Michael White - Classico e Moderno: Essential Italian Cooking

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Copyright 2013 by Michael White

Foreword copyright 2013 by Thomas Keller
Photographs copyright 2013 by Evan Sung

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

B ALLANTINE and the H OUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

ISBN: 978-0-345-53052-3
eBook ISBN: 978-0-345-54553-4

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

www.ballantinebooks.com

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I dedicate this book to the memory of my mother, Mary Ann,
who taught me to appreciate the fine things in life;
to my father, Gerry, who showed me how to achieve them;
to my wife, Giovanna, who makes it all possible and shares every moment with me;
and to my daughter, Francesca, who makes it all worthwhile.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

At its best, food is a journey.

For those of us who have made the kitchen our professional home, the journey is one of discovery, both of ourselves and of our vocation, and its necessarily a slow and deliberate process. For all of the public attention chefs receive these days, cooking is essentially a lonely business, especially during ones formative years. Talent is a must, but a cooks fate is largely determined by his or her willingness to put in the hard yards required to master the craft, as well as additional years defining and honing a personal style.

Meeting those challenges requires physical and mental stamina, which is why I have such empathy for young cooks, and a special appreciation for the commitment Michael White made early in his career. As youll learn in these pages, in his twenties, driven purely by instinct, he spent the better part of eight years away from family and friends, and from his native land and language, to immerse himself in the food and culture of Italy. It cannot have been easy for this extrovert to live and work in a foreign land where he couldnt communicate well, at least not initially; but he endured, with nothing but his own passion telling him it was the right thing to do and that it would pay off one day.

And pay off it has: Ive followed Michael since he emerged as the chef of New York Citys Fiamma restaurant in 2002. Since then, Ive watched and tasted as hes matured into his current position as one of the preeminent stewards and pioneers of Italian culinary tradition in America. A few years ago, when asked by a magazine to name my favorite restaurant of the moment, I instead praised my favorite dish at the time: Michaels Fusilli with Red Wine-Braised Octopus. Eating it is a thrilling and highly pleasurable experience, a little journey all its own. At first glimpse, the dish looks like a Bolognese; but as you get into it, it reveals hidden treasures and complexities, chief among them exquisitely viscous bone marrow that constitutes a match made in heaven with the toothsome octopus, for a sublime and sophisticated variation on surf and turf.

Like many great dishes, that fusilli is simultaneously revelatory and inevitable; Our initial sense of wonder at its interplays of tastes and textures gives way to an appreciation for how utterly natural they seem. Michaels restaurant menus are replete with such delights. Another of my favorites is one of his contemporary crostini, topped with sea urchin roe thats hugged by luscious lardo and topped with sea salt. Its a small morsel, but a feast for the senses, delivering cool, warm, silken, and crunchy elements in each bite.

These dishes, served at his restaurant Marea, represent the cutting edge of Italian food in America today. But Michael doesnt just do cutting edge. On the contrary, he retains a reverence for the classics of Italian cuisine, such as the Tortellini in Cream Sauce and Pasta Ribbons with Mushroom Sauce that he came to love during his near-decade spent overseas. Today he serves them at his restaurant Osteria Morini, which pays loving and faithful homage to the food of the Emilia-Romagna region.

In cooking, as in life, timing is everything. While Michael was soaking up inspiration and knowledge in Italy, the rest of us were on our own journeys. Like many Americans, my earliest memories of Italian food arent of high-end restaurants but rather of Chef Boyardee, frozen pizza, and casual eateries where meals began with garlic knots and ended with spumoni. Weve come a long way in our culinary knowledge and sophistication since those days, and just as we arrived at the apex of our Italian-food learning curve, there was Michael, poised to meet the moment with a deeply personal cuisine commensurate with our ability to appreciate it.

Im hesitant to dissect Michaels food too much, preferring simply to enjoy it. But when you consider the totality of his repertoire, it becomes clear that his respect for the classics isnt at odds with his contemporary cooking; rather, his mastery of the classics forms the backbone of his success with the contemporary. This book, divided into Classico and Moderno sections, shares Michaels recipes for both traditional and contemporary Italian dishes and explains the connection between them. Just as compellingly, it traces the story of his discovery of the classics and his own creative development. I wrote once that recipes have no soul, requiring the cook to bring an ineffable something to them. I still believe that, but I know, too, that Michaels soul, captured here in words and pictures, will help guide even novice cooks on that journey.

In his earlier days, Michael mingled classic and contemporary dishes on the same menu; today he devotes entire restaurants to one or the other, but the relationship between past and present always matters. Innovation is important, but we connect best with dishes grounded in tradition, to flavors and combinations that were first arrived at to satisfy something primal in those cookstheir names long since lost to the ageswho first thought to pair and eat them.

That link is always present in Michaels food, which explains why even his signature modern dishes are as relatable as the classicsand perhaps are destined to be deemed classics in their own right someday.