventions where everyone has an unforgettable yellow smile. Purpose is to surprise, to have the coolest idea regardless if it is stolen from someone, to show efficiency, organization and quality, where in human society human dramas are often consumed, among pressing mobbing, whose only outcome is to show young people an environment that should spur joy and adrenaline as the maximum place of suffering. A place to create enthusiasm and share knowledge, to get excited about the area where you work and its stories is now a utopia, is part of the fantabosco of a few. ......... ........ In the end it happened and at the first opportunity 'I risked and I've been here for some time now and it does not seem true to me, I was destroying myself and a bit sick for what we do not know. But how are you? I see you work and you do many beautiful things. I would like to involve you, here where I am everything is very basic, but true. Let's hear each other over the phone, here you are born. A hug. G. "

After reading this letter of G. I read the answer of S., full of yes, but perhaps 'I would .... it is not' automatic that a person chooses to leave the Maremma, but believe me that G. hit me in the heart .
How long is it that I do not think about myself? Why do I spend more time chasing after useless things and that the creation and or enjoyment time is 0,1 % ?
What I am and what I know of taste and of my sensory memories and of gastronomic technique is all within me, does not occupy physical space, and my intangible heritage that I can not quote on the stock exchange or sell to the kilo ..... ... but I can carry it inside my heart where I want.
There are too many things I do not like at this moment in the kitchen; the emphasis at all costs of the crystallized moments of the act of producing an imaginary taste is boring me. Let's interrupt this routine as soon as possible, otherwise what will remain of gastronomy and the relationship between food and community will be equal to nothing.
Unfortunately, the boy from the seventies wins in me, winning Hemingway, Keruac, London, etc .... I am aware that we are living a completely different era, but I can not shake off the taste of the earth and the challenge.

I have not yet decided whether I will be a good fight.


See you soon!

No comments:

Post a Comment