LOUCO POR CAFE'

Brief summary

After moving to Brazil in 1996, Antonello Monardo from Calabria has become synonymous with fine coffee in Brasilia, where he lives and runs a gourmet coffee roasting business and a training school for professional baristas, whom he personally teaches to produce coffee of the very highest standard. In great demand in all the top bars and restaurants in the federal capital, the book "Pazzo per il caffè, Antonello Monardo” (Crazy about coffee, Antonello Monardo) is not only the result of a good technique but the outcome of a story which began at the beginning of the 20th century when the last wave of Italian emigrants crossed the Atlantic Ocean to find work on the coffee plantations in San Paolo.
One of these emigrants was Domenico Monardo, Antonello’s grandfather. His short and tragic experience in the coffee plantations on the San Paolo farms in the 1920s however left one child with the same name an orphan but sowed a great seed in the mind of his grandson, who was born in Calabria. "Pazzo per il caffè, Antonello Monardo" presents the right mixture of passion, success of an Italian entrepreneur and the memories of his childhood in Calabria as he grew up sipping coffee made in the Moka pot in his family’s kitchen in Reggio Calabria. More than anything, though, it is a tribute to his Italian ancestors who took over from slave labour in the coffee plantations in Brazil and who made this land their home, learning to love it as much as the Brazilians themselves. Translated into Italian by the same Antonello Monardo, the new book, published by Senac-DF, is both a guide to understanding the history of coffee in Brazil and an educational manual on the art of blending, roasting, grinding and drinking this Brazilian beverage par excellence. The main text of "Pazzo per il caffè, Antonello Monardo" is by Leandro Fortes, author of other works published by Senac de Distretto Federale, including "Beirut - Aromi, amori e sapori", "Il Bistró di Alice" and "Gula d'Africa". There is also a series of comic strips drawn by Luigi Pedone and pictures by photographer Daniel Madsen illustrating the coffee recipes created specially for the readers.