Ardesco Blog
Friday, January 8, 2010 - 08:33
For Italians the New Year does not truly begin on January 1st, but on the 7th, the day after the Epiphany, when after weeks of over-eating and indulgences, the good china can go back in the breakfront, the Christmas linens back in the trunk, and all the New Year’s resolutions for dieting can, finally, necessarily be honored. For the most earnest, the New Year’s diet may begin with a detoxicating fast.
“Detoxification” is as much of a buzz word in Italy as it is in the States, with all the magazines touting the cleansing advantages of drinking green tea, juice of green apples, aloe vera, and especially the kind of probiotics that fill the refrigerator sections of grocery stores in the almost thimble-sized yogurt-drinks, served medicinally rather than as food, with a variety of other additives like guarana and ginsing added to give extra oomph.
The less ambitious dieter, for whom the digiuno or fast is impossible, will look for super foods to help their bodies find new eating-equilibrium. Artichokes are known to clean the livers and are abundant in winter season. A soup of artichokes and curry is a popular feast-season antidote, but eating the vegetable steamed or stuffed or fried satisfies some people more. More popular still and certainly more substantial are the more hearty, soul-warming soups made from spelt or farro, as it’s called in Italian—soups so thick and delectable one can diet without feeling the least bit deprived. Zuppa di farro/Spelt soup certainly ranks among winter favorites for Italians.
Spelt is a staple in central Europe where it is traditionally known as a peasant food—because of its abundance, low cost and nutritional value. Genetically it is a hybrid of ordinary wheat and wild goat grass, has a higher protein content but lower gluten content than wheat, and so can be tolerated by some people who cannot tolerate wheat in their diets (though is not gluten-free or appropriate for those with Celiac’s disease). Though spelt was introduced in the United States in the 1890s, one rarely finds it available in the American supermarket, though the health food industry has reintroduced the possibilities of spelt’s health-benefits to Americans and the grain can readily be found in health specialty stores.
Farro can be added to vegetable soups in the way barley is added—whole, to offer more substance and to balance proteins. More delicate soups require that the farro be ground, not quite as fine as polenta (though in Umbria especially a polenta of farro is popular), but sprecate, in tiny pieces, more like American grits, that cook up into thick gruel-like soup. For a simple soup, the ground farro is cooked with a beef or vegetable broth, tomatoes and garlic. Sausage is often added to make it especially savory. It’s the kind of soup a spoon will stand straight up in—that thickens even more as it cools, and fills the belly, though the calorie content is modest and the nutritional value high.
Zuppa di Farro can be found among primi piatti on virtually any Italian menu, as can, in summer months, an insalata di Farro that usually consists of whole farro, olives, carrots, cherry tomatoes and chunks of pecorino cheese. But the farro grain is not confined to these traditional dishes.
Nowadays, in the wake of concerns about refined carbohydrates and sensitivities to gluten, even mainstream Italian food stores promote breads, pastas, breakfast cereals and crackers made of farro. Virtually everyone overeats during the holidays and some people even put on a few pounds, but even post-season dieting can be a culinary adventure and satisfy the palette. Try una bella zuppa!
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - 11:34
After the first frost and the first relentless autumn equinox rains, after the days made even shorter by turning back clocks, Italians experience a surprising flourish of blue-skied, honey-lit, near summer days that Americans think of as Indian Summer. L’estate di San Martino or the summer of Saint Martin is so named because, in Italy, these welcome and astonishing days of mild weather almost mystically arrive just after the Festa di San Martino, November 11th. They are the last gasp of glory before gloom and cold set in and they bring out joy and a festival spirit in everyone—urging them to sit out basking in the piazzas with glasses of newly decanted wine, or to launch long, meandering mountain walks.
