crazysalad

Buon Natale

Buon Natale da Reggio Emilia.

I’m back in Reggio Emilia, my Italian home away from home, visiting good friends and looking forward to welcoming in a new year.  We arrived the day after Christmas but all of the decorations are still up.  In addition to the regular Christmas lights in the historic center of town (centro storico), most of the piazzas have light shows playing at night during the month of December.  Each piazza has a different display. 

Piazzas are one of the many things I miss about Italy.  La piazza. The town square.  The closest American equivalent is the shopping mall, but it’s just not the same.  The piazza is the heart of the city.  It’s the place where everyone comes, where the market is held. Everyone passes through here.  We haven’t lived here in 3 years, but the first night we walked through the square we ran into someone we knew.  Benvenuti!  Welcome home. 

(In summer all of the cafes set out tables in the center of the square and friends gather for drinks (apperitivi) before dinner and then again afterwards, late into the night, out under the stars in the sultry air.  Concerts, rallies, parades, giant chocolate Easter eggs, everything takes place in the piazzas.)

Piazza Prampolini, the largest and most central piazza, currently features a dazzling display of black-and-white patterned and colored lights gliding across the cobblestones of the huge square and up the faces of the buildings. 

It was fun seeing the main clock tower building, which houses a bank, covered in colored dots.  Not even the Duomo (Cathedral) was spared.  In fact, the Duomo looks even better this way, an improvement on the unfinished facade (apparently the money ran out a few centuries ago when the building was being finished so only the base is covered in marble).

My kids love running around this piazza and tonight was no exception. Though the night air was cold, the lights added warmth to this place. It was like being in the center of a circus stage, music blaring out of the speakers, lights sweeping over us, and my kids chasing each other around the square, running in and out of the shadows, bathed in green, red, yellow and purple light.   

Magic. 

That feeling you get when you are so immersed in the moment that you lose all sense of time, when you look up at the sky again with a sense of wonder, that even the cold air numbing your face feels right and good and you remember what it feels like to be happy. 

Terra Madre Workshops

“Biodiversity can be seen as a life insurance policy for life itself-- something especially needed in this time of fast-paced global change.”—Kofi Annan

The first full day at Terra Madre featured 15 workshops spread out over 3 time periods (10 am, 1 pm, 3pm).  Workshops were divided into categories such as economics/market access, products and producers, agro-ecology, resources, cultures, and strategies.  There were also regional meetings, where all the delegates from one country gathered together in one room (more on the U.S. meeting to follow in a later post). 

Practically speaking, for each time slot one was forced to choose among 5 different workshops and topics, a daunting decision.  Friday morning, for example, offered the following:

1. “More than consumers: the power of co-producers.  The buyer’s role is much more active than what the word consumer suggests.  The final link in the food chain has its place in production, education, markets and the environment.  Farmers’ markets, buyers’ groups, community-supported agriculture and many other initiatives demonstrate that eating is an agricultural act, producing a gastronomical act and purchasing a political act.”

2. “Cheese: The importance of raw milk, the significance of animal feed and the quality of milk, the defense of traditional techniques and market access for small-scale producers: what can be done to preserve the dairy artisan heritage?”

3. “Fresh and cured meats: Breeders, slaughterhouses and butchers, processing companies and cooks.  Many different skills and factors contribute to the quality of fresh and cured meats, from animal feed to the cut to curing techniques.”

However, the brief descriptions in the program didn’t list any of the speakers and, as much as I love cheese, I was reluctant to give up two hours of my time for a discussion comparing animal feeds.  I finally hit upon the strategy of wandering from room to room with my headset on (picking up the voices of the translators broadcasting in the back of each room).  If the speakers caught my interest, I sat down and stayed.  If not, I moved on to the next workshop.  A rather arbitrary approach, but one that proved surprisingly effective.   Many of the workshops I thought I would be interesting (i.e., that I had highlighted in my program) turned out to be disappointing, while the ones I wandered into ended up being the ones I enjoyed the most. 

