Brushing your teeth with lasagna toothpaste
Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: toothpaste with lasagna flavor.
The last time I was in Italy and had forgotten to pack toothpaste, I happily headed to the nearest Tuscan drugstore. After all the food and wine shopping, local household products come in a good second place for shopping pleasure abroad, in my opinion. The haul: an interesting greenish substance from a beautiful tube, which tasted fresh and spicy – not just mint, there was also something of sage and rosemary in it. That may sound odd, but just wait until you read what this Italian chef came up with for toothpaste.
Inspired by the nostalgia of sneaking cold lasagna leftovers from the fridge as a child, Valerio Braschi came up with the idea for this extremely special ‘dish’. Braschi, who won Masterchef Italia at the age of eighteen as the youngest chef ever, now runs the innovative restaurant Ristorante 1978 in Rome, where he is given free rein to experiment. One day, when a business partner walked in with a set of empty tubes to fill himself, the gears in his mega-creative brain started turning and the idea for: toothpaste lasagna was born. Or lasagna toothpaste, it’s just how you see it.
You want this in your toiletry bag
Named Lasagna 2021 this is a dish based on his loving memories of lasagna in his childhood, ’when the first thing we did in the morning was sneak lasagna from the fridge, because it tastes even better the next day. As breakfast, it’s pure magic, I still eat that.’ From the tube, the guest squeezes lasagna puree onto a toothbrush made of pasta. You might be able to scrub with that, but we think just eating it is a better idea. Then you rinse afterwards (and just swallow it down) with a cup of broth made from very old Parmesan cheese.
This is how chef Valerio Braschi makes his special dish:
The special dish is part of a ten-course tasting menu and has already been tasted by previous lucky guests, but unfortunately cannot be experienced at this moment. Ristorante 1978 is temporarily closed due to the lockdown, but Braschi is doing everything he can to reopen on February 1st, hopefully when Italian hospitality can reopen again. And if you want to get started at home and have suddenly gotten a craving for (suddenly very ordinary, but still incredibly delicious) lasagna, then you will find a top recipe here to step by step make the perfect lasagna.
