In Memoriam

Music and wine for Silvio Trevisani

Alberto Capatti

 

In the history of any journal,

there are places where people

meet, there are people who have

been behind an article without

necessarily writing it and, more

importantly, there are friendships

and relationships that may be

unannounced and private but to

which much is owed. Slow is no

exception, and it is only in tragic

or exceptional circumstances that

the secret identity of those people

can be revealed. Silvio Trevisani

was one of the most significant

and, for many years, he hosted our

editorial meetings at his home in

Milan’s Via San Gottardo, chairing

them with the authority derived

from a life dedicated to journalism.

Without ever being a ‘signature’,

he had an innate sense for commu-

nication and brought it to those ar-

eas, such as food culture, in which

he had never worked, making

sense of them and steering ideas in

a particular direction. It was he

who, after many, complicated

meetings to draw up a plan for an

association that wanted to create

an international magazine but had

no experience and that was wildly,

tentatively searching for a suitable

name, whispered in my ear without

wanting to over-emphasize the

blinding simplicity of the idea:

“What should it be called? Why,

it’s obvious….Slow!”

Slow owes much to friendship—to

that friendship that binds together

the three or four people who creat-

ed it and to that friendship that

makes contacts, articles and col-

laboration still an ongoing experi-

ence. In a journal about food cul-

ture, conviviality is essential: first

drinking, then eating and, around

a laden table (for many years past

and present this was Angelo Bis-

solotti’s Osteria del Treno in Mi-

lan), pulling together themes and

ideas for articles and illustrations.

The pleasure of these encounters

derives from the appreciation that

this was the true reward of an edi-

torial project that is reborn with

every new issue and that ideas are

generated through a form of attri-

tion made up of goodwill, differ-

ences, intelligence and a sense of

humor. Silvio Trevisani brought to

all this his talent as an actor, his

alternately smiling, cautious, wise

face, an expressiveness construct-

ed around aphorisms and the ges-

tures of a man on top of life, but

who never set himself up as a

model. His work at the Unità was

coming to an end when he began

to work for Slow but, though he

spared us his probably bitter-

sweet memories, this was so obvi-

ously a new start—the real start—

in life, that he never once made

us think that, beyond this, lay the

life of a pensioner.

From the appearance of Slow at

the first Salone del Gusto in Turin

Food, for which he organized the

communications, Silvio’s influence

spread and was felt in many other

areas. In the same way, personal

relationships were strengthened

and led some, myself for example,

to believe that it is was to him that

we could always turn to help us re-

focus attention on the fundamental

and enduring issues about infor-

mation on food, when a lack of this

had led us astray towards gastro-

nomic triviality or eccentricity.

However, I have another, com-

pletely different memory of when,

with a crafty twinkle in his eye, he

involved us in minor battles of

taste in a risotto workshop against

a chef who, for his sins, had natu-

rally served up Carnaroli rice to

two Lombards with the heart of