Terra Madre 2006 Opening Day

Terra Madre 2006 officially opened on Thursday, October 26, with a parade of nations, one representative from each country bearing his or her flag.

The event recalled the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, which Torino hosted earlier this year.  The representatives marched in alphabetical order and took their seat on the main stage facing the audience.

Once all of the national representatives had been seated, the speeches began.  Everyone in the audience had been given headsets, so simultaneous translation was available in several languages (English, Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, Japanese).

Salone del Gusto 2006

I came to Italy this year to participate both in Slow Food’s Terra Made and Salone del Gusto.  Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Salone del Gusto is a international fair held in Torino every 2 years to celebrate the diversity and quality of food, an eco-gastronomic response to the standardization and globalization of our food system.

Well, ok, I have to confess.  Mostly I came to eat. And speak Italian.  And to travel around Italy for a week with friends afterwards.  But it was because of the Salone del Gusto that I came here.  I've been wanting to come for years, ever since I first heard about this amazing global food fair.

Salone del Gusto runs for 4 days and attracts tens of thousands of people, including large groups of schoolkids. The event is held in the Lingotto, the former Fiat factory turned convention center.  It’s a food lover’s dream come true.  Imagine an entire convention center filled with table after table displaying the food of farmers and producers from all over Italy and the rest of the world.

Terra Madre 2006

Greetings from Turin!

I am in Italy for Terra Madre 2006, a world meeting of food communities. There are 5000 delegates-- chefs, university researchers, farmers, food producers, and observers--representing 1500 food communities in 183 countries.  We are here to discuss and set forth a system of producing food that is good, clean and fair for all--an alternative to fast food culture and the dominant industrial model of agriculture.   

I’ll post more in the next week, but in the meantime you can read more about the conference on the Terra Madre blog or at the Terra Madre website.  There are some beautiful portraits of the delegates here.

 

Cappelletti in Brodo

Marta Ferrari’s Ricette e Racconti Della Mia Reggio © 1999

In addition to typical products, each region and often each town, has its own typical dishes. When I ask most of my friends from Reggio Emilia what their favorite pasta is, almost unanimously they tell me cappelletti in brodo (pasta in broth). 

You know how when you are sick as a child and your mother brings you chicken noodle soup?  Even if it was just Campbell’s canned soup (as mine was), you remember it as delicious and comforting and form an emotional attachment to that dish, simply because of what it represents.

Now think of the best homemade chicken noodle soup you have ever made (or tasted) and you will have some idea of what cappelletti in brodo tastes like.

Cappelletti, or little hats, refers to the shape of the pasta, which are small, round and filled with cheese and meat. The broth, made from both chicken (capon) and beef, is rich and dark in color.  Although they resemble Bologna’s tortellini, cappelletti are stuffed with chicken, veal and pork, but not mortadella. Smaller than tortellini, three or four cappelletti easily fit on a soup spoon.

If you ask a Reggiano who makes the best cappelletti, the answer is always the same: my mother (or grandmother). It is a very labor-intensive process. 

Pasta made with fresh egg dough is rolled out into thin sheets (as for ravioli) and then cut into 2-inch squares.  The squares are then stuffed with the filling, folded into triangles, and the ends brought together to form the distinctive hat shape.  Sounds easy enough, but try making several hundred of these and see if you can get any of them to look the same.  I couldn’t.  I was just happy if they held together and didn’t tear open and spill their contents into the soup.   

This recipe comes from Marta Ferrari’s Ricette e Racconti Della Mia Reggio (Recipes and Stories of My Reggio).

Pesto (ground filling) for cappelletti:
2 small onions
150 g. (10 T.) butter
beef rib roast
70 g. (2 1/1 oz.) prosciutto
60 g. (2 oz.) ground pork
90 g. (3 oz.) veal (or turkey or chicken)
liver and giblets
1 egg
1 clove garlic (optional)
nutmeg, breadcrumbs, grated cheese to taste

If you haven’t made cappelletti before, Ferrari’s book is frustratingly short on details. She doesn’t specify the quantity of beef for the filling. Apparently she assumes that you have eaten and seen cappelletti prepared, for she doesn’t say how large the squares should be made when cutting the pasta. The final ingredients are given as “q.B,” which means “quanto basta” (a sufficient amount). It is understood, she notes, that the cappelletti are eaten with broth, but she never tells you how to make that broth.  Hey, if you are going to the trouble to make cappelletti, you better know how to make something as simple as broth. 

