Cooking is an art in all respects and can help different cultures come closer, Gualtiero Marchesi, a renowned Italian chef said.

"I think of myself as a fundamentalist in my relationship with food, because the three fundamental principles -- simple, good and beautiful -- travel together and need each other," said 80-year-old Marchesi, who is considered the founder of modern Italian cuisine.

"Since the beginning of my career, I have always been excited about travelling around the world to learn various ways of preparing food and culinary arts," the Milan-born maestro told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Fond of culture and art, Marchesi went to China for the first time about 30 years ago. Recently he went to Shanghai Expo to take part in a three-day culinary program at the Italian Pavilion, aimed at promoting an exchange of tastes between the two countries.

As the Chinese Culture Year opened recently in Italy, four senior Chinese chefs also went to Milan to show Chinese culinary arts. Their show has attracted many Milanese food lovers, said Marchesi.

He stressed that both Italian and Chinese culinary arts are millenary, and they have much in common.

"Both the culinary arts are traditionally strictly bound to local territories," Marchesi said, dividing Italy into three culinary areas characterized by different microclimates.

Northern Italy's dishes are generally sweet, but in the central part of the country they are enriched with salt, while the so-called "sunny" southern cuisine is spicy and full of flavors.

"I find that Chinese cuisine gives much weight to original ingredients, which is important to add a value to each region's products," he noted.

"Indeed, simplicity is the main objective of all arts. As Confucius said about 2,500 years ago: With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow, I still have joy in the midst of these things."

In the same way, simplicity and strong binding with the territory is what makes Italian cuisine well-known in the world, Marchesi said.

"Contrary to what happened a few decades ago, Italians are not looking anymore to innovative and sophisticated culinary creations. Instead, they are returning to a traditional matriarchal cuisine again, whose main characteristic is simplicity," he said.

With stressful lifestyles nowadays, he said, more and more Italians prefer to eat in the so-called "trattoria," which is the typical Italian homemade food restaurant specialized in local traditional cuisine.

(Xinhua News Agency September 26, 2010)