Writing a newsletter is a two-way street; people often reply, and sometimes scorch the airwaves, especially when politics comes into play. I didn't expect a list of panettone recipes to touch a nerve, however. But it did; Jerry De Angelis, who weaves The Artisan, a delightful site dedicated primarily to Italian breads and foods (URLs: http://www.theartisan.net and http://home.earthlink.net/~ggda), objected to my including the semi-traditional panettone on the King Arthur's Flour site because people who have never had the real thing (a light, somewhat stiff, airy holiday bread with raisins and candied fruit in the dough, which rather resembles a squat chef's hat in shape) might take the candied-fruit-and-raisin-free version as their standard, and assume *all* panettoni should be like that. A classic recipe such as panettone should, he feels, be made as tradition dictates, or be renamed if it is varied (he has nothing against variations per se, and is indeed quite interested in them, so long as they don't masquerade as the originals).

He raises an excellent point; one of the most pernicious effects of the increasing role of industrial food production is a simplification, or dumbing down, if you will, of traditional recipes. Equally pernicious, at least on the surface, is the pell-mell introduction of variations on traditional recipes. Here, however, Jerry's and my positions diverge somewhat; I am more open to variations on tradition than he is. The panettone is an excellent case in point: over the holidays this year Italian supermarkets had at least a dozen kinds on the shelves, including traditional (no frosting, candied fruit and raisins in the dough); traditional dough with frosting and slivered almonds on top; frosting and slivered almonds on top but no candied fruit or raisins in the dough; with frosting on top and almonds in the dough; with chocolate frosting and custard filling arranged in a spoke pattern (no fruit or almonds); with chocolate frosting and orange custard filling.

Some of these are obviously dumbed down versions that I would be just as happy not to see. Others, however, though not the least bit traditional, are actually rather tasty. Should they be renamed? A purist could make a good case for a yes answer, but I'm willing to accept that the packaging say how the variation differs from the original (e.g. panettone with almonds & frosting, or panettone with cream filling). Why? Because cooking is like a fast-moving stream with many tributaries; new techniques and ingredients are being introduced all the time. Over the years what was once regarded as innovative becomes traditional, be it an ingredient, a technique, or a recipe. To give a simple example, pesto alla genovese, Liguria's signature sauce (and an ingredient in many dishes other than pasta), was traditionally made with basil, olive oil, garlic, and grated Sardinian pecorino or Bra (a cheaper, sharp Piemontese cow's milk cheese). At some point, however, people began to substitute grated Parmigiano for some or all of the other cheeses -- an innovation that has by now become common practice. Nobody would think of renaming pesto alla genovese made with Parmigiano, though its flavor differs considerably from that of pesto alla genovese made with pecorino. Innovation marches on, however, and I recently saw a pesto recipe that called for Gorgonzola instead of one of the established cheeses. Here I think I would agree with Jerry, and say the recipe should be for pesto col gorgonzola, at least for now. In the future? There's no telling what it might hold.

This is actually an extremely interesting period to be working with Italian foods. The first to experiment with Italian cuisine are of course the Italians, who are keenly aware of outside influences. Of which there are many; there has been a tremendous wave of Oriental and North African immigration in the past 20 years, and Italian supermarkets stock all sorts of ingredients that were rare or unknown when I moved here in 1982 (ginger root, for one). For now the cooking magazines are doing features on foreign cuisines (Indian, Chinese, Thai, etc.) to help people recreate the dishes they enjoy in ethnic restaurants or on trips abroad, but soon some of the ingredients will begin to slip into mainstream Italian cooking as well -- much like the tomato did 200 years ago.

Pollo al Mattone

Moving on to other things, Bob Nemerovski writes, "Hi, I am searching for an Italian dish called "Pollo al Mattone," which is cooked with a brick to weigh it down and make it crispy." Pollo al mattone is crispy, and brings back memories of childhood, when we would stay at a friend's hotel on the Tuscan coast, where Beppe, Laura's father, would grill chickens out back in a little hearth scooped out of the sand. I think he may have used blocks of basalt (they were dark) instead of brick, but the chicken was still wonderful.

In introducing the recipe in La Cucina Toscana Giovanni Righi Parenti says it's extremely old: Frescos depicting what appears to be a grill with a chicken being flattened by a stone occur in Etruscan tombs. Here are his instructions.

