Here We Are: What Makes Us Human

63. Chef Marta Sandini [Food, Fermentation, and Foraging]

• Joy Bork • Episode 63

Share episode

When I met Marta at her London restaurant, Naughty Piglets, in August of 2022, I knew immediately that we'd be nerd friends. And let me tell you. We are.

This episode goes deep into the power of fermentation, how vinegars and acids impact food flavor, and the beauty of foraging. Enjoy the happiness!


Check out Here We Are on Instagram, Facebook, or Patreon!

Joy Blue:

Welcome to Here We Are. The podcast where we celebrate the beauty of being a nerd by learning about nerdy things from fellow nerds. I'm your host, Joy Blue. After taking a little hiatus in order to move, settle, and rest. I am so excited to be back. Moving forward, I will be releasing episodes as I'm able instead of weekly. This gives me the flexibility to shift publishing to match my freelance work style. All of that to say today's episode is going to be a fan favorite. I just know it. Brie and I met today's guest in August of 2022 in the heart of London. She's a creative, dynamic, and whimsical human with a love for crafting amazing food. There's so much more I could say about her in this intro, but instead, let me let her speak for herself. Without further ado. Here's my friend, chef Marta Sandini.

Marta Sandini:

I'm Marta. I'm Italian, and I live in London. I'm just a simple chef, which is trying to make people happy. This is my main goal and I'm a big fermentation nerd. And I didn't like vinegars until a few years ago.

Joy Blue:

What? What do you mean you didn't like them?

Marta Sandini:

I didn't like vinegar's fermentation in any of my meals. I discovered them when I moved to Slovenia to work for Hisa Franco. And that place introduced me to a different world of food vinegars. And there I start to realize that that was my missing piece of the puzzle in my tastebuds.

Joy Blue:

So the basic framework for cooking I have in my head, um, is from Samine Nosrat, where she talks about, you know, salt, fat, acid, and heat. So what I just heard you say is you're, you were missing acid.

Marta Sandini:

Yes,

Joy Blue:

Brie and I have been on an acid kick for quite a while by incorporating citrus into things, how does it lighten it up? But we haven't played with vinegars yet. So can you tell me more about that moment when your opinion changed? Because it sounds like you were very firm. No vinegars for.

Marta Sandini:

I was. So what happened is I did a two week trial on this restaurant. It's one of the 50 best restaurant in the world. And I had to come up with a dish to convince the chef to work there. And I had a week to study her taste, like, to understand what she likes. I don't like copy recipes. I need to own taste. So what happened: just one day, I just found out we had Mochas, you know, the mochas to make coffee.

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Marta Sandini:

So she asked me for a warm, savory walnut dish. So I thought about coffee, and I don't like coffee. I'm a real fake Italian. I don't drink wine. I don't.

Joy Blue:

Fake Italian.

Marta Sandini:

But in my head, coffee was working. And coffee's quite acid. As a bitter acid. Um, so in that coffee, I mix the Caffe coffee with uh, Portini powder.

Joy Blue:

Oh,

Marta Sandini:

Make a coffee and then I added salt and I made that cheese and walnut make foam to make kind of a cappuccino.

Joy Blue:

what?

Marta Sandini:

Yeah, I have no idea how that come up. Like I have no idea where it was hiding in my head. This thing. It came out and she put it at the end and she put it on her book

Joy Blue:

Wow.

Marta Sandini:

put my name on the book, so I have it here downstairs is my name with my own recipe.

Joy Blue:

That's amazing.

Marta Sandini:

From that moment I realized I was missing the acid flavor. And then she was just adding a lot of, cause there's a lot of pickles and fermentation in Slovenia. Cause East Europe, kind of north, it's not just start incorporate that and now I can't live without.

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Marta Sandini:

you saw the, elderflower vinegar. You saw all my baby jars.

Joy Blue:

Yep.

Marta Sandini:

So now I need to have them in every dish. Dessert as well.

Joy Blue:

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. So for a little background for our listeners, I met you last August when we happened to stay at the hotel that happened to be next to the restaurant where you were. We were like, I don't know, this looks like fun. We walked in, got seated, and ended up having the literal best food experience I've ever had in my life. I still think about you and talk about you to people all the time. And so I remember walking in and being like, excuse me, what? They're seating us next to this open kitchen. And I'm looking around just seeing all of these jars and I'm like, oh, dear Lord, I am so excited about this. And I remember just asking like, what are these? I need somebody to tell me about these. And you came out and you had my curiosity from the first moment. So I've, I've played around with some ferments. I've done kombucha. I've done a little bit of like home pick I do sour dough. And so to see the actual possibilities, like you're not just doing a basic ferment. You're playing with all kinds of things.

