And so Rg also arrives at Identità Golose and, having left a dreary Milan outside, enters a veritable temple dedicated to cuisine and its protagonists.
The atmosphere is exciting: the stands are already swarming with people at 10 a.m., the seminars are already underway, chefs are scattered in every corner and the chairs have all been occupied.
Photographers, journalists, waiters ferrying trays here and there as needed full or filled with empty glasses.
We have a couple of appointments scheduled but plenty of time to look around and understand the mechanism of this format. The entrance corridor is obviously reserved for the main sponsors, but from this junction there are many 'lanes' in which we have to give way because it is useless, we do not pass, there are really too many people but incredibly all this traffic instead of causing general nervousness, exudes enthusiasm. Mostly the participants are insiders, and this causes a certain atmosphere of affection among those who have been taking part in the fair for years, which is now no longer such but has turned into a reunion among friends, a way to give each other a date.
Among the various vendors of food, drinks, books and tools of the trade we also find the stand of 'The Good Forks for AIL,' a very ambitious and above all important initiative that we have a chance to learn more about thanks to an interview with the person in charge. The only regret is that it is confined to the end of the publishing department. Fortunately, their brochures and a box for voluntary donations are arranged at the entrance desks.
After this meeting, as luck would have it, a recent acquaintance allows us to take part in a seminar on salmon, presented by Wicki, an authority in the world of sushi (just to confirm that the best names can be found here) . Preparations for the lecture rage on but, alas, we have to run off to another appointment and miss the best one.
After all, it is impossible to take part in the seminars with the most distinguished names because the rooms are packed and not everyone can access them. So we wait for my next target (whose name I will not tell you, but whose name you can read about in a future interview), and afterwards we feel free to wander around to realize the enormity of this exhibition. Without realizing it we are strolling among prestigious companies, and everywhere we turn we find the likes of Gaston Acurio, Davide Oldani, Niko Romito, Massimo Bottura, Davide Scabin, Giancarlo Morelli, Sadler, and many more.
After exploring all that can be explored, we move on to the area dedicated to the Food&Wine Festival, finding an environment that is certainly less crowded but for that reason more livable and no less interesting. We finally indulge in our first taste of a drink dedicated to the upcoming Valentine's Day, then stroll among the wine stalls and with some pride notice delegations from all over Italy.
If our time wasn't running out we would linger (wine is a family weakness), but we don't get the chance and after lingering a few seconds on a live cooking class and making contact with a winery, it's time to leave, to return home to document the beauty of this fair that reminds us of our national supremacy in such an important and enjoyable area of life: cooking.
