Patrick Ricci (to the right in the photo) of Pomodoro & Basilico in San Mauro Torinese is an independent character, a passionate pizza-chef, a mind free of preconceptions.

A loose cannon at the service of leavened products, his great love, together with natural products, «we start from Mother Earth, from grains they way they were bestowed onto us and then were modified by man: cultures have improved, we have had many benefits and a few negative aspects. I love working with grains and making good and digestible dough».

He speaks about grains, plural, because his research is also focused on grains that do not come from “banal” wheat.

Spelt, for instance, or rye. He doesn’t mix them. His 100% rye dough (if you want to taste it, you need to book it in advance) is a blast.

To make it, Ricci had to work hard: «It was a challenge. It is low in gluten and elastic fibres, it was almost impossible to work».

He made it in the end: «I studied how the people from the North would do, they are the traditional masters in the art of bread making, we are just pupils and not very talented ones either. This is how I discovered bizzo, a sort of pizza (it appears this very familiar name comes from that) that the German people would season like us, that is to say with what they had at hand. They used various kinds of flour: made with spelt but rye too».

The result was a very interesting dough, not suitable to be matched with sauces or mozzarella, but perfect with braised meat, stews, cheese creams, vegetables: «Having found the way to use rye means being able to approach all sorts of grains now», indeed Ricci now enjoys making bread even with very ancient grains.

Carlo Passera
source: http://newsletter.identitagolose.it/email.php?id=505

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