196 the rice diet renewal
Locanda Rosati was born for this reason, an old stone
farmhouse, with an old cellar dug out of the tufa bedrock,
the wood - burning oven where roasts and homemade bread
are cooked, surrounded by a spacious garden that changes its
colors according to seasons and offers forgotten smells.
The spacious house that we can enjoy with friends and
guests, all around the table, in the evening, with a genuine
cooking, laughs, and a good coziness are a unique cosmos.
We basically tried to translate in a real way what every man
ideally needs: to create a harmony through easy things like a
greeting, that with a table covered with food becomes more
than a simple welcome. The smell of a sourdough bread, an
omelet made with fresh organic eggs, the milk taken every
evening at Cesare and Emilio ’ s stable are the fruits of a gen-
erous land, and Locanda Rosati offers them to its guests
because it couldn ’ t betray its land.
In the years when I was a Slow Food trustee, Giampiero
and I consolidated our ideas; we knew that our choices were
valuable, so now the work about food as pleasure and quality
of life represents the base of our thoughts, like thinking to
enhance local produce is important for history and economy
but also because if we close our eyes, we can easily recognize a
certain produce by its smell and taste; it is in our DNA, and it
lets us dream about our childhood. If I close my eyes, through
a sensory perception, I can taste bread with strawberries and
I can tell you why: my grandfather raised everything in his
little vegetable garden; that was his only richness, and straw-
berries ripened only in May; a few strawberries were precious.
My grandfather washed some strawberries for me, he mashed
them up with some sugar, and he spread it over a slice of
bread. It was a delight, a sweet afternoon snack! So, through
a sensory perception we surely make a mental process.
The slow food movement made a cultural revolution over
food and economy, food and pleasure, food and environment.
The central element is always the man: if he produces and