With your hands in the dough: millers and bakers who look to the future

This article is published in number 4 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until January 26, 2021

Taste a piece of warm and crunchy bread, a creamy and herbaceous malga butter, a pungent and fruity extra virgin olive oil of fresh pressing, or an intense and full-bodied red wine, with hints of undergrowth and spices. Primary flavors linked to the earth, to the roots, an atavistic taste that brings us back to the innocence of the origins, to the morning of the world.

Instinctive and nostalgic perceptions of a lost taste that have nothing to do with the refined complexity of a great gourmet dish, because they avoid the mind and aim for emotions, triggering a deep desire to be found.

The link with tradition, of “as it once was”, strengthened by this period of uncertainty, has already been expanding for years, above all thanks to many young people who have passionately dedicated themselves to the rediscovery of ancient flavors, to the rebirth of a profession, to the recovery of the territory. Starting with wheat. And thanks to the right support of social networks.

The project for the revival of Italian culture by Stefano Caccavari, for example, it started from the desire to save the last stone mill in Calabria. Thus was born the challenge of Mulinum, start up founded in 2016: Caccavari was already the owner of a “family garden” in the village of San Floro (Catanzaro), an agricultural timeshare with spaces rented to over 150 organic gardeners, with whom he loved to share (key word) even bread prepared with wheat flour ancient premises that he had begun to recover after discovering that, since the 1970s, in Italy, they had mostly been replaced by the new Creso variety, born from induced genetic mutation: 4 times more productive, more resistant, rich in gluten and much more low (60 cm against the 160/180 of ancient grains), and therefore requires herbicides, fertilizers and pesticides.

When Caccavari then learns that the mill where he leads to grind the wheat is for sale, thanks to a crowdfunding on Facebook in just three months he collects 500,000 euros, which allow him to give life (with over 200 members around the world) to the largest supply chain in the region specializing in ancient grains: Senatore Cappelli, Verna, Mallorca, Farro, Rye. So the following year, in the ancient valley of the mills in San Floro, which in 2015 risked becoming the largest waste dump in Europe, a bio-sustainable farmhouse with natural French La Fertè stone millstones was inaugurated (ideal for obtaining a 100% wholemeal, fragrant and tasty flour). A closed, guaranteed and complete supply chain – ranging from cultivation to baking – and a virtuous model that is expanding on the national territory thanks to the growing number of enthusiasts who join the project: a new Mulinum reality is also emerging in Tuscany, in Buonconvento (Val d’Orcia), and another in Mesagne (Brindisi), always with the crowdfunding formula on Fb. It is the demonstration that the territories are saved by cultivating them and carrying out a broad vision project.

«Ancient grains is a term widely used today, even when speaking of selected grains at the beginning of the 20th century», he explains Fulvio Marino, probably the best-known baker in Italy, an expert in flour and bread-making in the program on Raiuno It is always noon by Antonella Clerici, third generation of a family of millers in Cossano Belbo (Cuneo) and manager of Eataly bakeries around the world. Among his most successful creations are the Mediterranean bread, made with two organic whole-grain multigrain flours and seven organic seeds, tasty and healthy just like the Mediterranean diet, and the Eataliano bread (by Eataly), produced with a mixture of different flours representing Italy from north to south: a tribute to biodiversity.

«In my mill, when we talk about ancient grains we refer to Spelled, Rye and Enkir, the progenitors of modern grains. I call them “the primordial grains”. The others are varieties within a larger family that have been selected by geneticists, such as Senatore Cappelli and Gentil Rosso. In any case, ancient wheat alone is not enough to make a good product: it must be grown, cleaned and ground in the right way, because the control of the supply chain is fundamental. And then the varieties grow differently depending on the area: durum wheat in the North does not have the same qualitative aspects as that grown in the South. This is why our flour, chosen by farmers who work with us, comes from various parts of Italy. Zero km is important, but respect for quality is fundamental ».

Otherwise, but always with excellent results, Molino Tuzzi, in Dolegna del Collio (Gorizia), bases its activity on the short supply chain: Enrico Tuzzi, who runs the old mill with his father Adriano, managed to create thel Supply Chain Agreement, an agricultural and social network based on trust, the sharing of decisions and business risks between the mill, the farmers and the buyers, who anticipate part of the final expenditure to cover the first costs incurred by those who cultivate the fields. “It’s a good way to help the area with conscious consumption,” explains Tuzzi. «It comes from the understanding of the deep relationship between the territory and the production system. The cereals we sow (Gentil Rosso, Verna) come from organic farming without certifications: the relationship of trust makes them superfluous and so we are able to contain the prices of the final product ».

“Man and agriculture are closely linked, great civilizations were born thanks to the cultivation of wheat,” he recalls Davide Longoni, expert baker, one of the “masters of contemporary bread” with ancient grain flours. For him, bread must have the same gustatory and olfactory complexity as wine, made up of many nuances of flavors and aromas. And here, the choice and care of the terroir are fundamental. «To make one kg of bread you need 9 square meters of soil, grown organically and with a three-year rotation. A strong environmental impact that increases with modern varieties, which need fertilizers and herbicides. Going back is not a fact of nostalgia, but the need to find a balance thanks to “stubborn” plants that know how to overcome adversity, such as rye and einkorn spelled in the North, Tumminia in Sicily, Solina and Saragolla in Abruzzo (has crops in Loreto Aprutino, ed).

My bread is an agricultural product, which is born with cereals on the fields and is then introduced into the urban social fabric: it is a symbol of regeneration of places that can return to live and produce ». Like in Milan, in front of the Abbey of Chiaravalle, where St. Bernard and his monks invented the rotten technique, long abandoned and now cultivated by Longoni in rye in organic, with a three-year rotation, alternating it with leguminous plants and medical herbs. Rye then used to make the bread of his three Milanese shops. More short supply chain than this …

Photo above Letizia Cigliutti

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