Ossigeno

One of the major protagonists of this renovation is undoubtedly Flavio Sacco , a marine biologist who combined his experience as a university researcher specialized in sustainable management and preservation of natural resources in the Maldivian archipelago and as a FAO consultant for the Mediterranean, pursuing the will of recovering the taste of fermented foods that he used to eat as a child, prepared by his grandmother or known during his childhood in the East. Moved by the aiming point of creating growth models based on biodiversity , on permaculture , on the demolition of the intermediary phase of shipments and on the return to a direct trade between producers and consumers - following the thread of sustainability , social ethics and re- duction of waste - Sacco has directed his skills towards the multiple application methods that fermentation can have in cuisine, expanding the range of traditional aromas and flavours in the direction of experimenting new frontiers for the palate. A return to the origins, with the approval of progress and modernity. Welcoming into his world with a bevy of jars, pots, tools and containers of various shapes, test tubes, powders, sachets, bottles and vials with a colourful content - illustrating them with the same feverish exultation that one experiences when facing a great discovery [in the manner of Lisa Simpson when she created Lutherans , during an experiment for the science class 12 ] - in his courses Sacco divulges suggestions on fermentation with contagious enthusiasm, investing the five senses through synaesthetic multiplicity. Without losing sight of the importance of keeping the tradition alive, but merging it with inno- vation, on the one hand he recovers forgotten recipes - such as the giardiniera , born fermented and not pickled as we have been accustomed to conceive it over the last decades - and on the other hand, with the wave of the recent spread of oriental fermented foods, he declines these preparations in a territorial key by means of the local products. Thus he prepares miso with cashews and almonds, to experiment with new gustatory and olfactory characteristics, keeping himself away from the soy monoculture. Germinated and fermented cereals’ peculiar flavour, often radically different from the original one, or that of fermented, dried and powdered vege- tables, reflects how their use can be profitable, in terms of use of resources, and versatile in terms of gastronomy. Even for him, ça va sans dire , innumerable vases blew up during the refinement phase, but the beauty of the experiment lies even in that eventual, unexpected, explosion. Thanks to science, we are more aware of how fermentation can play a key role in nutrition, testifying once more the indispensable value that chemistry can perform on human evolution. In the name of Pasteur. 85 i n f e r m e n t 7 Robert W. Hutkins, Microbiology and technology of fermented foods , ed. Blackwell Publishing , 2006 8 Colman Andrews, Reinventing Food - Ferran Adrià, the man who changed the way we eat , ed. Phaidon Press Limited, 2010 9 ' Maillard reaction ', responsible for the formation of the typical flavours and smells of cooked food, is defined as a complex series of phenomena that occurs following the interaction between sugars and proteins during cooking. The compounds formed by these transformations are brown and with the characteristic smell of freshly baked bread crust. The Maillard reaction takes place at temperatures over 140°C, but below 180°C. If the correct temperature is not reached, the external part will become dehydrated and the food will harden, it will not darken and its taste will be weak; on the contrary, if it exceeds, the preparation will burn out exhaling toxic components. The reaction owes its name to Louis Camille Maillard [1878-1936], the French chemist who studied it for the first time. 10 see Marco Passarello, Nei laboratori di Marco Gobbetti, il più citato microbiologo alimentare [tr. In the laboratories of Marco Gobbetti, the most cited food microbiologist ], Rai News - TGR BZ, 24/01/2019 11 see www.progettomicrobiomaitaliano.org 12 «Oh my God! They're evolving so fast, they've already reached the Renaissance. Wait, one of them is nailing something to the door of the cathedral… I've created Lutherans!» [The Simpsons, season 8 episode 1: Treehouse of horror VII , 1996]