Just for comparison, here is another recipe for cappelletti (in English).

Until recently, I think most cookbooks in English also assumed a basic knowledge of cooking experience on the part of the reader.  It’s only been in the last half century, as fewer and fewer people learn to cook, that books such as The Simpleton’s Guide to Boiling Water have become the staple in publishing.  Don’t get me wrong--I still have the Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls that I learned to cook from.  I wish I could say I were an intuitive cook who can create great meals off the top of my head, but I am sadly cookbook-dependent, relying on my library for inspiration and guidance through most meals. 

Still, Ferrari’s book is a great resource and the definitive (i.e., the only) cookbook of Reggio Emilia.  Cappelletti are traditionally made and served at Christmas time.  The rest of the year, however, cappelletti in brodo is available in nearly every restaurant in town.  Even when it is not listed on the menu, you can still order it and they will usually have it on hand. 

After spending a year eating in the same half dozen restaurants in Reggio, it didn’t take us long to compare and rank which had the best cappelletti in town. Below are two different restaurants’ versions of the dish. 

Our favorite was from Sotto Broletto, a pizzeria conveniently located 50 meters from our apartment.  This restaurant also seemed to attract the handful of stray tourists that got lost and found themselves in Reggio.  Undoubtedly, they ended up at Sotto Broletto, as we often did, because it was one of the few restaurants open for dinner at the shockingly early hour (in Italy) of 6 pm.  Sotto Broletto’s broth is dark and flavorful, the cappelletti soft and juicy.  The ingredients are well balanced, that is, not dominated by one flavor, such as cheese.

Below is cappelletti in brodo from Casseruola.  Fancier and more expensive, Casseruola was one of my favorite all-around restaurants, especially for their grilled vegetables and steaks.  Their cappelletti broth is lighter in color and has a more delicate taste, probably made entirely from chicken broth.

Making balsamico

As I said in my previous post, Reggio Emilia has gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to recognition for their balsamico tradizionale, even though it has been made in the same way for centuries.  Even the current issue of Chow magazine, in an article entitled “Real or Fake” says that if it’s not from Modena, it can’t be real balsamico. 

I had tasted balsamico and read about how it is made, but I was curious to see it for myself.  I thought about calling up the consortium of balsamico producers, but instead I asked my good friend, Matteo, if he knew of anyone who made their own balsamico and could show me the process. 

Matteo Casali, a talented writer, is not as crazy about food as I am.  His passions run more toward Mexican wrestling and conspiracy theories involving ants.  But since he has lived in Reggio Emilia his whole life (actually, Cella, which is just outside the city), I figured he would come through for me.  Sure enough, his dad knew someone who knew someone who knew how to make balsamico.

After many phone calls (thanks, Matteo), we were all set.  On a rainy afternoon in October, a group of eight of us drove out to Fogliano, a small town on the southern outskirts of Reggio.  We turned off the main road directly into a gravel driveway flanked by vineyards on one side.

Two barking dogs announced our arrival.  Signora Maria Roggiani came out to greet us and invited us into her home.  We passed by chickens pecking in the courtyard and through the garage occupying the ground floor of the house, where a cat lay curled in a tractor seat. 

Typical Products

Although the recent chestnut festival I attended in Italy was ostensibly a celebration of chestnut season, no food festival in Reggio Emilia would be complete without prodotti tipici, or “typical products.”  When pressed to name some typical American food products I immediately think of Kraft “process cheese products” and Coca-Cola.  But in Italy, the words have a completely different meaning (and taste). 

