Massimo Bottura, the Italian restaurateur and the chef patron of Osteria Francescana, a three-Michelin-star restaurant based in Modena, Italy, appeared on NBC’s The Today Show based in New York City to promote his new book, Slow Food, Fast Cars: Casa Maria Luigia – Stories and Recipes, and demonstrate two of his favorite holiday recipes.
ITALIAN TRADITIONAL RECIPES ON THE STAGE
On the morning talk show, Bottura cooked his recipes for cotechino sausages and tiramisu. As for why Bottura likes tiramisu, “it’s simple, comes from the Italian cuisine. But the most simple things are the most difficult to make,” he said. For a final touch, Bottura showed how he likes to pour a little espresso on top of the tiramisu.
The cotechino dish Bottura cooked on the TV show, called ‘Da Modena a Mirandola’, is a celebration of the love of his parents. His mother is from Modena, and his father is from Mirandola, hence how he named the classic sausage dish that has been around for 500 years. The dish has a thin layer of zabaione on the bottom, then an almond cake, with the cotechino on top. He drizzled balsamic vinegar from Casa Maria Luigia on top of the sausage. You can watch the TV segment here.
THE BOOK
Slow Food, Fast Cars: Casa Maria Luigia – Stories and Recipes is a lifestyle book highlighting the style and cuisine of Bottura’s Emilian countryside hotel. “It’s a perfect expression of Emilia-Romagna’s power of hospitality, the essence of Modena. Like the land of balsamic vinegar, twenty-five years before tasting. But also the fast cars,” said Bottura during this interview.
