Do you remember the hazelnut flour Annarita used to make the gnocchi for the challenge?
And what about the prickly pear flour in Roberta Cornali's gnocchi, the one that the Community Interest Algorithm has practically gone crazy for?
And some other flour scattered throughout the challenge, since I haven't seen all the gnocchi yet, praised and praised because it's completely oil-free?
Now that the competition is over, we can finally reveal the mystery: who is behind these new products that truly struck me on my last trip home. So powerful was it that it instantly transformed me into a flour and oil pusher, involving everyone I met along the way, from Genoa to Sing Sing: his name is Andrea Parodi, and his story is that of a passionate and romantic entrepreneur, a torrent of words that completely overwhelms you.
The strangest thing is that we were neighbors for twenty years, without ever meeting.
When I say "neighbors," I mean to take it almost literally: same neighborhood, same street, just a few house numbers between their respective addresses. Never met, not even briefly.
This gentleman introduced us (yes, he has a blog—and what a blog…) when Il Parodi and I were separated by a seven-hour time difference and 10,000 km. But perhaps it was meant to be this way: because in these thirty years, it's not just our addresses that have changed, but our lives. And now there's something that wasn't there before: MTC, on the one hand, and a really cool company, on the other.
I'll cut it short: Andrea presses seeds, of all kinds, and extracts the purest oils. He started out in cosmetics, then moved on to food, earning huge recognition both abroad and now in Italy. I'm not sure I can say it yet (and in fact, I won't), but it's likely one of his oils will end up on the menu of one of Italy's most famous Michelin-starred restaurants, with TV appearances and so on. In between, there are all the semi-finished products, the so-called "functional flours," which are completely fat-free and highly concentrated in proteins. Besides adding new flavors to our dishes, they're also beneficial to the body.
Prickly pear flour, for example, helps you lose weight. They're all obviously gluten-free, and they all contain different nutrients, but they're maximized to be effective. And I'll skip over their variety: the more traditional hazelnut and almond flours are joined by carrot, pomegranate, prickly pear flours—and anything else you can think of, because Andrea is a compulsive and unstoppable juicer.
The icing on the cake is his approach to business. He involves producers and respects the local area. There's no separation between the company and the rest of the world: it's a network of relationships, based on dialogue and shared planning, including financial planning, as Sergio Rossi beautifully explains in his latest book, dedicated to Chiavarese hazelnuts, Andrea's latest adventure.
The invitation to buy it is threefold: it's by Sergio, it talks about a wonderful product, to which Andrea Parodi is intimately attached and... ta..dan... there are also illustrations by Mai: because there is no passion of the undersigned that is not shared, first by my dearest friends, and immediately after by the MTChallenge.
Right now, I don't know what we'll do with Il Parodi and its products. What I do know is that we'll move forward, whatever ideas come to mind. And the first step is this interview, by our very own Francesca Carloni, in which Andrea opens up about himself, with the enthusiasm and expertise that have always driven him. (And which will perhaps lead him to open an e-commerce site for private individuals, sooner or later, since he doesn't have one yet :)…
1. To paraphrase a famous song by Sergio Endrigo, if it takes wood to make a table, it takes seeds to make Il Parodi: because it's from seeds that it all began. Can you tell us your story, briefly?
I'm Ligurian, born in Genoa in 1964, married with two children, and a degree in architecture. Some have called me an architect "on loan" to nature. Drawing on a family tradition of oil processing, I founded Parodi Nutra in 2003. Day after day, I nurtured my dream, striving to make it a reality. To extract from every seed and fruit its precious oil, the energy the seed needs to grow into a tree, and make it available to the final consumer in its "original version"... exactly as it is, with nothing added or taken away.
This month's challenge focuses on gnocchi. Annarita, who proposed them, made them with your hazelnut flour, with more than satisfactory results. But what if we wanted to use a different flour for this dish? In short, can you share a recipe with us? 🙂
I'd definitely recommend making gnocchi with almond flour, as it doesn't have a strong flavor due to its sweetness. However, it has a great advantage: it makes the gnocchi very soft and doesn't overpower the flavor of the sauce, such as pesto. The light flavor of the almonds doesn't overpower the flavor, and it's also high in protein and calcium. We had Christophe Saintagne try the gnocchi at Papillon in Paris, and he was thrilled!
article in MTC N.59
