The Quirinale seen from the kitchens
"The cook of presidents" by Pietro Catzola read by Tullio Fazzolari
The best cooks are those who have worked on ships. So they said in the golden age of transatlantic liners and the facts confirmed it. Some of the best Italian restaurants were run by chefs who had set up on their own after they stopped surfing. But the real confirmation, also because it's more recent, is another one. For more than thirty years now it has always been a sailor who has fed the presidents of the Republic and their guests by preparing menus suitable for every occasion. His name is Pietro Catzola and with "The cook of the presidents" (Solferino, 304 pages, 18.50 euros) he tells firsthand his magnificent adventure in the kitchens of the Quirinale. The title of the book brings to mind a good film from ten years ago, "The President's Cook", inspired by the experience of Daniele Mazet-Delpeuch who from 1988 to 1990 was Francois Mitterrand's personal cook.
Apart from the assonance of the title, there are no other similarities. Mazet-Delpeuch worked at the Elysée for only three years and with only one president. Catzola, on the other hand, has resisted the nostalgia of embarking on a ship for three decades and has prepared his refined dishes for as many as five heads of state: from Francesco Cossiga to Sergio Mattarella via Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Giorgio Napolitano. If you really want to make a comparison, Catzola's experience is more like that of Takamori Tukuzu, cook to two Japanese emperors from 1920 to 1983 on whom a book was written and even a television series was made.
Thirty years are practically a life and Pietro Catzola is living it at the Quirinale. "The cook of the presidents" is an autobiography from which many satisfactions emerge but also some renunciations and some disappointments. It was a disappointment in the past when he was not given the promotion he deserved. And it was a more painful sacrifice to have less and less time to return to Sardinia and see his family, especially his mother from whom he inherited the cooking skills. But Catzola is a military man, he entered the navy at just sixteen and would never dream of abandoning his post while he is needed. And how much there is a need for it is demonstrated by the comings and goings at the Quirinale where lunches and dinners follow one another with heads of state, politicians, diplomats and so on from all over the world. And everyone has to guess tastes and needs. It may have been difficult but the company was successful. Otherwise Charles of England would not have gone to the kitchen for a souvenir photo with Catzola and his collaborators.
But by dint of nailing the preferences of the presidents and their guests, Catzola hits the mark on those of the readers as well. In addition to being an autobiography, "The cook of the presidents" is a concentration of recipes for dishes prepared ad hoc for each event, from stuffed sea bass for Clinton to thyme fillet for Lula. Catzola has no secrets and agrees to be imitated on one condition: not to be called a chef. He likes Cuoco better and this in itself makes him likeable.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/il-quirinale-sbirciato-dalle-cucine/ on Sat, 29 Apr 2023 07:11:28 +0000.