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Giorgio Locatelli sweeps into a room at the British Library where three other chefs are waiting nervously for his verdict. They have been asked to pull off the near-impossible by cooking a meal designed by the Italian Filippo Tommaso Marinetti – the early twentieth-century poet, ideologue, and lover of fast cars who founded the Futurist movement. His 1932 treatise ‘Futurist Cookbook’ was famously misnamed. More anarchic cultural manifesto than kitchen manual, it flexed its claws at bourgeois convention by proposing a series of satirical recipes which mocked traditional Italian values at the same time as they celebrated the twentieth century’s apparent virtues of speed, dynamism, and technology. One gloriously far-fetched design for a banquet suggested that the tables be arranged in the shape of an aeroplane complete with propeller.

In the bureaucratic meeting room where the food is being presented for his approval, Locatelli peers closely at one of the desserts, scrutinising it as if he were examining a new species – which indeed he could be. Called an ‘Elasticake’, it looks like a small beige blob with strange long liquorice sticks protruding aggressively towards him. The renowned Italian chef waves his hands, as if he’s trying to grab from the air the right words to describe it. ‘There’s something very… animal about it.’ It’s a strangely apt description. Suddenly the liquorice sticks look like antlers.
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Mulling the menu: Giorgio Locatelli ©Michael Franke

Today we’re attending an official tasting of the menu for the Futurists’ Banquet, which will be held at the British Library later this month. The banquet will be overseen by Locatelli and the prestigious Accademia Italiana Della Cucina (the Italian Gastronomic Society). It’s being held in tandem with the British Library’s exhibition ‘Breaking the Rules: The Printed Face of the European Avant Garde’. There are so many divertingly odd recipes to choose from in the ‘Cookbook’; it would have been delightful to be a fly on the wall while they were narrowing down the menu. One recipe, titled ‘Carrot + Trousers = professor’, features ‘A raw carrot standing upright, with the thin part at the bottom, where two boiled aubergines are attached with a toothpick to look like violet trousers in the act of marching. Leave the green leaves on the top of the carrot to represent the hope of a pension.’ Another example is ‘Rice and beans, frogs and salami… The waiters serve it while an instrument reproduces the sounds of frogs croaking.’

‘It’s a question of how far to go down the route of madness,’ says Jon Fawcett, the British Library event organiser who proposed the idea for the banquet. Most obviously this means it’s a question of how to preserve the menu’s eccentricity while also making it enjoyable, and indeed edible enough for people who have splashed out £75 for the event. ‘I was personally quite keen to serve chicken with ball bearings. You cut open the chicken and ball bearings pour out. For some reason,’ he smiles wryly, ‘the committee couldn’t be persuaded.’

Obviously the committee is delighted that Locatelli has taken on the challenge of overseeing the project. ‘Like most Italians I grew up knowing the book,’ he declares, as we walk over to the dining area. When asked if he hesitated to do the project because of the obvious difficulties inherent in producing a satisfying meal, he shakes his head. Yet later, he exclaims, laughing, ‘If this kind of banquet hasn’t been held for 75 years, there must be a reason.’

However, it’s precisely the near impossibility of the project that accounts for the slightly suppressed exhilaration that’s gripping everyone involved with it. It’s not just the food – it’s the fact that this will be an experience for all the senses. One of the recipes to be featured at the banquet comes under the heading of ‘Aerofood’ in the book; ‘A dish I would not recommend for the hungry,’ writes Marinetti. ‘It is composed of a slice of fennel, an olive, and a kumquat. In addition there is a strip of cardboard on which are glued, one next to another, a piece of velvet, a piece of silk and a piece of sandpaper: the sandpaper need not be eaten, it is only there to [be stroked by] the right hand and provide prelabial sensations which make the food much more tasty as simultaneously the left hand tries to bring it to the mouth.’

Dessert designed like an animal's head © Michael Franke

Prelabial sensations aside, one fact that has left a nasty taste in people’s mouths is Marinetti’s dabbling with Mussolini and Italian Fascism. However, the passage of time has allowed academics to point out that this was just one unfortunate chapter in the vast range of his intellectual and artistic output – and certainly the ‘Breaking the Rules’ exhibition is playing a key part in resurrecting his reputation. Another feature at the banquet, presented by an actor representing Marinetti himself, will be his famous denunciation of pasta for causing, among other things, ‘lethargy, pessimism, nostalgic inactivity, and neutralism’. Ironically, despite the persuasiveness of his assault, his mission to rid Italian cuisine of its best-known staple has to go down as one of the least successful campaigns of all time.

In culinary – but clearly not political – terms, perhaps the most obvious heir to Marinetti is the UK’s Heston Blumenthal. He springs strongly to mind in the ‘Cookbook’ entry which states, ‘Modern science will be employed in the preparation of sauces and a device similar to litmus paper will be used in a Futuristic kitchen to determine the proper degree of acidity or alkalinity in any given sauce.’ However, based on the evidence of the tasting, Locatelli has had few problems in rising to the challenge of spinning social satire into culinary gold. And as for kumquat with a little sandpaper on the side – I can highly recommend it.

The Futurists’ Banquet is at The British Library on March 18, 7.15- 10.30pm. Tickets £75 (01937 546 546) including all food, wine, cocktails and other distractions.