If one wonders: Who brought the weather forecast into Italian homes, advising them on how to dress before going out, whether to take an umbrella, when and how to go out on trips? The answer, without hesitation is: the Colonel Edmund Bernacca with its program "The weather in Italy"! And who has fascinated millions of Italians to the problems of science? Come on, all too easy, Piero Angela! And we could continue with a question about who made Italians discover the taste for adventure by opening up spectacular scenarios on emerged and submerged Italy, and on worlds of distant lands then unknown to most? Again immediate response, the great Folco quilici creator and founder of the longest-running TV broadcast, Geo which saw the light back in 1971 and still continues today with Swabian Sagramola. And how to forget Biagio Agnes who with his "Check-up" on TV taught Italians to take care of their bodies by introducing the concept of prevention into the country's culture?
Bernacca, Angela, Quilici, Agnes, we are talking about real television monuments that have had an impact on the habits and customs of Italians, broadening their horizons, improving their knowledge in various fields, and consequently also affecting the quality of life of country viewers.
Having made this premise, it becomes timely to ask one last question: who turned on the spotlights of mother Rai on the stoves of Italian kitchens, teaching millions of housewives (but also men) to eat healthy and well, with taste and joy? ? She is the exuberant, the outgoing, the irrepressible Antonella Clerici, the only one able to talk about a boiled courgette and make it appear as if it were a preparation by the great Auguste Escoffier. And the quotation does not seem improper, because a subtle common thread links the French "Cook of kings and King of cooks" to the darling of the Italian television audience and it is the approach to food. In fact, for Escoffier the culinary art had to be practiced with simplicity, enhancing the flavor and nourishment of foods. A lesson that Antonella dispensed to everyone for 18 years, as long as her presence at "La prova del fuoco" lasted, taking care to keep well away from the noble kitchens which, from fashion to fashion, have appeared in horizon of Italian tables. Because for Antonella Clerici – as she has had the opportunity to affirm several times during her long experience food-tv – the kitchen has remained that of his childhood, the fulcrum of life, when family life took place entirely in that environment, when we met there to talk, to receive friends, to study with the little ones, and where – as he made it clear putting in no small amount of embarrassment the always-embarrassed Fazio who invited her to "Che tempo che fa", you can even have sex if necessary.
Here is the secret of so much success, Antonella with her transmission has brought the everyday of life in the kitchen on television (and not vice versa) also remaining in his studio where he hosts chefs mostly from the wholesome Italian province with all their suggestive charge of territoriality, master pastry chefs, gastronomes, but also sommeliers who have taught viewers how to enhance the flavors of food and a convivial evening with a good bottle of wine, lavishing smiles and happiness and a healthy vein of madness in an environment hitherto considered the poor and secluded place of the house. A very feminine cuisine, but also very physical, hers. In his studio one dances, sings, smiles, quarrels, physically smells the perfumes, tastes ingredients and dishes even before putting them in the mouth, makes fun of one another, tells personal stories that often border on the private . Double meanings and the sensuality of eating often make their entrance without hesitation in the transmission (the most erotic food? Risotto – he explains in his book – because it cannot be prepared in advance and therefore requires complicity and an atmosphere which, thanks to a good glass of wine, introduces the then…) because “The test of the cook” more than a culinary laboratory it is a cross-section of life, in absolute freedom so that from the kitchen we then move on to the rest: “I would not like a man who detaches the fat from the ham because for me a healthy and beautiful approach to food is also a healthy and beautiful approach to life…” Clearer than that!
At the test of the cook Antonella, classical high school in Legnano and law degree in Milan, arrives at the age of 37 after a rich curriculum of lucky and self-confident television experiences, however all in the sports field. After a short experience with a games program aimed at the youngest "Yellow traffic light” in the company of the actor Davide Riondino in 86 he started off brilliantly with the hosting of “Oggi Sport”, a daily program live on Rai Due, then he moved on to “Dribbling” where he hosted, among other things, the special editions for the World Cup football in Italy '90, USA '94 and the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Her passion for sport was so strong that in 1989 she married the basketball champion Giuseppe Motta, but the marriage soon dissolved. In 1995 we find her on "Domenica Sprint", broadcast on Sunday evenings at 20:00 and on "Circo Bianco" on Rai Tre on Thursday afternoons, a program on the Ski World Cup.
