In quarantine, in the forced silence, the ladle took hold and just like that, in my thoughts, I found myself making “fioretti” for scenarios of pure pleasure of cooking delicacies to share with the family. It represented for me the idea of a hearth. “Anche i cartoni mangiano” (“Even cartoons eat”) is born out of this strange moment in which cooking, tasting and sharing intersect with a kind of regression. Transformed into cartoons, Nat and Dado roam the countryside of Le Marche, through dreams, cravings for distant foods and pop imagery of Japanese cartoons of our youth. Nat and Dado reconstruct foods drawn with the sublime local products, coming together with the exceptional manufacturers of this magical region, building a recipe book of impossible desire. 

This project has been commissioned by the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre of New Delhi. In a time like this where creativity needs support, we thank them for their trust in us and for allowing this pilot project to see the light of day. I thank fellow adventurer Natascia Fenoglio, the small jade-coloured Fiat Panda that brought us to the hills of Le Marche, and all the people who instinctively became a part of this endeavour out of friendship and passion. A small but ever-growing project of social proximity.