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Cooking lessons in Siena, a meeting with the chef

Posted on 07. Dec, 2010 by admin in Archive, Food & Wine

If you want to really know Siena you have to taste the local specialties, but how to find the right suggests and even learn to cook some local dishes?

We asked to a very expert chef, Stefano Azzi, who is subscribed to FNPC (Federazione Nazionale Personal Chef), received a lot of awards and he went many times abroad to export the Senese knowings and flavors. Mr. Azzi organizes cooking lessons, is a personal chef that offers “chef at home” services and professional advices for restaurants and agritourism.

With this interview we try to discover the secrets of the great Senese cuisine, to satisfy our “cultural” appetite.

When you began and when you understood that cooking was the work of your life?

I think that the passion for cooking would be born when I was a teenager: I looked enchanted my mother and my grandmother doing pasta for “tortelli maremmani” with ricotta cheese and chard, the main course of the most important holidays, or noodles that they cooked only on sunday, with a delicious ragout.

They boiled the ragout for an entire day, you know! This passion led me to cooking for friends at parties, then inside a kitchen restaurant. The very important moment was when, twenty years ago, I met Gaetano Trovato of Arnolfo Restaurant of Colle Val d’Elsa, one of the greatest chefs in Italy, and I understood that the “kitchen” would be my second home, or maybe the first!

Which are the attributes of Tuscan and Senese cuisine, in your opinion?

In Tuscany we are lucky because we have a very rich grocery basket, one of the most important in Italy, but the secret is the easiness of this kind of cuisine, combined with the authenticity of the ingredients.

The Tuscan cuisine, and Senese in particular, has a centenary tradition, often the recipes was found as handwritten in churches, or passed on from mother to daughter, generation by generation. The lunch is always been an important convivial moment in a family: is a tradition made by potatoes, bread and vegetables, but also a cuisine with a lot of spices, that reminds to the noble banquets of the medieval Siena.

At that time, our city, situated on Francigena road, became a strategic commercial place thanks to the spices that came from Middle East, and that now are part of Senese tradition.

What are your suggests for a tourist that is never been to Siena yet, which delicacies are a must?

First, a selection of salumi (cold cuts) of Senese cinta, our sheep milk cheese and ricotta from Pienza or Asciano, matched with biologic honey, the pici (a kind of pasta) with wild boar meat “alla cacciatora”, pasta as “tortelli” or “pappardella”, the “bruschetta” with olive oil, for example the DOP Terre di Siena or the DOP Chianti Classico, the Zafferano of San Gimignano DOP, our soups of vegetables, the sweets bought in a baker’s shop.

About wine, we have a lot of choices for the red wine, instead for white wine we haven’t a great tradition, because of the geographical characteristics of the area. I suggest wines from Montalcino, Montepulciano, San Gimignano or Chianti area.

During your cooking lessons which are the most frequent requests by your clients? Did you meet someone really clever as a chef?

My cooking lessons are dedicated to a traditional menu, from appetizers to sweets, so the client can cook a menu with some tricks of the trade. About appetizers I prepare a presentation, to change a simply “bruschetta” in a extraordinary dish. My aim is to pass on my client some tricks to make a good impression with his guests. But that is really interesting for the clients of cooking lessons is the techniques for fresh pasta. Is the most funny phase because all together we start to work with the “matterello”.

Usually, who subscribes to a cooking lesson is a person that loves to cook, often I met American, English, German and Dutch people: with them is established a friendly relationship, maybe because who are looking for a cooking lesson wants to enjoy himself. Some pupils had a natural aptitude for cooking, I would hire them to work with me!

Tell us about your passion for drawing and comics. In which way is related to food?

The first gift I’ve had from my mother is the talent for drawing. Since I was a child, at school, everyone realized it. Then I started to draw comics, maybe with a cartoon I play down all the adversities of life?

The legacy between the creation of a dish and a draw is simple: both are artistic expressions, and art is synonymous of love.

Confide us a place in Siena that moves you, a surprise for the curious traveller.

The Abbey of Monte Oliveto, or San Galgano, or look above you walking through the streets of Siena…or a walk in a “white road” in Chianti. We live in a cradle of an endless beauty.

For info about the personal chef Stefano Azzi, visit his website: http://www.stefanoazzi.it/

Tags: gastronomia siena, mangiare siena