Among the walkers are those who set out with walking sticks, wicker baskets and a special mission in mind: to find the surprise of suddenly appearing mushrooms that rain followed by warm sun provides. One has to be either brave or better-yet licensed to go mushroom-hunting in the woods of Italy. Indeed it is the law to pass a course and an exam before harvesting mushrooms, but given that mushrooms grow on off-the-beaten paths, hidden beneath shrubs, secretly close to the earth, I would imagine that arresting someone for mushroom picking without a license would be difficult, unless of course the mushroom picker happened to poison someone. Detection of poisonous mushrooms from the edible, even delectable variety, is a true science and an art. There are even those mushrooms that are poison if eaten uncooked, but fine roasted with your stinco di miale (pork shin)—and it seems the trickier the poison content, the more savory and coveted the mushrooms are in Italian cuisine. But it takes a keen eye and a sensitive nose to seek out fresh mushrooms in the woods, and the ones found need to be eaten almost immediately after picking. I have known several connoisseurs of fresh porcini mushroom to be surprised, while grilling them on the terrazzo/ terrace, to find an explosion of grubs leaping for their dear lives from the deep gills of the mushroom cap. Yes, mushroom gathering and preparing is an art, but one taken seriously by those who live where mushrooms flourish.
Also abundant and accessible for the unlicensed, are the castagne or chestnuts that fall beneath the more-cultivated groves of chestnut trees. These are not the ipocastane or inedible horse-chestnuts (sometimes the distinction is confusing), but the good kind, the fat marrone, the kind with shells to hatch with a knife so the flesh bursts succulently when roasted on an open fire, the kind to boil with wild fennel for a soul-warming autumn cena/supper. Technically it is illegal to steal chestnuts from a cultivated grove; but an abundance falls onto woodsy paths and country roads and there are no holds barred when they fall on public property. The fascinating process of stomping on the spiny husks found along the road to break them open and discover the burnished shell of the chestnut, two or three clustered in the cushiony interior of that strange barnacle-like outer layer too prickly to touch with a bare hand—brings out the child in any free-spirited wanderer of L’estate di San Martino.
Chestnuts are the traditional stuzzichini or aperitivo snack to accompany a glass of freshly decanted vino novello or new wine, lavishly displayed in brightly labeled bottles at bars, enoteche and grocery stores. There’s a special sweetness to the grape-tasting wine before it has had time to settle that perfectly complements the tender flavors of a chestnut. Add to the aperitivo bruschette drenched with a first press of oil and heaped with porcini or, even a rich tapenade of truffles and black olives and what better way to celebrate the cusp of seasons.
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Sunday, November 8, 2009 - 00:31
In early November , before the feast of San Martino on November 11th, olive trees are harvested for the first press of oil. Throughout the hilly valleys of Campagna, Umbria, Tuscany, and Liguria one will see the tidy groves of silver-leaved olive trees, suddenly laced with nets and populated by men, women and children in their felpe (sweatshirts) or fleeces, climbing up ladders tilted against the gnarly trunks to shake the season’s olives into the nets suspended beneath the branches. With government subsidy of small family farms and agriturismi, many olive groves are still operated by small groups of artisans and the olive harvest is usually accomplished by proprietary families and their friends. Depending on the number of trees, it’s a weekend or weeklong olive-picking party that heralds the beginning of the winter season of feste or festivals.
La Raccolta is still done by hand, even on the larger fattorie/or farms, which tend to have their own olive presses or frantaio for making oil. Smaller artisan producers generally harvest their home crops and then take their bushels to a neighboring frantaio to bottle oil for personal use or, when more abundant, for modest sale through small shops that boast “prodotti tipici” or typical local products. The first press of oil each season is considered the most delicious. All those who have helped gather olives with the family (a task that gets onerous after awhile) are invited to celebrate the end of labors with wine (also decanted this time of year) and bruschetta toasted over an open fire and soaked in the new oil. The wonder of the harvest is that no year’s oil ever tastes quite the same—and those first moments savoring the olive-juice of a new season is a time of breath-taking suspense, awe and—inevitably—wild celebration, because certainly each year is the best ever-- never has the oil tasted so good.
