It can be said that the history of human food has gone hand in hand, over the centuries, with the history of art: from the first rock engravings where man felt the need to leave a visual testimony of his diet, to Etruscan funerary iconography and subsequently to religious iconography, and not only Christian, to the still lifes of the Renaissance, to the futurists who even dictated the rules of certain artist's dishes and drinks, to Andy Warhol. with its cans of Campbell's soups, to the very recent "Comedian", the famous banana attached to the wall with adhesive tape by the artist Maurizio Cattelan sold in 2019 at the price of 150 thousand dollars and donated to the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan.
But for some time now, food and art have often found meeting points on several occasions with the choice of some great chefs to create real compositions inspired by great artists from Scabin to Crippa to Canzian in their dishes.
With the #Uffizidamangiare initiative for the magic of great chefs, the masterpieces of art history now emerge from the paintings and become appetizing dishes to be enjoyed at the table.
From 17 January every Sunday the Uffizi Galleries will post a series of short films on the @uffigalleries Facebook channel: in each of these a well-known chef or person from the food and wine world will choose a work from the collections and, drawing inspiration from the ingredients depicted (fruit, vegetables , meat, fish), will offer recipes to the public or will cook dishes during the video itself.
The aim of the series is to illustrate and deepen the intimate bond that - especially through the intriguing genre of still life - has always united the art of painting with that of gastronomy.
With 'Uffizi to eat' it will therefore be possible to see Fabio Picchi, patron of the Cibrèo in Florence and famous face of Tuscan cuisine on TV, confront the 'Boy with fish' by the eighteenth-century Giacomo Ceruti; Dario Cecchini, butcher and restaurateur from Panzano in Chianti, already known for having brought the verses of Dante's Divine Comedy into the kitchen, will "serve" his version of the 'Dispensa con barrel, game, meat and pottery' by Jacopo Chimenti known as L'Empoli , Florentine painter of the sixteenth century.
Even the starred chef Valeria Piccini, of the Da Caino restaurant, in Montemerano in the Grosseto area, will propose one of her recipes from a 'Natura morta' from Empoli, while Marco Stabile, another starred chef of L'ora d'Aria in Florence, "will challenge ” on the table nothing less than Giorgio De Chirico's 'Peperoni e uva'.
Other episodes will follow, to entice the Uffizi's virtual audience with a rich menu told based on colors and flavors, until late spring: the protagonists will be, in addition to a large group of chefs, works by Caravaggio, Felice Casorati, Giovanna Garzoni and other great artists.
For the record, the Uffizi did not have a Facebook profile before the pandemic. They arrived there, out of necessity, after the government provisions which concerned all Italian museums. And it was a resounding success of thousands and thousands of contacts. #Uffizidamangiare is now born in the wake of this success which has opened the doors of the Uffizi to a vast social audience.
“In recent decades, the link between art and gastronomy has become a real science and a subject of serious historical investigation,” explains the director of the Uffizi Galleries Eike Schmidt. “Our intent, in these videos, is to create an even closer link with the works of the Museum, placing them in a current and vital context. Painted and cooked food thus meet on a level of truth that stimulates the observer's attention and brings to the fore the deep and unexpected meanings hidden in the scenes and still lifes created by the painters”.