Marta Sandini:

Oh yeah.

Joy Blue:

tell me, how did you get started on this fermentation journey? What did you start with and what's been your favorite?

Marta Sandini:

So I start with simple vinegars. Um, I got myself a Noma Fermentation book.

Joy Blue:

Mm-hmm.

Marta Sandini:

Start with that to understand the basic things. And then I did during lockdown, I was bored. I didn't know what to do. So I discovered a bunch of courses with Harvard University and like science in cuisine. And I fermentation. So I took those courses to understand even better, all the chems and all the other weird things around that. And I was working in Allegra, another restaurant in London, and I started to do a blackberry vinegars. And there was another one of the sous chefs who's now calling me a Nouveau Nonna cause I don't have a label for myself. So he understood that I'm a Nu Nona basically.

Joy Blue:

Uh huh.

Marta Sandini:

We were just getting along with all this weirdness and nerdiness about fermentation and, and then he left. So I kept going and I build up like a shelf just for myself. Like we peach vinegar, clementine vinegar, burned clementine vinegar, citrus kombucha, coffee kombucha, maple kombucha, kombucha. All different, so that you can use everywhere you want.

Joy Blue:

Hmm.

Marta Sandini:

And then you have the blackberries pickle in a blackberry vinegar. So it is giving a second life to a second choice ingredient kind of.

Joy Blue:

Hmm

Marta Sandini:

I feel that we need to take out the most out of everything. I thought that's it. My favorite is the, elder flower season. So coming soon. I love the smell. I love the, like take me back home. Back home. Like uh, I used to go foraging every five minutes or so. Cause I live in the countryside in Italy. So it's just the smell of the elderflower. I used to make these giant 25 liter jars of just cordial. Cause I going, picking and stealing all the flower of the town.

Joy Blue:

That's amazing.

Marta Sandini:

just, and then here I realized what if I can do vinegars with that? What if I can do oil with that. So I start to change and have different bunch of everything.

Joy Blue:

That's amazing. Break down for me how you make a vinegar.

Marta Sandini:

So you can start with a mother vinegar.

Joy Blue:

Okay.

Marta Sandini:

It's the non filter that has all the sediment uh, apple cider vinegar or rice wine vinegar, whatever. And you can set, and then you're gonna just build the SCOBY itself.

Joy Blue:

So it's a lot like kombucha.

Marta Sandini:

It's like kombucha, but with no sugar, basically.

Joy Blue:

Fascinating. So what is it feeding off of?

Marta Sandini:

I leave the fruit inside, so all the sugar is coming from the fruit. So the SCOBY is eating all the sugar from the fruit. So every now and then, I'm just refreshing everything

Joy Blue:

Wow.

Marta Sandini:

SCOBYs now are like steaks basically.

Joy Blue:

believe it.

Marta Sandini:

And I have a lot of SCOBY children running around.

Joy Blue:

Running around by themselves.

Marta Sandini:

Yeah, they just woo and, and, or, or, the easiest way to do it is take like a plain vinegar, which I love the rice wine

Joy Blue:

Uhhuh.

Marta Sandini:

cause not that punchy. Um, for the peach vinegar and for the elderflower vinegar, I use the rice wine vinegar.

Joy Blue:

Wow. Okay. I'm gonna pause real quick and break down what you just said for folks that don't do ferments. So a SCOBY is like this cellulose disc that kind of looks like floating skin, and it usually sits at the top of a jar. It's. A symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, S C O B Y. That's why they call it a scoby. And basically what the scoby's doing is eating sugar out of the mix, and then it is pooping out, for lack of better words, acid. So what we're actually making then is the waste product of the Scoby. So to keep the Scoby alive, it needs natural sugars in order to do its digestive, uh, job. And then the byproduct of that are these wonderful ferments that you use liberally.

Marta Sandini:

Yeah. I use them everywhere.

Joy Blue:

What is the most unexpected place you use it?

Marta Sandini:

Sorbet.

Joy Blue:

Really.

Marta Sandini:

Yeah. I use, um, there's a fruit in Italian is ole I think in here or in around the world, it's like

Joy Blue:

Okay.