In contrast to our American industrial items, Italian prodotti tipici are foods that are characteristic or representative of a specific region.  They are foods and wines that have been handcrafted for centuries using traditional methods and they are inexorably linked to their place of origin.  Prodotti tipici in the Reggio province of Emilia Romagna include some of Italy’s most famous foods: prosciutto di Parma, parmigiano reggiano, and balsamic vinegar. 

At the festival, in addition to chestnuts, there were dozens of tables offering local products for sale and for sampling.  My mother and I literally ate our way down the street, stopping every 10 feet to taste, discuss, and buy local foods.

Festa della Castagna

What I love about Italy is that it is a country that is just as passionate about food just as I am.  And nearly every week, somewhere in Italy, is a festival (or sagra) celebrating local food.  I came to Reggio’Emilia this week to visit friends, but happily my visit happen to coincide with chestnut season.   This past Sunday the main street of the town was blocked off for la Festa della Castagna (chestnut festival). I dropped my bags off at the hotel and practically ran out to join the party.  Hot-roasted chestnuts right this way! 

The chestnuts were easy to find—in the center of the street beneath a plume of smoke and a large, hungry crowd.  I got in line, well, at least what I thought was a line, with everyone else. Raw chestnuts (castagne, or marroni, which means brown) cost 4.50 euro (about $6) per kilo.  Roasted chestnuts (caldarroste): 3 euros for half a kilo.  You want caldarroste?  You need to go over there and pay the lady first.

Ben Tornati in Italia!

Two years ago, my husband and I realized a long-time dream and spent a year living in Italy with our 3 daughters, ages 5, 9, and 11.  We chose Reggio’Emilia, a medium-sized city in the Emilia-Romagna province just south of Milan, primarily based on the quality of food in the area and its proximity to an airport.   I will go into more detail about that year in Italy in another post, but suffice it to say that our year in Italy was one of the best experiences we have ever had as a family.  We all learned to speak another language (my kids attended Italian schools), we ate fantastic food, and we were fortunate to meet a great group of Italians with whom we have become lifelong friends. 

The problem with living in another country is knowing what to call home.    We were ready to return to the U.S. after our year was up, but once “home” we missed our other home and friends deeply.  Now I feel like I have a foot in both worlds.  As I have often told people, I love living in San Diego, but part of me (my heart and my stomach) is still in Italy.  The only cure for this is to return to Reggio as often as we can. 

We left San Diego early Saturday and arrived in Milano Sunday morning at 9 am.  Given the 9-hour time difference, this meant midnight San Diego time, which explains why I wasn’t able to sleep on the plane, but could barely keep my eyes open once we landed.   

First stop, the airport bar.  Ahhhh.  Now I knew I was back in Italy.   And I was able to stay awake and greet my friends, who had come to pick us up at the airport and drive us back to Reggio.

On the way to the hotel, we stopped for lunch.  As much as I hate air travel, the 14-hour plane ride to Italy was worth it, because I got to eat this:

Clockwise from left: prosciutto, coppa, parmigiano, salame. 

This antipasto plate, a sampling of the region’s finest salumi, is a traditional starter course in Reggio'Emilia.  What’s the big deal, you ask?  We can buy prosciutto and parmigiano in the U.S., too, right?  But it’s not the same. Everything on this plate is made locally and nothing compares to eating it here. The prosciutto here is incredible—soft, tender, not too salty.  When I buy prosciutto in the U.S. it tends to be drier, tougher, saltier—I think it has been sitting around too long.  Same thing with parmigiano.  In Italy, even the parmigiano that has been aged 36+ months is still somewhat soft and moist when you bite into it.  And the flavor is sweet and intense. 

Next course:  Spaghetti allo Scoglio. Looks good, but I was a little disappointed with this dish.  The pasta was actually overcooked, which I routinely expect in the U.S. but rarely encounter in Italian restaurants.  The dish was filling, but not very fresh or flavorful.  I should have known better than to order seafood in Reggio, a city far from either coast.  Part of it may have been the jetlag, too.  I’ve noticed that on the first day upon arrival here, my palate is always little numbed and most food tastes rather muted. 

