Newsletters are a well-established and recognized media, long established in the U.S. information context, but for the past few years, the boom occurred during the pandemic, also in the Italian one.
By now there is an embarrassment of riches in the choice of newsletters to read and subscribe to, although this is not always synonymous with quality.
Although its roots are ancient, its online diffusion is recent and so we have already gone through a phase of stagnation, due to promises of monetization that are not always fulfilled and publication deadlines that authors do not always manage to meet, so much so that we speak of 'newsletter fatigue', both by those who receive them and especially by those who write them.
The ''Commestibile'' newsletter
In this interesting but chaotic and jagged landscape, and one in which we struggle to stand out, in the food sector undoubtedly stands out 'Commestibile'. This newsletter, cited by Salvatore Aranzulla among the best on Substack - but also events, research and consulting project - offers a different perspective on everything to do with food, treating it from the perspective of data, interviews and personal anecdotes: ''Here we talk about everything edible: restaurants, cannibalism, TikTok and everything you can think of; events, data, alcohol and everything you can ingest'' in the nice description given by its creators and authors Roberta Small and Victoria Small, journalist and consultant respectively.
'Commestibile,' which was born in March '23 and runs bimonthly, came out on Friday, March 14 with the theme "How Milano da bere changed the world of the bar": "The Myth of the Milan of excess, the invention of the '90s aperitif and the technologies that changed the bar," an issue that RGmania had the pleasure of sponsoring by responding through Giorgio Negri, the founder of RG Commerciale, and Camilla Negri, the marketing and communications manager, to a number of questions about the changes of the last decades in the world of the bar and cocktails.
RGmania's interview with the newsletter 'Commestibile'
The interview took its cue from the bar tools and equipment that have marked a momentous change in the world of cocktails, whereby "although there is often talk of a fusion between the world of mixed drinks and that of cuisine, it must be admitted that there are few establishments in the world that have experimented to such a degree that we can speak of a revolution." Our choice fell on "Rotovapor, which allows for distillation and play with kitchen ingredients within drinks as well. Molecular is also making a small comeback, brought into the spotlight by Heston Blumenthal in cooking and Dario Comini in mixing."
Accessories that are obsolete today, but which were flagship products 20 years ago, were identified by Giorgio and Camilla in the "ice crushers, which for making slushies were never enough, like blenders for frozen, while now they are tools that are sold more in seaside resorts, in a seasonal and territorial way. We can talk about meteors, though, like the gallon. It is a typically Italian model, which for several years went down a storm, only to suffer a shocking setback, for no specific reason. Another example might be the jigger, which now in Italy seems inescapable but around the world has always been the rule, even for measuring wine."
Negri, in terms of trends they think will last in the bar and restaurant world, identified "a return to sobriety, a very clean approach to mixing, which puts the customer's taste back at the center over the bartender's vanity. Experimentation continues, but without tiring the customer with very long explanations." And again, "The choice to leave the customer free: if he wants a spritz, give him a spritz! Years ago we remember bartenders carrying on the anti-spritz crusade, as if it were the evil of the world."
When asked if there is anything we miss about the cocktail bars of yesteryear, via Giorgio and Camilla RG noted that "human contact with the bartender, chatting and watching him work, for many professionals today is more of a distraction than an added value. The psychologist bartender claims to be an artist of his work, and in a way he is, but he has to understand that in a world where there are now also automatic machines that make cocktails, the human factor is what makes the difference."