Marta Sandini:

Okay. Um, so I got a second choice, that means that he is not the great first produce, but you have like a second hand fruit. Um, I didn't wanna throw them away and they suggested I should buy them. So I got a box and I did a popup with that last year. Um, so I got them all. I skinned them off. So with the skin, I did the vinegar. And then the sorbet was really good, really sweet. And then I decided to add the vinegar to the sorbet. And then, because I'm Italian from Veneto region, where the Grappa is

Joy Blue:

Uh

Marta Sandini:

like, and I don't like Grappa. So I add a shot of grappa to the kind of affogatto

Joy Blue:

Mm-hmm.

Marta Sandini:

But yeah, the, the sorbet was weird, but it was so refreshing because of the acid and the vinegar, and there was no lemon at all. It was just the vinegar. So then in my head, like a dessert now, now I'm putting Maldon salt on a coconuts ice cream because I kind of flavor to play with your mind. I need you to stop and think about it

Joy Blue:

Mm-hmm.

Marta Sandini:

kinda. It's like it's something that you know, but you actually don't.

Joy Blue:

Yeah. And that's something we, we experienced when we ate with you. You gave me the recipe to this magical sauce, and that was the first time I had ever had like a literally mind blowing flavor experience. At your restaurant, it was on pork and I remember just eating the pork by itself and then eating the pork with the sauce and my entire world flipped all at once. Something you came out and told us was, I want you to feel at home. I want you to feel like you're here with me. And not only did you actually come out and join us for this experience, it did feel like home. But like I knew it, but I never knew it.

Marta Sandini:

yes. This is what I would like for all the people coming to the restaurant to experience. Cause I'm first, I'm Italian and I'm coming from a big family. So we love gather together over a table of food.

Joy Blue:

Yes.

Marta Sandini:

But also I'm living with my brother here in London. But I'm spending most of the time in the, in a kitchen, in a restaurant. And my frontals, my chefs are my family. And so all the people that are coming in, I want you to enter a place and see, oh, this is like, this is very welcoming. This is like me feel happy. If you're happy, I'm double happy. This is, I think the word needs more happiness.

Joy Blue:

Yeah. something I've observed everywhere I go around the world is that the best things happen around the table, around food.

Marta Sandini:

Yeah.

Joy Blue:

It is a gathering place. It is a place where everybody's equal. There's something so valuable about multiple people having a shared experience. And so then you now have the shared language that goes with that experience, and that's bonding. So being able to go to where you were at and experience your humanity next to the amazingness of the food that you served us was ridiculous because what I experienced with you is there's no power distance. You're not some distant chef in the back.

Marta Sandini:

Oh, no, no, no.

Joy Blue:

You're with the people.

Marta Sandini:

Yeah. Yeah. Um, like, I'm gonna just tell you something that is very weird. Like I'm, I'm turning 32 this year and it is, um, 10 years that I'm around. Um, I start, when I was 21, I moved to Australia and then China, Italy, Slovenia, briefly New York. And then London is my third time. I've been working in all these places. Food is just not one of the thing I remember. I remember all the people I worked with, or I met,

Joy Blue:

Yes.

Marta Sandini:

those of them have been inspired to cook or to create something because I met so many people from all over the world, and it's just very inspiring knowing them and understand them. And I don't really remember the menu I was cooking when I was in Australia. But I do remember Luca and Sophia, the guys I used to work with, or Jess. So I just remember the people. Like, I remember you, and now I made friend with you. And that is so powerful. It is like influencing me to cook, play food.

Joy Blue:

I love that so much. Like I was honestly shocked when you were like, oh yeah, here's the recipe. I was like, excuse me, what? you're a normal human and you're sharing the beauty of your nerd.

Marta Sandini:

Yeah, I'm very normal. I'm a people person. I, I need people to survive this work.

Joy Blue:

Uh, yeah.

Marta Sandini:

man, I'm very happy the way I am and I don't.

Joy Blue:

it. I, I love it so much. When we met, pretty quick, we were like, can we follow you somewhere? How can we support you? And so that's how we ended up being, Instagram friends. And then I just, I made the sauce, I sent you a picture, and then I was like, Hey, what are you working on right now? And you sent me this whole list of things you're working on right now. Just for kicks and giggles, what are you working on right now? Like what has your curiosity, what are you playing with?

Marta Sandini:

So now bear in mind. I don't drink alcohol.

Joy Blue:

Okay.

