Alberto Folin takes us on a thrilling trip between food, literature and poetry. From the Boccaccio’s Decameron, often set in places that are dense of soots and leaden of smells, and where sensual scenes dominate, we arrive to discover allegoric food on the rich and poor tables in the romance “Promessi sposi”.
And, then, we arrive in Naples, at the Giacomo Leopardi’s table, in the kitchen of Villa delle Ginestre, where the chef of Casa Ranieri, Mr Pasquale Ignarra, satisfied the voluptuous appetites of the poet with fired food, livers, gnocchi and bigné.
The itinerary traced by Alberto Folin continues with him telling us about his own heart places and food – Venice, Naples, Greece; livers, creamed stockfish, sarda, tripe – and it finishes with a beautiful definition of Mediterranean and the Mediterranean diet, inspired to classic mythology: «The Mediterranean is impulse of life […] it is wine and transparent water. It is abyss and relation».
Interview by: Helga SanitàVideo and editing by: Davide Mancini
Subtitles by: Maria Fuciniello
Document by: Helga Sanità
Translation by: Marzia Mauriello and Maria Fuciniello
MedEatResarch – Center of Social Research on the Mediterranean Diet of the University of Naples Suor Orsola Benincasa, head by Marino Niola and Elisabetta Moro
Realized: 28-03-2013