Add a legume to the table, in the menu of 150 Slow Food chefs

On February 10, in over 150 restaurants and pizzerias from the north to the south of the peninsula, legumes become the protagonists of the menus.

After the success of the first edition, "Add a legume to the table" is back, the initiative launched by the Chiocciola association and its youth network to celebrate World Legume Day promoted by FAO, together with the chefs of the Slow Food Alliance.

In the world, recalls the Slow Beans network, there are 300 legumes on board the Ark of Taste, of which 124 in Italy, and 48 legumes in Italy are Slow Food Presidia.

"The current food production system does not guarantee food safety and health, it sacrifices the environment and social justice. The consequences of this nefarious system are the serious crises we are experiencing.

To counter them we need political actions capable of revolutionizing the current paradigm and everyone can do their part, starting with changing their eating habits, one meal at a time.

By rediscovering legumes, a versatile and indispensable ingredient for a healthy and balanced diet", underlines Roberta Billitteri, vice president of Slow Food Italy. And to learn all the secrets of legumes in the kitchen, Billitteri adds, "there is nothing better than relying to the chefs of the Alliance who know the territories, build relationships with the producers and offer us delicious recipes". Over 150 chefs from the Slow Food Italy and Slow Food Youth Network Italy (SFYN) have joined the appeal

Among the legumes we find, for example, the zolfino bean, which the Il Tirabuscio restaurant in Bibbiena (Arezzo) enhances with a soup based on giant Vercelli rice, another Slow Food Presidium, the straight furrowed chickpea, of which Tiziana Favi, cook of Namo Ristobottega in Tarquinia, she uses the cooking water, the acquafaba, to obtain an original vegetable mayonnaise and finally the Carpino bean, which is combined with turnip tops and cocoa beans in the pizza of Vincenzo Florio, chef of Senti che Pizza in Bari.