Two years after his popularity is established on the general public with the conduction of "One morning” alongside Maurizio Losa, subsequently also participates in “Sunday In“, conducted by Fabrizio Frizzi. She is now an undisputed queen of the television medium and we find her again on "Uno Mattina in the 1998/1999 season" (Rai Uno) with Luca Giurato.
And here we are in 2000. A year of challenge. Antonella finds the time to marry the producer Sergio Cossa in New York at the same time she abandons the sport that has given her fame and satisfaction and gets back into the game with a cooking TV show in which few believe. A Rai executive confided in her that cooking on TV would not have a future, but she did not let herself be depressed. The broadcast, borrowed from an English BBC format, Ready Steady Cook, which then found considerable success on the television channels of Australia, the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Greece, Finland, initially, and experimentally, lasted only 20 minutes. Antonella Clerici's great intuition was that she didn't want to make it a show of old ladies with grandmother's aprons and hair nets in her hair. But live entertainment. And first of all, inspired by an English TV announcer, she thought it well to present herself with a touch of femininity, tight dresses that modeled the shapes, necklines – because they look good in the kitchen – and a very lively and free language. Between pans and stoves, ovens and blenders therefore entered stories, personal stories, lived stories, desires and aspirations of the competitors, in short, a kitchen virtually taken outdoors where everything was placed in the square, a town square to be precise.
What happened then is national history. The transmission lengthened the times considerably, from the initial slot of 11,35 in the morning it landed in the central slot of the Raiuno flagship with a very important schedule, from 12,30 to 13,25, gluing half of Italy to the television at the table before the news. He was enriched with collaborations of caliber, first of all that of character Anna Moroni, proposed as a "family mother", with a strictly practical and homely approach to cooking, deliberately opposed to Tuscan Beppe Bigazzi, a passionate gastronome on loan from the world of economics, who opposed Moroni with a professorial conception of the elitist and philosophical culinary art. The ratings fly up to touch 2010 spectators in 2,700.000 with an astronomical share of 20,38 percent.
His secret? Being in the spotlight as it is in private. Born December 6, 1963, she is a Sagittarius. People born under this sign - we read - have great imagination, are intelligent, generous, curious and can boast great physical resistance. Extraversion is another easily noticeable characteristic, as well as impulsivity and trust in the surrounding environment, which leads him to want a lot of independence and to often seek solitude. He can have many qualities, he knows how to distinguish himself, he's an adventurer, but in some cases he tends towards distraction and keeping his head in the clouds. If Sagittarius does not find stability, he can in fact become very restless due to his changeability and undergo an altered existence also marked by excesses of a sexual nature, ending up becoming intractable. Their life is often full of contradictions and marriage matters further entangle it. Since they prefer adventure, those born in the sign generally get married more than once or, sometimes, remain alone. Their existence is filled with change and excitement.
And certainly there is no shortage of contradictions. Nonconformist to the point of bordering on provocative but conservative in private. Her relationship with her mother, who was very rigorous and at times intransigent, is rock solid in her memory. You declared in an interview: “she was a woman of shocking beauty much more beautiful than me, she always believed in me even opposing me. I had a very conflicting relationship with her. She got to see the beginning of my career but really, it's like she's always there. I think about it a lot. When I have Joys I feel like calling them. When my daughter was born I put her photo of her on the bedside table in the hospital – I looked at her, I told her I became a mother too! Today I would ask her: mom, I was good, are you happy with me? She's always been very critical of me. She hasn't been one of those easygoing mothers. And when I have to make a decision, she gives me signals…”
Here is another secret of its success, thestern eye of the mother it is the pretext for a constant evaluation of his work. Don't be fooled by the engaging smile always printed on his lips. Those who know her closely know how rigorously she prepares her broadcasts before bringing them to the small screen.
His abandonment of the beloved television creature brought to the age of 18 ("my broadcast happily lasted much longer than my marriages"), albeit diplomatically justified with the desire to be close to his partner, the oilman Vittorio Garrone - but no one believed it – it gave rise to ravings of protests on the web that bordered on popular revolt, some threatened not to pay the license fee, others not to turn on the TV again to see the "Prova" entrusted to other hands (and Auditel mercilessly proved that the threats were real) who cried treason. The (sincere) tears she let into the last episode with the background music of the melancholy notes of Gianna Nannini's “sei nell'anima” moved everyone in the studio and thousands and thousands of viewers. Because Antonella with her broadcast has not only touched the belly of the Italians but also generously their hearts. And this is not forgotten.
