Maria Pia Favaretto: food is all about conviviality and togetherness

2017-10-06 Maria Pia Favaretto of Venice is a creative artist who knows how to lend wings to her ideas and make them soar, rather than flapping about. Perhaps this is the secret to her success: looking up, but keeping the soles of her feet firmly planted on the earth.
She has been working in the field of corporate communication for more than two decades. She founded and directed Publica Srl between 1989 and 2006, a corporate communication agency whose campaigns have bene adopted in countries including China, Singapore and India.
Since 2008 she has been teaching Marketing and Corporate Communication at Padua University, and since 2011, she has also taught Communication Strategy and Media Planning in the Web marketing & Digital Communication and Creativity and Communication design master’s programme at Iusve (Istituto Universitario Salesiano di Venezia) in Venice.
At Iusve, she was one of the creators of a much-appreciated master’s programme entitled Food & Wine 3.0 - Web Marketing & Digital Communication, in its third edition this year.
What is the ingredient you can’t do without, Maria Pia?
“I loved using oregano all summer. But lately I’ve been using a lot of turmeric. It’s because the coming season is the season of yellow ochre .”
What is the funniest item in your kitchen?
“My little scale. I don’t really use it much, because I always follow my instincts rather than measuring, but it’s reassuring to have it on hand. Plus it looks nice and I like having it around.”
Is there a recipe you do particularly well?
“Perhaps risotto, in all its forms. From seafood risotto to vegetable risotto. And arancini made with leftover day-old cooked rice. When I manage to get out and go shopping, I let myself get carried away by all the different seasonal produce I find at the market in Venice. Ingredients are essential, because that’s where it all starts.”
What traits do you admire in a chef?
“A cook who makes the most of the flavour of the ingredients. The materials must always dominate over the artifice. I love creativity that demonstrates respect for nature. I like to eat broccoli that tastes like broccoli, raspberries that taste like raspberries, sea bass that tastes like sea bass. When I encounter dishes that are too complicated, with lots of sauces and different ingredients put together, so that they fail to emphasise the main subject of the dish, I wonder why. And then the way the dish is served, the colours and appearance are essential nourishment for the eyes.”
What’s the meaning of food, in your experience?
“Food is conviviality, as far as I’m concerned. It’s being together. It’s communicating with others, in the sense of sharing, of having things in common. There’s a unique intimacy about talking together over a meal. I recall many important moments in my private and professional life that have taken place at the table. The Food & Wine 3.0 master’s programme was an intuition and a decision made over a special lunch at Venissa, on the island of Mazzorbo, with an outstanding chef, the excellent Antonia Klugmann.”
 
Mariagrazia Villa