Edoardo Raspelli, the "Raspa," one of the historic leading signatures of Italian food journalism, was fired by Gedi (publisher of Repubblica and La Stampa) via pec, without even a phone call of notice. Where did respect go? Especially since we are talking about a great professional.
I am bound to Edoardo Raspelli by friendship and gratitude, since we collaborated in 1983 and it was he who referred me to Stefano Bonilli in 1986 as wine expert for the nascent Gambero Rosso, where he was in charge of restaurants. He, who had started in 1971, at only 22 years old, as a reporter at the Information Courier, was one of the leading names in food and wine journalism. He had in fact invented food criticism, his “little faces,” another thing I mediated from him, were feared by restaurateurs, and they were in fact the emoticon ante litteram. Smiling if the visit, always anonymous and with the bill paid, was positive, sullen if things had not gone well. Think how far ahead he was.
At the same time Michelin, the only existing guidebook (Espresso and Veronelli arrived in the late 1970s) was giving a few stars here and there in Italy, without any comment. Edward was and is a journalist and it showed even then, with articles that were faithful chronicles of what was happening to him, thoroughbred reporters, in short.
His career continued in many ways, he collaborated with other newspapers, even with the Gambero Rosso of the early days, for many years he did, and continues to do, television, but above all he never changed his way of working, with rigor and precision, and that was for a full 55 years of the profession. Today, he who is ’49 and almost 75 years old, is retired but continues to work (like yours truly for that matter), more out of passion than anything else. He has a unique wealth of experience, has seen the birth of thousands of restaurants, has met everyone from Marchesi to Bottura, from Bocuse to Ducasse.
He could write a book on the recent history of Italian catering No one else could do. If I were a head of a university that also covered food and wine, I would give him a professorship on food and wine journalism in the day. However, Gedi, the owner of La Republica e La Stampa where he collaborated dadecades ago, disagreed with what I am telling you and fired him via pec without even warning him first. Sure, he is 75 years old, sure, we need to make way for young people, but where they will find someone with a brilliant pen like old Raspa, with his experience, with his intellectual honesty, I just don’t know. And of senior journalists still doing television, Augias, Mieli, just to give examples, it seems to me there are some. Piero Angela his last broadcast before he left us did it at over 90 years old.
But Raspelli deals with food and restaurants, minor arts evidently, and for Gedi he does not seem to deserve attention or even professional respect. Nor from a few colleagues who mockingly commented on it, wishing for a “youth broad” that reeks of rhetoric and envy. We are not the Gedi, we are a niche magazine without big budgets, but if Edoardo Raspelli would like DoctorWine is at his disposal and my personal friendship as well.