Marta Sandini:

I am a fake Italian, I don't drink. Maybe I'm adopt, I dunno, but I don't drink,

Joy Blue:

You're welcome here,

Marta Sandini:

I like turning things into alcohol. So last year I started in Victoria where you came to eat, hazelnut miso from scratch with my, uh, rice Koji. and this year I said, well, you know what? Because the restaurant is called naughty piglets, make a naughty nutella. So, and I don't like chocolate as well. It's another fact. I don't like chocolate.

Joy Blue:

Fascinating.

Marta Sandini:

In Italy we have this chocolate liquor and here is illegal to buy 96% alcohol to make. So I got, my mom sent me a bottle and I infused the chocolate that is, uh, 75% chocolate from our very nice brand we're using at the restaurant. infuse that in alcohol for a week, and then I strain that. Smell like chocolate. And then I did something weird. I did the syrup with the hazel miso. I wasn't expecting to be that good, just syrup. So then I strained the syrup, put it together with the the alcohol, and then I say, why not? I have the chocolate. So I just melt the chocolate, and now I made these amazing liquors that I have in bottles. And in my head, this can be really working with a condensed milk ice cream afogatto, I can just use this as a sauce for the ice cream.

Joy Blue:

Wow.

Marta Sandini:

Or recently I did a scallop ceviche dish with a leche de tigre. And leche de tigre is a recipe from Asia, I guess. Maybe. With a lot of sesame oil, citrus, coconut milk, lime, lemongrass, all this. And in my head was, about the elderflower season coming up. I'm thinking to do a leche de tigre with the elderflower oil and the elderflower vinegar to go together with strawberry and a scallop ceviche.

Joy Blue:

Wow.

Marta Sandini:

Oh, now it's the wild garlic season. So I have oil. I made the wild garlic oil jam. Um, well, it's all this stuff that I'm very weird and nerd about. every day that I can put my hand on something fresh coming, if it's foraged, even better,

Joy Blue:

Yeah.

Marta Sandini:

and it's just starting, like engine is going.

Joy Blue:

Okay. So say you're foraging, you find, a mushroom, an edible mushroom. What happens in your brain? Because it seems like your brain is just like a encyclopedia of all the things, and you're like, what if? What if? What if? What if?

Marta Sandini:

Per se, I just need to find the right draw to pull out. Like I can see, oh, who have here. Um, it depend on mushroom cause I love foraging and I. Much, a lot of mushroom. So in my head I Is is like it. It can even be a song. With a song I can come up with something as well. If you put on a song now, I'll tell you with this song what I, what dish I can plate and it, it's weird. I think sometimes I think I'm just crazy.

Joy Blue:

No, I think you're brilliant. This is what brilliance is made of. This is like the ultimate level of creativity.

Marta Sandini:

well, thank you. I'll take that. Cause then so far I was just thinking I'm crazy.

Joy Blue:

Nah.

Marta Sandini:

But yeah, with the mushroom, like if you have a porcini depend on which Porcini it is, how old it is. Cause you can see and you can feel how old it is. It can be a crudo, a simple crudo with lemon oil, salt and pepper. That's it. Or it can be, uh, sauce, au sauce for a pasta for a risotto. Or now we are back there poaching the morans for a steak tartare. And, cause I don't travel anything

Joy Blue:

That's amazing. Your brain feels like a magical place that I want to visit and just sit and watch.

Marta Sandini:

You can come in when you want, it's like a twenty-four seven here.

Joy Blue:

I'm the same way, but just with different things. What I love. Celebrating is that thing that people love talking about that makes their whole bodies light up. That makes, you know, it might be super niche, it might be super nerdy, but it awakens you, which then has an impact on the people around.

Marta Sandini:

Yeah.

Joy Blue:

I mean, I still can't get over that meal that we had, and that was back in August.

Marta Sandini:

I was back in August. That's true. I just told you that seems like a year ago. It was just August.

Joy Blue:

It also seems like just yesterday,

Marta Sandini:

Yeah, at the same time.

Joy Blue:

very confusing.

Marta Sandini:

But see, because of food now you are my friend.

Joy Blue:

I

Marta Sandini:

You are are my friend and Lisa as well cuz she followed me as well on Instagram.

Joy Blue:

Yeah, we're all here

Marta Sandini:

See like the people, like the importance of people.

Joy Blue:

Yeah. We can't do things without people. We're meant to be in a community.

Marta Sandini:

Yes,

Joy Blue:

Okay. What is something that you want people to try?

