Creation by Diego Poli Mattia Pastori For many recipes Honey, which provides energy and is easy to digest, should be part of your daily diet. Furthermore, it can be used in food preparation, including homemade ones, in savoury cakes and roasts, in vegetable carpaccio or in puddings; it isn’t only for gourmet cuisine. To stimulate the reinterpretation of dishes from the Italian culinary culture and the search for new flavour pairings, the National Honey Observatory is promoting a competition called “A dish with honey”, an initiative that helps rediscover the value of this versatile food. Widely used in the pastry arts in recipes that range from traditional Italian leavened desserts and including baked cakes and creamy desserts, honey also attracts the attention of gelato chefs in the creation of churned gelato that unite nutritional value with flavour and presentation. Innovative experiments Even mixology has approached honey with interest in exploring the potential of using it as a “pure” ingredient instead of using sugars or syrups. Bartender Mattia Pastori has researched for Mielizia some special recipes, starting with mead, the first fermented drink in the world thanks to the use of honey. “Fruit mead 2.0” combines clementine honey with Mexican tepache and classic mead. The “Americano” cocktail was reinterpreted in a low alcohol version, following the latest trends, by playing with its texture and flavours. Its recipe uses chestnut honey, and bee pollen mixed with salt is used as a rim on the glass. Another interesting area of experimentation is with chocolate. Mielizia and Barry Callebaut are developing a line of gourmet products that remove any barriers between sweetness and pleasurable bitterness, all based on the common values of the two companies, that is, transparency and sustainability. The project was presented on the occasion of World Bee Day with a cooking demonstration held by Chef Diego Poli of the Barry Callebaut Chocolate Academy. The dark chocolate sorbet enriched with bee pollen and a milk chocolate praline with chestnut honey revealed to be surprising “previews” of the research journey that they embarked together. 25
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