Italian olive oil is exported all over the world in various grades from the fruity, green, sometimes even cloudy cold press oils used mostly in salads and with bruschetta, to the limpid golden, milder tasting oils used for frying and sautéing and in breads. Though tradionally associated with the cuisine of Southern Italy (Northern Italy, with its lush pastures, features more dairy, hence butter fat), olive oil has become a staple in kitchens and cooking worldwide especially since being acknowledged as a heart-healthy fat. It’s a rare Italian piatto /dish that does not call for some variety of olive oil. And with each season, each bottle yielding its own special sapore/flavor—olive oil is certainly prominent among the fresh ingredients that keep the Italian palette sensitive to new taste sensations.
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Friday, October 23, 2009 - 10:17
Zucca in Italy refers to virtually any winter or “giallo/yellow” squash, ranging from the Pumpkin (Zucca di Halloween) to Butternut (Zucca di Butternut) with at least 20 nubby and smooth varieties in between. “Zucchini,” or little squashes, are the summer variety familiar to everyone, shaped like a cucumber but more tender. Zucche are tough with an almost-impenetrable gourd-exterior, meaty flesh and hollow core spilling stringy fibers and seeds. Often during October, one will find a huge zucca behind the counter of one’s local fruttavendole/fruit-vegetable vendor, most often already cut wide open, its entrails dangling. Rarely does one buy an entire zucca at the market, but asks for some portion of a kilo; a two etti/200 gram wedge of pumpkin or butternut is the right amount of a squash to make anything from a soul warming zuppa di zucca (squash soup), to risotto alla zucca (squash risotto) or any of the many squash recipes that are popular in the season. Even in the supermarket, one will find cleanly sliced zucca chunks, under cellophane—never clearly identified as butternut or pumpkin—abundantly available as the month’s choice offering.
The popularity of the squash has as much to do with its versatility as its abundance. The flesh is unique in that it accommodates sweet, salty or agrodolce (sweet and sour) possibilities. Zucca finds its way into an infinite possibility of primi piatti or first dishes. As mentioned before, a soup or risotto all zucca is always an autumn favorite, as is ravioli stuffed with zucca or simple penne or farfalla (butterfly) pasta tossed with steamed zucca and sausage. It’s used in a number of ways as a contorno or side dish: Zucca picante—chunks of squash cooked with red peppers, cherry tomatoes, purple onions and hot peppers is almost as popular as Zucca agrodolce--sweet and sour squash—prepared with vinegar, honey, pine nuts, and raisins. It’s also served simply—steamed, fried or pureed. And finally, there is no limitation to its use as a dessert: an Italian Torte di Zucca is not quite the same as American Pumpkin pie, but tastes as good if not better. Zucca also finds its way into sweet breads, puddings, and a kind of streudel—made by spreading a sugary puree into pastry dough, sprinkling with pine nuts, rolling it up and baking in the oven.
Zucca’s possibilities don’t end with the flesh of this amazing vegetable! Fiori di Zucche…or Squash flowers, while harvested a bit earlier than the squash itself, is considered a delicacy and favorite among connoisseurs of the Italian table. Most often served stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies and then deep-fried, the flowers also make a light garnish for various pastas and risotto, and also top a variety of pizzas, such as the white “pizza zucca” topped with Mozzarella, anchovies and an abundance of zucca blossoms.
Not even the seeds are wasted in Italian cuisine. Often they are salted and roasted as snacks—their high quantities of zinc considered good preventative nutrition during cold-season. Zucca seed oil is almost as popular as sunflower seed oil, and is used often as the basis of face lotion and soaps because of its anti-age and healing benefits as well as for protection against cold.
We moderns know that yellow vegetables, squash in particular, are rich in beta carotene—good for the eyes, the skin, and the immune system that is often compromised in colder weather, especially during that between-the-seasons period when the body must adjust to dropping temperatures. The October Italian health magazines often recommend a yellow diet during autumn months—a diet that includes at least a serving of squash a day. The tradition harks back to long before beta carotene was known as such, its health benefits even understood. Traditionally squash was eaten daily in October because of sheer abundance: people ate it because that’s what nature offered during the season and people trusted nature to provide whatever nutrition was needed. Indeed, as with so many traditions, what we moderns consider breaking news in health maintenance has been a staple in Italian cuisine for generations.
