“We should eat everything from an animal”

I know that many people feel nervous about brains — because either they make them feel squeamish or the BSE crisis has made them scared. If we look back into history, though, we can see that a very large proportion of the world’s population has been eating things like this for thousands of years.

I really believe we should eat everything from an animal; it doesn’t make sense to eat only ?llets and steaks, which make up only a small percentage. In Italy, just as I feel salumi represents the traditional food of the people, so too do the recipes for brains, kidneys and feet, since the prime cuts were for the rich people only.

A dish of fried brains says more to me about Italian food than something like tournedos rossini, which is only the grand idea of a composer, not at all re?ective of what the rest of the people ate.

Brains are very popular in Northern Italy, to the point that people used to say that if you ate them, they would make you clever. That’s what my grandmother used to say to my brother Roberto all the time, when he complained that they were soft and he didn’t like the texture — even though she used to keep them in the oven until we came home, so they were really, really crispy on the outside. I always loved them; I thought the sweetness was fantastic, and I liked the quite weird way they were crispy and then so soft inside you didn’t need to chew; they just disappeared in your mouth — a bit like arancini, the fried balls of risotto.

At Locanda, we don’t often put brains on the menu, because not many people order them, but we have regular customers who love them, and we will always cook them for them, as a special.

We serve them cooked in two ways, deep-fried and shallow-fried, on either side of a big square plate (cervello fritto e al saltimbocca). To prepare the brains, you have to wash them gently under water, so that you can take the skin off. The ones that are going to be deep-fried are ?rst passed through some ?our, beaten egg and ?ne breadcrumbs before they go into the hot oil. Next to them, we usually serve a little salad and a very strong salsa verde made with more capers than usual.

We experimented for some time to ?nd another, more unusual way of cooking the brains to serve alongside the deep-fried ones, and eventually came up with the idea of rolling them, like a cigar, inside a slice of prosciutto. Then we sauté them in a non-stick pan with just a ?lm of oil, and a little butter towards the end, and serve them on a bed of stewed leeks, with a sharp Marsala sauce over the top. It is a dish that looks and tastes fantastic.