WHAT'S NEW IN THE KITCHEN? “COOKING FOR IMPOSTORS” AMAZES GUESTS WITH HIGH QUALITY CANNED MEALS: LOW COST VIDEORECIPES ON YOUTUBE FROM THE ”TIN CAN CHEF”, MARCO SQUIZZATO

What’s the new trend in cooking? Saving time and money, using mostly canned ingredients easily found in any supermarket and skillfully mixed together to create dishes that look expensive and surprise the eyes and palates of your guests. This is the new recipe in times of crisis, made famous by Falsarius Chef, the Spanish gourmet, blogger and collaborator on the El Pais newspaper. He was tired of the arrogance of the great chefs, so he published a cookbook, which quickly became a bestseller: “Cooking for impostors” or, how to appear to be a great chef without knowing anything about the culinary art. He invented a low-cost cuisine, based on canned food and guaranteed success. Now, this stylish low cost and highly effective cuisine has arrived in Italy, with videorecipes by the tin can chef, “Rompiscatole” (rompiscatole literally means can breaker) Marco Squizzato. He produces creative dishes in minutes, using mostly canned ingredients easily found in any supermarket, but skillfully blended together to create dishes that look expensive and astonish the eyes and the palate.

A channel totally dedicated to video recipes by the most “can breaking” chef in Italy is already on Youtube with the first step by step recipes you can copy or get inspiration from (http://www.youtube.com/user/RompiscatoleInCucina). An example? A can of beans, two cans of squid in American sauce, a small jar of fried onion rings, garlic, chili pepper oil and salt. To prepare: just combine the ingredients in a sauté pan over high heat for a few minutes, and then serve a great “Obama style seafood stew”. The names of the dishes are very tempting. Other examples are “Bread drowned in creamy sauce of peas and timbale of tuna with lemon”, or a lighter, summer dish “Garden of cereals, legumes and vegetables”. The impromptu chef can easily cook a whole meal without fresh ingredients and make a good impression on his or her guests. These recipes may sound like heresy to purists of Italian cooking, but “can breaking” is beginning to find its niche in Italy. Italians have a true devotion to friends, family and partners and everyone takes pleasure in impressing their loved ones with a meal worthy of a great chef, especially when all you need to prepare a good meal is a can opener.

Some say the can breaker (Rompiscatole) was inspired by the most famous chefs in Italy: Gianfranco Vissani who, some years ago invented and together with the National Steel Consortium, held the first course on “Cooking out of a can” creating refined dishes using canned foods. Moreno Cedroni, in his taste “Workshop” offers his best canned food creations to enjoy delicious dishes and save time and money.
Foods stored in cans are much healthier than what you might think: they are free of preservatives and are not subject to external attacks like light, which alters the nutritional principals of food. They are also safer since they cannot be attacked by outside agents, which in fresh products can have very serious consequences, as in the case of the milk-blue ink and the contaminated water scandal. “We are delighted”, said Rosolino Redaelli, President of Anfima, the National Association of Metal Packaging Manufacturers, “that canned food, 200 years after its creation, is a new trend in contemporary cuisine, especially in this particular historical moment where the choice for overcoming the economic crisis is a combination of image and savings”. “Canned food cuisine” is cheap, good and abundant. The UN has chosen the inventor of this new trend, Chef Falsarius, to be part of the humanitarian project “Chefs Against Hunger”.

Source: Adnkronos