Gerry Scotti and Covid: “My diet after the virus: I’ll reveal my three health secrets”

Around this time, a year ago, Gerry Scotti era hospitalized for Covid at Humanitas in Milan. Intensive care. Like so many he had lost sense of smell and taste. Once out of the hospital, lost 11 kilos, he has removed the meat. A kind of detox: I followed a vegetarian diet. It was the second time in my life: the first was during the 2020 lockdown, when with my partner and my son Edoardo we didn’t touch it for 40 days, until Easter. Now I limit the quantities: once a week chicken, fish and eggs and rarely the red one. For me, who suffer from high blood pressure, it is better this way.

The call of the countryside

After that bad blow Scotti, 65, returned tirelessly. As a conductor – he has reached a thousand episodes of Free fall – but also how aspiring winemaker: dream one held in the Oltrep Pavese. A choice, that of approaching wine, which he defines as ineluctable. At a certain point in my life – he explains – I wanted something solid, real and palpable like a clod of earth. And so, since 2016, it relies on Giorgi cellars for a line of bottles signed by him. But soon he would like to buy a piece of land: the recall of peasant origins: I spent the summers of my youth in Miradolo Terme with my grandparents to harvest. If I have always had a positive relationship with food, I owe it to those family meals, with good ingredients.

The health secrets and the turmoil for pizza

Today he still follows those rules: I don’t eat never out of hours, if I can’t be regular I prefer to skip. For me, eating means sitting down and respecting the times and rhythms of the table. Special diets? Never follow. I have no food-related disorders: I’m a good fork but I don’t binge. And I have my little health secrets: in May, the month of Our Lady, I do a foil as my mother taught me. I give up wine, drinks and aperitifs and lose 5-6 kilos. The only thing I don’t get is a glass of red at dinner. Then: on Sunday evening I only prepare rolled oats with milk, while for at least 50 Mondays a year I have dinner with minestrone. Now I weigh 110 kilos, I should lose ten: as soon as my knee is put back in place, I commit myself to it. At home he sometimes tries his hand at the stove: Some barbecues, but they make me do little because they say it’s dirty around. Favorite restaurants? I have many starred chef friends for I’m more of a trattoria type. I go to Milan from Arlati, dai Montina brothers, at the “Calanca” o all’“Home corner” for the fish. My favorite dishes are from the Po Valley, but the only food for which I have a crowd Pizza. Here, I could also eat that frozen, at night.