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Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 17:36
Whether one’s image of an Italian pranzo comes from Italian films like Fellini’s Amarcord, or from films like The Godfather, that bridge the Italian and Italo-american cultures, the image is consistent: a complicated crowd of an extended Italian family, arranged around an endless table set up in a garden under a grape-arbor, with heaping plate after heaping plate of steaming pastas and meats and vegetables arriving as though delivered on a cloud, the kitchen off-stage, along with the host of cooking grandmothers, mothers, aunts and girl-children rapt by the mystery of food preparation. Pranzo was certainly never meant to be eaten on the run. Note the three-hour pausa/riposo/siesta built into the Italian work-day from 1:30 until 4:30 to ensure the kind of leisure required to eat and digest a good meal. Even school children come home for pranzo, their school day cut short by American standards. Who cares if that means they have to go to school on Saturdays! A proper meal is important.
In 1986, when the first McDonald’s opened near Rome’s Spanish Steps, and the “fast food” phenomenon threatened to infiltrate Italian culture, Carlo Petrini organized a massive protest—hundreds of people bearing plates of pasta—with the hopes of bringing media awareness that what was at stake was more than lunch, but the physical, spiritual and cultural well-being of Italians and all peoples, regardless of what country they come from. The ability to slow down in the middle of the day, nourish the body and soul with well-prepared meals made from fresh, regional, seasonal ingredients while enjoying real conversation, creating real relationships with loved ones and others one hoped to know, was the bedrock of civilization and culture. Without such opportunities for human-connection and nourishment by real food, people risked becoming mindless, multitasking automatons, stuffing valueless calories into their bodies while driving from appointment to appointment, tasting nothing, enjoying nothing. What was at stake was consciousness itself and a capacity for pleasure and joy.
In the more than twenty years since Carlos Petrini led the first protest against fast food, “Slow Food” has become an international movement , with an annual convention in Turin, that encompasses far more than a call to slow down and enjoy what we eat. The movement is closely associated with the organic foods movement, the movement to support local farmers and limit the support of big-industry cooperations that create foods for bulk, shipment and profits while neglecting food value and the costs—economic and in terms of the world’s dwindling fuel supply—of shipping nutrient-bled pseudo-fruits around the globe. The philosophy of slow food has encouraged many to examine the wheel-spinning behind so many aspects of our stress-filled lifestyles and slow down generally, examine our values, sort out the wheat from the chaff so to speak. And the awareness of how to do so begins with learning a new discipline of eating, a discipline that began, well…in the Italian kitchen.
The Official Slow Food Manifesto
Approved by delegates from Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States, and Venezuela at the founding conference of the International Slow Food Movement for the Defense of the Right to Pleasure at the Opera Comique in Paris on November 9, 1989.
Our century, which began and developed under the insignia of industrial civilization, first invented the machine and then took it as its life model.
We are enslaved to speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods.
To be worthy of the name, Homo sapiens should rid himself of speed before it reduces him to a species in danger of extinction.
A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of the Fast Life.
May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency.- Our defense should begin at the table with Slow Food. Let us rediscover the flavors and savors of regional cooking and banish the degrading effects of Fast Food.
In the name of productivity, Fast Life has changed our way of being and threatens our environment and our landscapes. So Slow Food is now the only truly progressive answer.
That is what real culture is about: developing taste rather than demeaning it. And what better way to set about this than an international exchange of experiences, knowledge, and projects?
Slow Food guarantees a better future.
Slow Food is an idea that needs plenty of qualified supporters who can help turn this (slow) motion into an international movement, with a little snail as its symbol.
Petrini, Carlo (trans. Gius.Laterza & Figli Spa). Slow Food: The Case for Taste. New York: Columbia U P, 2001, p. xxiii
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