Chefs and food experts cook for their art during food fair in Rome

With a keen obsession in specialty foods rising, Rome hosts the Cooking for Art Roma event, where food and wine producers got to showcase their rare products

Brushwood flavoured spaghetti, pork ravioli, mountain cheese and other delicacies took centre stage when some of Italy's best chefs and food producers gathered in Rome.
They were at top restaurant Open Colonna for the three-day 'Cooking for Art Roma' event. The extravaganza was organised by the food guide publishing house Witaly in October to promote high-quality food and featured cooking demonstrations from the best-known chefs in the most beautiful Dolomites resorts of Cortina D'Ampezzo, Madonna di Campiglio and the Fiemme Valley. Food and wine producers also showcased rare products - bread from Matera, the fig specialties of Santomiele loved by British monarch Queen Elizabeth, and delicious wine from 24-year-old producer Giovanni Ederle.
"This event is a great opportunity to present our territory and cuisine," Alessandro Gilmozzi, owner of the El Molin restaurant in Cavalese. "I have a passion for the plants of Val di Fiemme and make unique dishes which have certain similarities to Danish and Swedish cuisine." Gilmozzi is the only Italian chef to offer avant-garde cuisine based on products from the undergrowth in the woods of the Dolomites such as resins and lichens.
The grandson and nephew of two botanists, Gilmozzi personally scans the woods of the Fiemme Valley to look for the ingredients he uses in his kitchen. His specialties include delicious wood flavoured spaghettis and lamb cooked with goat milk and lichens. Top chef Felice Lo Basso, whose shrimp canederlo, or bread ball, is cooked in a porcini mushroom broth and served with crunchy Dolomites' speck would make any mouth water.
Lo Basso comes from the southern Puglia region, lives in the central seaside resort Rimini and works during the high season at the top restaurant of the Alpenroyal Hotel in the country's north.
"I take pride in representing the many traditions of Italian cuisine, from the south to the Dolomites," he told ANSA. One of the purest waters in the world, the Filette from Ciociaria in Lazio, which has been bottled since 1894, was also featured in Rome.
It is only served in Italy's top restaurants such as Heinz Beck's La Pergola in Rome, one of the few in Italy with three Michelin stars.
Gianni Schiuma, head of the bread consortium of Matera told ANSA his group is working to boost the distribution of this rare bread - which is entirely made with whole grains from Lucania and yeast obtained by dissolving fresh fruit in water.
"Everything is handmade and this is one of the few Italian breads to have the IGP top quality labelling of the European Union," he said.
Another little known southern Italian delicacy are the figs of Santomiele, a small company based in Prignano Cilento, near Salerno.
Prepared in a variety of forms, such as traditional Christmas confections, the figs are stuffed with delicious hazelnuts or covered in chocolate.
"We make a limited amount of products, whose connoisseurs include the Queen of England, because everything is top quality," Santomiele Manager Antonio Longo.