He conquers you with his kind grace, the courteous but participatory trait, an engaging calmness, above all with an enviable sense of serenity that emanates from every pore. The secret of so much happiness that leaves his interlocutors dumbfounded? It has multiple names: Alchemilla Sorrel, Ventaglina Rumex acetosa, Silene bubbolina, Bistorta, Ajucca, Erba Buon Enrico, Wild Garlic, Watercress, Sorrel.
They have always been his life partners, he goes to them looking in the woods, in the meadows, he almost talks to us, then he takes them home, and studies how to enhance their flavours, aromas, properties, colours. An ancient world of magical atmospheres, of fragrant undergrowth, of muffled silences distant sidereal spaces from the metropolitan tensions in which we are corseted every day, which transfer into her kitchen and which make her say: "My land is transformed into the dish, the taste of herbs, the color of flowers. Simplicity becomes elegance in my kitchen.”
For Mariangela Susigan chef with a Michelin star at the Gardenia Restaurant in Calusor a small town on the external southern slope of the moraine that closes the morainic amphitheater of Ivrea, characterized by a particular climate that favors the cultivation and production of celebrated wines such as Erbaluce di Caluso and Caluso Passito, being a chef means love for the territory and continuous research of a story made of ingredients, experience, innovation and imagination. Being a chef – he says – comes after having found the center of the story we want to tell, cookingor for us and for others”.
In the heart and in the creation of the kitchen there is Mariangela Susigan, a self-taught chef who has arrived in the Michelin-starred world, with a cuisine that does not look for effects, does not pursue experimentation, but aims to ensure a balance that respects its character, there are wild herbs, over 50, which he collects among the Canavese valleys, studies, conserves, protects. Herbs that he then uses in his dishes, season after season, with passion, elegance and creativity, as well as the vegetables from his garden entrusted to the attentive hands of Vittorio, his "very expert and passionate" greengrocer, who has successfully carried out the project of combining the wild herbs, the itinerant vegetable garden, the orchard and the flowers. Because the philosophy that animates this elegant restaurant set in a 800th century house in the medieval village of Caluso is to offer dishes on the menu that tell the story of the day's garden, the herbs of the season, the food and wine heritage of the area interpreted with sensitivity, innovation and respect and that customers can live an emotional experience in the name of nature, lightness and wholesomeness with a "concrete and understandable" cuisine.
And his love for the herbs of his land doesn't stop at the kitchen, but he also organizes courses, conferences, walks to discover the great rural heritage of the Canavese.
Erratica: discovering Canavese's historical and food and wine heritage
“Erratic”, a name that says it all, is a wandering through the senses: a small exclusive journey in the beautiful and still little-explored lands of the Canavese. Following a calendar - which runs from spring to autumn - you can travel for a day along the streets of the ancient erratic boulders (imposing rocks of glacial origin) to discover the excellence of an incredible territory by getting in touch with history, flavors and knowledge of local craftsmen discovering castles or historic houses, doing the knowledge of local wines (Erbaluce and Carema) and their producers, delving into nature through foraging experiences with Lucia Papponi, expert ethnobotanist (in Valchiusella and in the Serra Morenica), per conclude, enjoying the starred cuisine of Mariangela Susigan.
For the readers of Mondo Food, the chef offers the recipe for an ancient soup of ajucche and bistorta and alpine toma cheese. “The Ajucche and the Bistorta – explains the starred Chef – are wild herbs characteristic of our territory as they grow on the mountain pastures between 600 and 1600 meters above sea level.
The recipe of an ancient soup of ajucche and bistorta and toma d'alpeggio
The Ajucche soup, a simple dish that was cooked in our valleys, is a symbol of the culinary tradition of the Valchiusella”. The recipe is a reinterpretation of this ancient dish that was eaten in peasant families. In the dish, not only the wild herbs are highlighted, but also the milk supply chain, as a toma from Valchiusella is used, taken from a small producer - cheese refiner (Le tome di Villa). “A recipe that brings all the flavours, aromas and biodiversity of our valleys to the table, the rigorous ethical supply chain that starts from respect for the fields where the cows graze to the tiring work of small producers, the transformation of raw materials, simply enhancing the taste of what nature offers us”.
Ingredients
4 Guests
Chicken broth 2 liters
Durum wheat bread 300 g
Ajuca leaves 600 g
Bistorta leaves 200g
Shallots 2
1 garlic clove
Arnad's lard 40 g
Toma cheese from mountain pastures 300 g
Alpine butter 50 g
wild thyme 5 g
Method
Clean the leaves of Ajucca and Bistorta, wash them carefully, cut them with a knife
transversal.
Cut the bread into 1/2 cm thick slices, rub them lightly with garlic and dress them with a drizzle of oil
extra virgin olive oil, toast them in the oven at 180° for 3 minutes.
Bring the broth to the boil and cook the leaves for 2 minutes, drain well, keep the broth
cooking.
Melt the butter in a pan and brown a cube of lard with the chopped shallot, season
briefly squeeze the herbs well, add the wild thyme leaves, leave to cool
Preparation.
Prepare the soup in a small buttered baking dish alternating layers of toasted bread,
composed of Ajucche, the thinly sliced toma, three times. Take care to press well and give to
compose the shape of the pan, finish with toma d'alpeggio and a small knob of butter.
Pour 2 ladles of cooking broth (200 ml), which will also have taken on the flavor of the herbs,
bake at 160° for 30 minutes, then raise the oven to 200° (turn on the grill) to allow the
gratin.
At the end of cooking, the soup must have absorbed all the broth but be soft and at the same time
grated on the surface.
Plating
Serve in soup plates, decorating with a few leaves of fresh Ajucca.