Marta Sandini:

I would like people use food as a bonding moment, as a magical place to be. It's not more about the food itself, like the taste, but again, it's because of the people. We need more, more kindness. So I invite people to go forging together in the forest just because it's beautiful and sometimes instead of just looking the pavement of down, like down look up.

Joy Blue:

Yeah,

Marta Sandini:

just losing a lot of magical moments up there. Like that is the most beautiful part, part of foraging. Not just discovering and finding the award, this the mushroom or the leaf or the flower. It's just the moment itself. It's just mo, it's just little moments. It's not just about food, it's just everything that is around. I dunno, it's difficult to explain,

Joy Blue:

No, but what I'm hearing you say is it's the magic of being present,

Marta Sandini:

yes,

Joy Blue:

like be here now,

Marta Sandini:

yes,

Joy Blue:

like when you're experiencing something new, talk about it.

Marta Sandini:

yes,

Joy Blue:

Like what I heard you say with create a bonding moment with that food is like, Exactly what Brie and Lisa and I did at your restaurant is we sat there and we were like, excuse me, what is going on here? And we had a whole discussion about it and it opened up avenues for, for us to learn about each other.

Marta Sandini:

Exactly. It's not just food, it's the moment itself.

Joy Blue:

It's so magical,

Marta Sandini:

this is what I'm expecting people to do more in the future like or I would like people to do. I'm just gonna sit down and have a chat with you or hug you or just talk to you, or this is, this is just me being me,

Joy Blue:

Yeah, I have a very similar feeling. I absolutely love having people over and I love cooking and I love providing. I will work all day on food just for fun, but my favorite moment is sitting down and watching people experience what I've made.

Marta Sandini:

Yeah, it is my favorite moment as well when I'm in the kitchen. Like example now. Now have a tiramisu as a dessert. That is a choux with a tiramisu Filling inside and the coconut ice cream with maldon salt and it's like a wow moment. Cause when you cut it open it says, whoa, this cream. So I like to see people eating. Or I like to see people eating the pickle tomatoes that I'm doing now, which is like, again, playing with your head. So just seeing the little moment when a person is putting in his mouth, out her mouth something and he is like, whoa, yes. This is what I'm looking for. That is my moment of, yes, well done. You make someone happy, so you're making someone happy. This is all I want. Like taking care of people, leave them happy and then going home happy.

Joy Blue:

Yeah, you're changing the world. One meal at a time.

Marta Sandini:

yeah, that is my superpower.

Joy Blue:

I love this superpower and will do everything I can to support you.

Marta Sandini:

Thank you very much

Joy Blue:

Um, if my followers wanna follow along with you, where do they find you?

Marta Sandini:

on Instagram is, my name is Marta Sandini and m a r t a s a n d i n I, I'm there, or I'm in London, at the Naughty Piglet Brixton. If you wanna just come here and join me. But yeah, that's it. And if you wanna just leave me a message. Go on. I'm just gonna reply to you. If you want a recipe, just ask

Joy Blue:

That's.

Marta Sandini:

or. Question about anything, just ask. If I'm able to provide the answer, I will.

Joy Blue:

You're such a wonderful human.

Marta Sandini:

I'm trying to be. Like, I think we need this kind of behavior.

Joy Blue:

Yeah, we just need more real people.

Marta Sandini:

Yeah,

Joy Blue:

Thanks for being real and thanks for sharing your nerd with us. This has been absolutely fantastic.

Marta Sandini:

we are fantastic. You are fantastic as well. come on. we work together!

Joy Blue:

Yeah, girl. So here we are. That was so fun. I am consistently in awe of the yeses I hear when I ask someone to join me here. Marta brought a huge smile to my face, lightness to my heart, and a revitalized curiosity to play with how vinegars and acids can influence foods in the kitchen. I can't wait to see Marta again in real life, and for all of you to meet her too. Don't forget to follow her on Instagram, either at@martasandini or@naughtypiglets. If you've got a flavor of nerd you want me to celebrate, I would love to hear all about it. So go ahead and email me at herewearethepodcast@gmail.com and tell me everything. I love taking time to sit and make space for nerd to be celebrated. If you really liked this podcast and want to financially support what I'm doing, head on over to patreon.com, search for Here We Are The Podcast and sign up for one of the many beautifully written support tiers that I'm very proud of. So until next time, don't forget that curiosity wins and the world needs more nerds. Bye