In Milan, fund raising for inclusion becomes auteur
Thanks to the reunion of Alain Ducasse and Massimo Bottura
In Milan, fund raising for inclusion becomes auteur
Thanks to the reunion of Alain Ducasse and Massimo Bottura
Food for Soul is a non-profit association founded in 2016 in Modena with the aim of combatting food waste in the interests of social inclusion. As founders Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore explain, "In a world where one third of the food produced is wasted and more than 800 million people suffer from malnutrition, we think of food waste and uncertainty as two sides of the same coin. Food for Soul wants to encourage public, private and non-profit organizations to create and support community canteens all over the world and involve professionals from different
sectors, including chefs, artists, designers and food distributors, in order to promote an alternative approach to the construction of community projects".
Last December 11th the association organized an evening with Alain Ducasse and Massimo Bottura to collect funds in the splendid halls of Identità Golose Milano, the new international food showroom founded in Milan by Paolo Marchi and Claudio Ceroni. Milan was immediately sensitive to the good cause, as thanks to this initiative
Bottura was awarded a few days later by the Mayor Beppe Sala with the highest honour of the city, the Ambrogino d'Oro. The evening was also attended by the President Enrico Berto, to confirm once again the presence of Berto's at major national and international events in the world of haute cuisine, whether they are gastronomic, promotional, popular, cultural or, as in this case, charitable. The Milanese evening, as well as for the noble purpose of the initiative, will remain in the casket of happy memories for the historical reunion of the two chefs, a partnership and a friendship that have lasted for over 25 years, since when Massimo Bottura, today a chef of international stature, learned the secrets of the masters at the famous Louis XV in Monte Carlo of the great Alain Ducasse. “Seeing them working together around the professional Berto's La Cucina kitchen in the Identità Golose Milano restaurant was an emotional moment - says CEO Enrico Berto - and we were struck, in the complementarity of characters and styles, by the natural leadership of the two great orchestra directors. Their spontaneous ability to manage the staff in the kitchen, sometimes with a simple look or facial expression, was the translation of the charisma and talent of those who know perfectly every detail of the score but can also transmit passion, momentum and motivation.
The kitchen, just like symphonic music, is team work and aims at harmony, and it was amazing to see how Bottura and Ducasse directed the taste musicians with lightness and relaxation without ever having known them before, the tinkle of the courses acting as a metronome. Each with his unmistakable style, Bottura hyper-dynamic and very communicative, Ducasse concentrated and hieratic, but both in perfect mastery of every gesture of the gastronomic orchestra set up in the mystic gulf around the Berto's kitchen in Milan. In the end the success decreed by the participants of the prestigious duo and the musicians who translated their intuitions was inevitable, and we imagine that the requests for encores were numerous.”
