The article is dedicated to all the customers who have enjoyed our “bollito misto” dish on our last menu from Piemonte and even more to the ones who haven’t enjoyed it at all.

I can certainly imagine the face of the customer, while one of our amazing waitress is explaining to him the meaning of “bollito misto”, one of the greatest dish of Cucina Piemontese, consisting on different cuts of meat, just boiled and served with fresh sauces and the broth. The guy is looking at her a bit lost and bit confused. He feels threatened and he needs to defend himself.

“I am not gonna eat boiled meat!!!” He says laughing sarcastically to the poor waitress.

Boiling…

Well, that doesn’t sound as the most appealing way of cooking. I can understand that. Massimo Bottura, the greatest Italian chef, make the dish without boiling, but sealing the meat in a plastic bag and slow cook it sous vide for 24 something hours.

His dish will probably be more delicious than mine, but I hate these smart tricks. I wanted to know what’s behind boiling, why a dish is so popular to the point of becoming a stable mark of a regional cuisine.

When I think about a dish, I start from the way it was cooked in the past. Many Italians mums and grandmas cook in a way that would be considered unacceptable by the professional chef, but the imperfection of their dishes is what makes them beautiful, because they feel homely, they feel true.

Take a broccoli. A professional chef will grill it or boil it just a minute to keep color and texture and end up with a crunchy thing that will taste of absolutely nothing.

An Italian mum (or any mum really) will boil it for over 10 minutes in salted water and end up with a soft mashed thing that will taste deeply like: Broccoli! The whole house will smell of it. The smell and taste of that broccoli we all have it in our childhood memories, many of us still hating it, others like me, loving it.

Boiling a humble meal in a pot, with whatever was available, was, and still is, a practice shared by most cultures of the world. A simple way of cooking that only needs one pot and one fire.

I can imagine the family seating around a table. Outside is a cold and deep winter night. The mum brings the pot to the table. They will have the broth first and leave a little piece of meat or a potato for last. The dad will soak a piece of old stale bread in the broth. The dish goes straight into our past and for a moment takes us to our origin, our roots. Fell just like home, a home we have lost long time ago.

Boiled meat anyone?