Today is April 30th...2010
and we're here in Panzano in Chianti
to talk to Dario Cecchini
Dario, thank you for your time today.
I'd like to ask you some questions
Sure.
Today we're in Tuscany, in a butcher shop
so why aren't we eating Chianina,
the classic cattle breed of this region?
The whole world talks about races.
both plant-seeds, tomatoes,
with different qualities
and animal "races".
There's hardly any mention
of the only race that I recognize
the artisan.
It's this idea that those who
work with food aren't the subject
unless they're a cook.
Unless it's the celebration of
the cook in the kitchen
getting a Michelin star,
or a chef who takes the raw materials
and transforms it into a wonder.
The concept of the artisan,
the only race that I recognize however,
is to treat the raw materials as the wonder.
The artisan then tries to respect
and make the most of the raw material
It's not a given that a fantastic
raw material corresponds to a race.
A one-to-one correspondence would be too easy
you could just say "Germans are all 
beautiful, good, and generous,
while Romanians are all ugly, dirty, and bad".
Like us, the life of an animal 
depends on context:
it depends on good food, attention,
space to roam.
It has to have a good life,
which is also the dream of every human
but it has to have a death that is,
I won't say without pain,
but as respectful as possible,
and above all the animal has to have an artisan
like me, as I'm talking about butchering,
who accepts the responsibility of having killed.
This is the responsibility of being a carnivore.
And respects the animal he's killed, the meat.
I try to do just this.
With my historic butcher shop
250 years in the Cecchini family
with my head also historic,
because now I'm 55,
but also contemporary,
that is, with the desire
 to find solutions
and above all with the desire not to do
the same-old, same-old.
There are things that are vital,
for God's sake:
it's clear that the food must be organic,
that it has to be clean
I don't think anyone is happy if food is 
contaminated or if the planet is polluted
Above all, though, it should be good
and must be prepared well.
It has to be an animal that has lived well:
it's not enough if it ate
clean vegetables, cereals, and grass
but was in a cage its whole life.
Look, it's not that I don't 
use Chianina-I do.
There is a herd that has chosen 
to breed just Chianina, in Fontodi,
and I'm their butcher,
the farm has me as a their sounding board. 
I slaughter their Chianina,
I try to help, I try to advise them on the
best path for feeding their cows well.
Since we started, the meat improved a lot,
but for me the point is not that it's Chianina.
The name "Chianina" isn't a value!
If instead of Chianina it were a Brown Swiss 
or another race ...it isn't a value!
I find that we are using a series of platitudes
 that are sometimes used to hide the real problem:
that the world must be sized to the artisan.
Otherwise it may be organic, Chianina, 
or any other label you want, 
but if it is all sized to 
the industrial scale, 
like the organic industry in the US, 
it's not to the right scale. 
Sometimes I say that there 
is no difference between
a great chef who has 20 restaurants 
and a McDonald's manager. 
They both do their work
and have two different market segments,
one richer and one poorer,
but the industrial concept is same.
I opened a fast food restaurant 
because everyone hates fast food, everybody 
talks badly about fast food:
the problem is not whether food is fast or not, 
but whether food is good or bad. 
Because if I want to eat a bit quicker,
if you'll excuse me Zach,
that's my damn business!
I don't want the world to be just slow:
it can be a bit "rock," too.
Get it? I don't always want to be at the 
table for 3 hours to see how this wine 
was made in an oak barrel the Syrah Cabernet ,
or only with Sangiovese grapes or by last real 
organic farmer from the last hill in Chianti, 
like the last of Mohicans. 
I want to eat well, to have good 
food at a good price.  
Food has to go back to what it is: food.
A steak is a steak.
It's not God.
I'd like to take this opportunity to go to another question:
where do you agree or disagree
with the Slow Food movement?
I don't agree or disagree with Slow Food.
I just do my work as a craftsmen, an artisan.
I have friends in Slow Food, dear friends,
that follow a different path.
I'm just the artisan butcher Dario Cecchini
from Panzano in Chianti.
I don't have to revolutionize the world,
I don't have a mission,
I'm not religious,
I'm a layperson.
I don't...participate.
The artisan shouldn't become 
the Messiah or a missionary,
the artisan should just continue to do his job.
One time they'll say "Bravo!," 
another time "Worthless!"
You have to have serenity and take
pleasure in your work to do it well.
because that's your center. 
My aim is to get the best out of what I do,
to try to make best use of the material, 
the meat which I have in my hands. 
I can't have just a good fillet,
I also have to take the last piece of beef,
the most difficult cut,
and turn it into something exceptional.
Slow Food does another job. 
Another job. 
The Slow Food movement tells the world
what is good and what is bad.
Not me. I'm an artisan.
-I want to go back to where you
breed your animals in Catalonia. -Yes
Why don't the cows there eat only grass?
Wouldn't it be more natural for a ruminant?
And then, can you tell us about the breeding?
In the traditional farms in Chianti,
the animals ate grass, 
barley and oats.
Animals shouldn't eat mais.
Because ruminants' stomachs are poorly suited
to the acidity that mais creates.
I find that a bit of barley and a little oats
yield richer and more flavorful meat,
because the protein in them
 improves the flavor.
Remember too that grass is 
not the same all year round;
it's ok to give some hay to the animals.
But, I've found that meat from an animal that has eaten
only grass is a bit too strong in flavor for my taste.
Here too it's all about finding a balance.
In America in the last six months of its life
a steer eats only mais
and not any grass.
Everyone thinks the world is black or white:
I think there are all the rainbow's colors,
and I want to learn to see them all.
But I don't know the truth.
I'm not a scientist.
I can tell you that barley and oats give
the animal a bit more than fat,
a little more "elegance" to the meat,
and a bit more of taste.
That's it.
Can meat be "sustainable"?
Can meat can be "sustainable"...?
I don't know if meat can be sustainable
even because there are 
6 billion of us now.
I don't know what a "sustainable" planet would look like.
I'm just a butcher.
I believe the answer is that
meat can be more sustainable
if you work the way I do.
If you use everything,
if you use everything
you kill less,
because there's less need to kill,
because you don't waste anything.
I think,
in my very naive
 idea of sustainability,
if one part of the world, the West,
wastes a lot of food,
then in another part of the world
probably someone is hungry.
It's not just a problem of war,
economics, or power:
I think it's just a problem of balance.
We waste a lot of food and...
and perhaps with good craftsmen, we can learn
to use it in the best way, wasting less.
But I don't know if meat is sustainable.
I don't...
I have a dear friend who wrote a book that
you know, Zach, "The Omnivore's Dilemma"
and he doesn't solve the problem.
I think I can be an inspiration to 
young butchers, to young cooks too.
I believe that if young cooks went to hoe
around the vines in the vineyard
or worked in the winery before
tasting a great bottle of wine,
or if they went to a farm, small too, 
like this one at Panzano 
by Giovanni Manetti
to shovel cow-shit, 
maybe they would understand a bit better,
after, what they have in their hands
when they're the kitchen and have to cook.
Perhaps they would understand
sustainability a bit better
perhaps they would put 
more spirit in their food,
...that's all.
