APCOM

A few days ago, New York Times correspondent from Roma, Ian Fisher made a taunt at one of Italy's biggest prides on the newspaper's first page: "Is cuisine still Italian even if the chef isn't?" The idea came from the prize that Gambero Rosso, the prestigious reviewer of restaurants and wine, awarded for the capital's best carbonara (a typical dish of pasta, eggs, pecorino cheese and cured pig cheek) to Antico Forno Roscioli, a bakery and innovative restaurant whose chef, Nabil Hadj Hassen, is Tunisian and came to Rome at age 17. Nabil is just one of the many foreign chefs who daily cook Italian food all along the peninsula.

While the debate on Italian cuisine's survival justifiably goes on, Milano tries to prove that traditional food is alive and kicking by carrying out a project whose aim is to protect and appreciate local gastronomy. Last December, the city council's committee for Productive Activities gave five Milanese dishes the 'De.Co.' (Denominazione Comunale), the certificate issued by a city council to declare the belonging of a gastronomic product to its territory and its history.

Now other five recipes, more suitable for the spring than the previous ones, have achieved the prestigious acknowledgment. To begin with, the city's most famous dishes, minestrone alla Milanese, thick soup with vegetables, and cotoletta alla Milanese, breaded veal cutlet. Besides, there are mondeghili (meatballs), rostin nega'a (veal chops with bacon and rosemary) and barbajada (a shot of espresso mixed with a splash of cream and milk).