PIATTOUNICO by Marta Lavinia Carboni

Designer Marta Lavinia Carboni signs the edition of a new ceramic plate for Senato Caffé.

Piattounico is the result of a project started in 2010 by designer Marta Lavinia Carboni, creator of Piattipici, a collection inspired by an increasingly multi-ethnic Milan. 
 
Piattipici tells how cooking is the most immediate way to get in touch with cultures other than one's own. 
 
After a quantitative analysis of the ethnic groups present in Milan, the designer asked one inhabitant from each ethnic group which typical dish of their country they could prepare with the ingredients available in Milan.

 

​Once the data collection was finished, the recipes of the different culinary traditions - borcht (Ukraine), encebollado (Ecuador), falafel (Egypt), ceviche (Peru) - were transformed into colourful patterns that tell the story of the preparation or appearance of the finished dishes, thanks to micro-graphic acrobatics declined in eight macro-colour areas.

Piattounico represents a spin-off dedicated to Senato Hotel Milano.

It tells the story of Milan, its local cuisine, and the story of its most famous dish, in name and in fact, because it was produced in a limited edition of 24 specially made examples. The pattern describes the preparation of saffron risotto with the grains blending, becoming richer and softer. The colours are those of the ingredients that make it justly balanced for being a single dish: peas and ossobuco, as well as rice, saffron and onion (for the sauté!). With a touch of golden yellow, à la Gualtiero Marchesi.

"Cooking is the first way to get in touch with different cultures as eating other people's food seems easier than decoding their language. Even more than language, therefore, food lends itself to mediating between different cultures, opening up cooking systems to all sorts of inventions, cross-fertilisation and contamination."

Massimo Montanari, Il mondo in cucina (ed. Laterza, 2006)