Page 9 - 2020 ICCO Canada Pentola d'Oro - Under the Stars

Invitation to the Voyage
by ICCO Canada Executive Director Corrado Paina

There has always been a recurring theme of the courageous, thrilling journey of immigration
from Italy: an immense knowledge of food.
Our fourth publication of “Buon appetito Toronto!” narrates the story of the flourishing
expansion of avant-garde Italian importers and restaurateurs to the land of lakes.
This story is not going to end because of Covid-19, because it is the story of human beings, of tasting
the creation of things and connecting our body to the outside, of sitting at a table and trying to explain
the world.
Italian cuisine, which we are all keenly aware of, is the unfolding of complex feelings and dynamics.
According to a famous phrase etched on an exterior airport building in Rome, “Italians are a people of saints,
poets and sailors.”
In the food narrative, there‘s faith, poetry and adventure.
To paraphrase Baudelaire, it is an invitation to the voyage. And Italian food invites you to an unforgettable and never-ending trip.
Throughout the years, Pentola d’Oro has only recognized a small part of those who are and have been at the vanguard of a legion
that has filled the city, the GTA, the province of Ontario, and this country. All of these serve as outposts of food and wine, shelters
of taste and reflection.
Tonight’s winners are an expression of a trend, of a way of life, of a belief that food must be flavourful, healthy and pleasurable, and it
must be drizzled by a great olive oil and wed to a fantastic wine.
Pentola d’Oro combined the idea of integrity, tradition and innovation as set out by the owners and the Italian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and International Cooperation, through the True Italian Taste project, and by the inner laws of well- living.
I salute the winners as well as all of those that imported the first Italian products, the little bottegai, the familiar small supermarket
owners, the corner store entrepreneurs, the bakers, the ice cream makers in England, the banana sellers at the corners of Toronto’s
main streets, the first staff members of New York’s fruit markets, the first Tuscan wine-makers in California. The list goes on.
While they might not all have a name, Pentola d’Oro remembers their work and the roads that they have laid out.

Pentola d’Oro celebrates this kinship, in the name of Italian food and wine, in the name of good living.

ICCO Canada Pentola d’Oro – Under The Stars 2020 Winners:
Pentola d’Oro Award Gabriele Torchetti, President, Lady York Foods
Italy-Canada Award Chef Massimo Capra, Owner, Capra’s Kitchen
Lifetime Achievement Award Joe Pulla, President, Johnvince Group of Companies
Innovative Entrepreneur Award Salvatore Mele, Principal, Mele Group
Italian Wine Award Halpern Enterprises

Corrado Paina
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