Clean the bird, chop off the neck (many Italian chickens still come with neck and head attached), and split it up the breast, then press it flat and pound it well with the flat of a thick-bladed knife, as if you were pounding a cutlet. Make a rub by mincing a few leaves of sage, one or two cloves of garlic, salt, abundant freshly ground black pepper, and a little red pepper. Rub the rub into the meat, rub it with abundant olive oil, and set it aside until you are ready to grill it (if you do this do this the day before, letting it marinate in the oil, you won't have to baste as you grill). Once the coals are ready lay the bird over them and place a well-cleaned brick over it to help keep it flat. Use a potholder to lift the brick when you turn it over. Mr. Parenti suggests 15-20 minutes' cooking time, which in my experience isn't enough. Exactly how long you do cook the bird will depend upon its size and the heat of the fire; it will be done when you sick a skewer into the wing joint and the juices run clear. Mr. Parenti also notes that if you do not marinate the bird in olive oil, you will have to baste it with olive oil repeatedly as it cooks lest it dry out.

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A long time back JD Wetherill wrote, asking for a soft, light anisette-flavored cookie galled genetti that the moms of friends used to make. Unfortunately I've drawn a blank; genetti don't appear in the indexes of any of my Italian cookbooks, nor do any of the things whose names sound similar look quite right. What I have found is a crunchy anisette-based biscotto, which would probably be softer if one were to forgo the rebaking (which is what biscotto means, twice cooked). This is drawn from De Agostini's La Mia Cucina, which also notes that shredded anisette leaves are good in salads and on carrots:

Anicini

30 minutes preparation time, and 50 minutes baking.

• 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 7/8 cup sugar
• An ounce of anise seeds
• 5 eggs, separated
• 1/2 a packet of chemical yeast (substitute 2 teaspoons baking powder)
• A rectangular pan lined with lightly oiled paper (in the initial phase of baking you will want to make a single long cookie about 2 1/2 inches wide, so make sure your pan is long enough -- the Joy of Cooking tells how to subdivide a pan using aluminum foil).

Preheat your oven to 320 F (160 C).

Beat the egg yolks and all but two tablespoons of the sugar in a bowl until the mixture is fluffy and pale yellow (it should pour from the spoon in a ribbon).

Beat the whites to stiff peaks.

Mix the flour and the anise seeds into the egg yolks, being careful lest seedy lumps form. Once the flour and seeds are incorporated, incorporate the baking powder, and then fold in the beaten whites. Pour the batter into the lined pan, dust it with the reserved sugar, and bake it for about 40 minutes. When it is done, remove it and turn it out on your work surface. Once it has cooled cut it crosswise into 3/4-inch wide cookies. At this point they will still be soft and chewy (relatively speaking). Heat your oven to 160 F (180 C) and bake them about 10 more minutes to dry them completely.

De Agostini notes that they are nice with a cup of warmed cream, which makes me think they could also be nice with eggnog. Otherwise, serve them with a dessert wine.

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Cavallucci

While we're on the subject of anise cookies, though Siena is best known for Panforte, a rich, solid Christmas pastry made with almonds, honey, flour and candied fruit, the town's cooks have also been making solid, chewy anise cookies called cavallucci since at least the 16th century. The name means "little horses;" according to Giovanni Righi Parenti they are a gentrified version of a pastry for the servants, and since they were originally made for those in the stables, that's where their name comes from. In any case, they are tasty, especially with a bone-dry vinsanto or a zesty young red wine.

To make a batch you'll need:

• 5 cups flour
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 ounce (by weight, about 2 tablespoons) honey
• 1 ounce (by weight) anise seeds
• About 1 1/2 teaspoons of ammonium bicarbonate (buy it from a chemist's, or substitute double acting baking powder)

Begin by dissolving the honey and sugar in 4/5 cup of water and simmering the mixture until the syrup dripped from the spoon forms threads. Once the syrup reaches this stage stir in the remaining ingredients (knead in the bicarbonate last); the resulting dough will fairly stiff. Let it sit for a couple of hours, then roll it out into a 3/4-inch diameter cylinder. Pluck off inch-long pieces, shape them roughly into balls, flour them lightly, and put them on a lightly floured baking tin. Bake them until lightly browned in a 320-360 degree oven (160-180 F), at which point they will be dry but chewy, and let them rest for a day before serving them.

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Thanks for visiting, and have a wonderful day!
Kyle Phillips

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