No meal in Italy is complete without caffè.   (Cappuccino is drunk only in the mornings, never after a meal—except by foreigners).

Caffeine-fortified once more, we headed toward the Hotel Posta in the historic center.  Like many cities in Italy, Reggio has limited automobile traffic in the old part of town in order to preserve historic buildings and give the town back to the people (rather than the cars). 

Approaching the city entrance on the Via Emilia (the ancient Roman road which runs across the entire province), I was excited to see a large banner announcing a food festival:

Tomorrow:  Chestnut Festival

Old Noodles & Pasta Presto

Maybe this will settle once and for all the debate about who invented noodles.  Earlier this year when archaeologists in China turned over a 4000 year-old bowl, this is what they found underneath:

Photograph © Chinese Academy of Sciences

Noodles.  4000-year-old noodles.  Beautifully preserved, thin, delicate, 20-inch-long yellow noodles. 

This discovery predates by at least 2000 years any other evidence or mention of noodles in human history, according to Houyuan Lu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, who was part of the team that made the discovery.  They are also the oldest prepared food ever found intact.   

Notably, the noodles are made, not of wheat, but from millet, a grain that has been cultivated in China for 7000 years, and is still a mainstay of the diet in many arid regions today.   

This discovery offers conclusive evidence that the Chinese were making noodles long before Marco Polo arrived.  Although the legend that Marco Polo "discovered" pasta and brought it back to Europe has been largely discredited, Italians are responsible for popularizing the consumption of noodles in Europe and much of the world. 

Links to the story in The Guardian and National Geographic.

In the interest of further culinary inquiry, I am heading off to Italy to do some noodle research of my own.  That’s right, I will be taking crazysalad on the road as I spend 10 days in Italy and France.  First stop: Reggio’Emilia, home of the world best cheese, Parmigiano Reggiano.  Then on to Paris where I’ll try to make it to every chocolate shop on David Lebovitz’s list.  I will have Internet access, so when I’m not eating, I’ll be taking photos and posting them here.

Ciao a presto--

Shh! Don’t Say It!

Since I am a little food-obsessed, for years my husband has been trying to convince me to start writing online.  And for years I have put it off.  But now I have found it--my calling, a reason to pick up my keyboard and start posting--bruschetta.

Bruschetta (n.)– a simple Italian appetizer of grilled bread, rubbed with garlic and topped with extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper.   Often topped with chopped tomatoes or a variety of other ingredients.

Bruschetta mania seems to be overtaking America as thoroughly as the tiramisu craze of a decade or two ago.  And who can blame us for embracing this dish.  It’s delicious.  So simple—the Italian version of garlic bread—yet so versatile.  You can top it with tomatoes when the summer bumper crop hits.  Or sprinkle it with parmigiano and melt it under the broiler.  With prosciutto and arugula it makes a nice open-faced sandwich.  I love it with fresh shell bean puree.  One of my favorite local restaurants even makes a sweet version of bruschetta (minus the garlic) with fresh figs, goat cheese and balsamic vinegar. 

However, if we are going to appropriate this dish, I feel the least we can do is honor it by saying it correctly.  After all, you don’t like it when someone mispronounces your name, do you? 

If Americans can learn to say “espresso” instead of “expresso” (!), then we are ready to move on to another Italian language lesson.  Thanks to Jack in the Box we know how to say and spell ciabatta.  (Do you think they could help me with this campaign, too?)

So let’s try “bruschetta.” 
No, not broo-shed-uh.  Don’t say sh!  It's broos-KET-tah. You GET it?

This is Italian, not French (brochette).  In Italian, a –ch followed by –e or –I has a hard c sound.

For ex:
- zucchini (hear the hard “c”?)
- Chianti
- Zucchero (sugar, also the name of an Italian pop singer)

Thus, the –ch in bruschetta has a hard c sound (as in the English “school”).

So the next time you order (or make it yourself), say broos-KET-tah, with the accent on the second syllable, and then I won't have to roast you over the coals.

Broos-KET-tah!
Broos-KET-tah!

Bruschetta.