COOKING SHOWS: ITALIAN WINERIES ARE SENDING THEIR CHEFS AROUND THE WORLD TO TEACH ITALIAN CUISINE. WHAT’S HAPPENING IN ITALY? CLASSES, COMPANY EVENTS, BOOM OF CHEFS ON TV, IN MAGAZINES - COOKING COURSES ARE EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK

Would you like to learn to cook Italian? You can take your pick: ad hoc courses offered by virtually all companies, under expert guidance, events that become lessons and workshops dedicated to cooking fans and the boom of cooks who give tips and reveal secrets and recipes in magazines and on TV. Now in Italy you can learn to “cook” almost anywhere. The cooking craze is not limited only to Italian borders, though. More and more Italian wineries are sending their chefs to teach Italian cooking around the world, forming new on site professionals and giving our cuisine the position it deserves: the best “ambassador” for our wines. There are many wineries linked to a long tradition in the wine world, that periodically send their chefs to hold training courses for “colleagues” who work in restaurants around the world and teach them how to pair each wine to the right dish (like the case of Frescobaldi, while Allegrini has a team of chefs that accompanies its wines everywhere). The international spotlight is often more focused on case histories in Italy: according to the famous American magazine “Saveur”, one of the 100 things a gourmet absolutely must try is the “Cooking Class with Salvatore Denaro” at the Caprai winery in Umbria that has some of the most innovative cooking courses.
“Motorhomes”, restaurants on wheels, where you taste wines while great chefs take turns cooking at the stove, that go from place to place teaching the culture of food and wine. The “Meregalli Motorhomes”, which are refined lounges sponsored by the wine distributors in Italy, are based on the same concept. There is virtually no winery in Italy that doesn’t host an occasional cooking class and the big names like the Sicilian Tasca d’Almerita or the Tuscans Fattoria del Colle di Trequanda, Badia a Coltibuono and Castel Monastero in Chianti Classico, have become institutions with larger projects and a view towards high quality.
Some wineries like Argiolas in Sardinia have created new spaces just for cooking classes. Italy also boasts two important institutions that are training centers in all respects, where you study and research culture and the culinary arts: Alma, the International School of Italian Cuisine led by the “Maestro” Gualtiero Marchesi in Colorno (Parma), and Slow Food’s University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo (Cuneo).

Events are a case in point: there is no event where stoves are not lit to host cooking workshops or showcooking with great chefs. And the event can become a moment of direct marketing at 360 degrees, like at the Pentole Agnelli Company’s Center for Research and Training SAPS, in Bergamo, chosen by the National Italian Chefs Organization for the selection of new cooks for their team.
The fast cooking courses in pullouts of the most famous wine & food magazines (“La Cucina Italiana”, “A Tavola”) know no crisis – and even the major newspapers and national magazine - publishing groups (such as “Gambero Rosso” or “Italia a Tavola”) use all the channels available to “cook”, from paper to television, from websites to TV Web. Then there is the blog phenomenon and the “democratic revolution” that permits anyone to teach cooking classes from home.

But the cooking craze has already gone beyond: the boom of TV chefs, cooking on the small screen in prime time and new “talent-shows” are sprouting in every corner. There is nothing more reassuring than food and television has decided to return to it: like the double-digit share of the format “The Night of the Chefs” conducted by Alfonso Signorini on Channel 5 shows, or the world famous “MasterChef”, coming soon to Italy on Sky. And large distribution is not standing in the background either: the “flagship” of the chain “Iper, la grande I” (Hyper, the big I) for example, is the cooking classes “Notebooks and Stoves” that teaches from basic techniques to the most complex dishes of Italian cuisine in the Ideal Space Kitchen in Events Space at Iper in Milan.
The latest trend is called “cook-sharing”: the “shared restaurant” is the brainchild of two young Milanese entrepreneurs, Claudio Garosci and Valeria Baggia, who will open their restaurant at the end of September, where customers will be cooking for themselves and their friends, 24 hours a day, where all ingredients are always available and prices are low.