According to Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, "he is a chef-farmer who has been able to give back to his land the pride it deserves." For Oscar Farinetti, creator of Eataly, he is one of the best ambassadors of Apulian excellence in the world. For Gambero Rosso it is "one of the forerunners in the generous Puglia but in general at a national level of quality cuisine linked directly to agri-food production". For the guide of the Osteria d'Italia subsidiary of Italian-style eating "he represents the perfect incarnation of the farmer turned chef who, despite having achieved national fame, never left his Orsara di Puglia, where with immeasurable passion and sacrifice he gave life to numerous activities, ranging from the production of vegetables, meat, wines to the organization of events, up to the training of new recruits". For the L'Espresso Guide” Here we create a cuisine based on research into origins and roots, but also towards a credible and sustainable today in the broad sense, in the name of good food and happiness which focuses on a series of honest dishes and direct."
For more than forty years Peppe Zullo - who to define as a chef is reductive, because we find ourselves faced with a charismatic philosopher of the cuisine of the heart and of the essence not of a land, in this case Puglia, but of the territory in the cultural sense of its thousand meanings, of memory, of history, of peasant tradition - reaps unstinting praise for the path undertaken in the study, care, quality and traceability of raw materials, in the rediscovery of the most authentic values of the Mediterranean tradition.
His motto "From the land to the table" is not just a message, it is an idea that his farm applies concretely through traceable, transparent production processes, oriented towards a single objective: quality, the valorisation of products that combine taste, health and authenticity.
A path strongly linked to the territory which Zullo arrived at after trying his luck abroad, in Mexico and in the United States in particular where he opened his own restaurant in Boston in 1078, but he soon realized that his America was Orsara, his native town, a municipality of 2 souls in the province of Foggia in Puglia, surrounded by lush forests, highland prairies, fields cultivated with olive groves, cereals, vegetable gardens and vineyards framed in the mountain community of the Southern Dauni Mountains. The overseas experience taught him to approach his work with a managerial approach. But the fundamental imprint of his restaurant in Orsara remains the one instilled in him by his mother who taught him to follow the slow rhythms of the seasons, to be passionate about the spontaneous herbs of the woods and countryside, to respect the cyclical nature of the vegetable garden and lives, to innovate in the recovery kitchen precisely to affirm the due respect and love that is due to nature. On all this Zullo then unleashes his secret weapon, an explosive human energy as a chef-farmer attentive to hospitality, to the relationship with people - who here become friends, not numbers, to be emotionally involved in his gastronomic journeys - and to the little things which become the precious salt of everyday life.
His 180.000 m22.000 farm is in a certain sense a complete cycle: 35.000 m20.000 dedicated to the vegetable garden, XNUMX mXNUMX to vineyards, XNUMX mXNUMX of forest with fruit trees, mushrooms, wild and medicinal herbs. And then there are the structures dedicated to animal breeding, the dairy, the small resorts and the headquarters of the International Cooking School. And we now understand the reason for the claim that distinguishes his restaurant: "from the land to the table", from the producer to the consumer and which earned him the recognition of "La Fabbrica del Paesaggio", a competition conceived and organized by the Italian Federation of Clubs and Unesco Centers (FICLU) “For having admirably built, with Villa Jamele, a company with a very low environmental impact, without ever forgetting the objective of offering a diet characterized by authenticity with products from the zero km food and wine supply chain”.
The Borraggine Parmigiana offered to the readers of Mondo Food is the dish that perhaps better than others represents its gastronomic philosophy, a real must for healthy cuisine, full of flavour, local authenticity, easy to prepare but with great flavour. Within everyone's reach
The recipe for Borage parmigiana
Ingredients for 4 people:
– 250 g of tomatoes (vernini)
– 250 g of borage leaves
– Parmesan 100 gr.
– Scamorza cheese 100 gr.
– Evo oil to taste
- Salt to taste
– Borage flowers (for decoration)
– Soft wheat flour and sparkling water (for the batter)
Procedure:
Let's start with the preparation of the ingredients. Borage leaves must be washed thoroughly. Wash and cut the tomatoes into slices. Cut the scamorza into slices and grate the parmesan.
Once we have prepared the ingredients we will need for the dish, we prepare a batter with soft wheat flour and sparkling water.
Dip the borage leaves in the batter and fry them in a pan with extra virgin olive oil. When the borage leaves are golden, remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and place them on a sheet of kitchen paper to remove the excess grease. .
In the meantime, let's prepare a nice baking tray that we will use to compose our parmigiana. Place the baking paper on the bottom and make the parmigiana by placing a first layer of borage leaves, vernino tomatoes, sliced scamorza and parmesan. We continue like this, forming at least four layers and finishing with cherry tomatoes, scamorza and parmesan.
Bake at 180° for 15 minutes. We serve our parmigiana hot or warm and complete the dish with a drizzle of raw extra virgin olive oil, decorating with a borage flower.
The dish is ready.
Peppe Zullo restaurant
Address: Via Piano Paradiso, 71027 Orsara di Puglia FG
Phone: 0881 964763
https://maps.app.goo.gl/edMnNRWZ8aVq8Sex5
