Matters of Race

Back in the early 1970s an Italian friend of mine told me he didn't think much of the United States -- we were a bunch of racists who treated Blacks horribly, and that was something he couldn't accept. Being slow on the uptake, I didn't say much. Not that I'm much quicker now, but with the benefit of hindsight I would have shot back"It's easy for you to talk. Italy's a monoethnic society."And at the time this was true. Italy was inhabited by Italians, and unless you lived near the embassy of an African country or a NATO base with American troops, you didn't see non-whites. My wife, who grew up in Florence, still remembers the first time she saw a Black person in the flesh quite clearly: during a trip to London in 1979.

Fast Forward 20 years: If an Italian town or city has a tourist attraction you're certain to see African (primarily Black though also some North African) street peddlers with all sorts of stuff, from fake Prada bags to souvenir statuettes; walk down the street in a residential neighborhood in any major city and chances are at least one peddler (generally Black) will approach you with socks or lighters or whatever; go to the beach and there's a steady stream of peddlers, primarily African though also Oriental, trudging from umbrella to umbrella with everything from towels to pocketbooks (some fake and some no-name). Walk by a construction site and the people doing the really heavy work will probably be either Black, Arab or Albanian; walk into the back of a restaurant in a city and the people scrubbing the pots or cutting the vegetables will likely be African or Albanian (they're beginning to move from assistant chef to chef too); drive out in the country and the people bent over in the fields will likely be dark skinned.

Italy has become multiethnic with a rush. Though tolerance is the general rule, the process is not painless: Many of the superstars now playing on Italian professional soccer teams are African, and in some stadiums, when an African player of the opposing team touches the ball a torrent of whistles and boos rises up from the stands (this doesn't happen as much with dark-skinned South Americans). "If this happened in Holland the Ref would stop the game," said one of the players of the Dutch team that recently defeated Rome's Lazio in Champion's League. The Italian soccer league has decreed, after considerable prodding, that a team whose fans put up racist banners in the stadium will forfeit the game if they don't come down, but the need for the provision and the reluctance with which it was adopted both speak volumes. As do the howls of protest that greeted the election of Demi Mendez, whose skin is warm mahogany in color (one parent Dominican, the other Italian) as Miss Italy. Her having passport and parent wasn't sufficient -- "She's not representative of Italy," said a whole slew of talk show personalities. One could have argued that she should have competed in the Dominican Republic, since she moved to Italy to compete in the contest, but if the State recognizes her as Italian that's what she is.

Nor are things in the personal sphere necessarily easier: a man was recently arrested for beating up, dousing with turpentine, and setting alight a North African who had fallen for his 28-year-old daughter -- she wasn't interested, but he still spent the evenings at the door of the apartment complex hoping to see her. "What else was I supposed to do?"the father asked the police who arrested him, and though it's quite possible he would have done the same to a white man, one does wonder. And, in the meantime, there's a growing association of the words immigrant and criminal, which is being fanned by some of the political parties (notably Bossi's Lega Nord). While it is true that there are bad apples in the barrel -- much of the prostitution is now run by Albanians who kidnap/buy girls in Eastern Europe, and many of the pushers are North African -- it's also true that these people are at least tolerated by if not used by the Italian crime syndicate. As for the rest of the barrel, the immigrants do things that the Italians frankly do not want to do any more: The dirty, dangerous, or low-paying jobs, the jobs that require night shifts, the jobs one has to be willing to relocate to take advantage of. The days when trainloads of Southerners moved North with cardboard suitcases to take factory jobs (and were treated by the northerners much like immigrants from elsewhere are treated today) are over, and those from afar are taking their place.

Of course skin color isn't all, nor are the tensions one way: A Somali woman who lives in Milan was recently arrested for beating her older daughter, who had no intention of marrying the husband selected for her back in Somalia, and for locking up both her daughters to keep them from going out with their "Christian"school friends during vacation (the younger one managed to escape while the woman was at work).

The friendships of the kids are cause for hope: As so often happens, children who grow up in an integrated, multicultural environment (the schools are doing a good job with this) are much more tolerant than their parents. No matter what Italians may think about it, Italy is now multiracial and there's no turning back. We're all going to have to work at learning to get along.

Goings on in Cars

Moving in a very different direction, in 1942 an Italian court decreed that having sex in a car was a Criminal Offence punishable by jail time. Thus, a man who parked in the dark with a lady friend in a deserted lane last year was arrested, on a night so foggy the contestable had to press his face to the glass to see inside. He got 40 days in jail, which he didn't serve -- a law passed a couple of years ago transforms all sentences for less than three years into house arrest. But he didn't want a record at all, and appealed. Now another court has ruled that, provided one parks in an out-of-the-way spot in the dark, what consenting adults do in a car is no longer a crime. At the most a misdemeanor, assuming the local prefect wants to bother. Yes, this was front-page news in the paper in March 2000.

And drifting back towards food, Janet recently wrote"Are you familiar with Ostaria dei Cento Poveri? It's not far from the center of Firenze, and I really enjoyed it. Always filled with locals, friendly staff, reasonable prices, good food (esp. seafood), nice wine list (some very reasonable whites from Apuglia, go nicely with seafood)."Hadn't been but I'll go. It's in Via Palazzuolo, 31/r, tel. 055 218 846. Their add in the phone book says wines, cheeses and ready-cooked foods 10-5; dishes cooked to order 7:30-12 midnight.

Ricotta cookies and fritters

Joe instead writes"I am looking for a fried doughnut that has ricotta, flour, eggs, and sugar is rolled into a long rope then cut into small pieces and fried in hot oil. They are then cooled and dusted with 10 x sugar. My mother was raised in Marano Equo and this was one of her recipes. I have lost the recipe and wonder if you know of such a treat."I don't, nor does Livio Jannattoni mention anything quite like it in his la Cucina romana e del Lazio. The closest I came in Lazio is from Ada Boni's La Cucina Romana, Bocconotti con la Ricotta:

Bocconotti

Bocconotti with ricotta are pasta frolla pastries filled with ricotta. Here are the proportions: 500 g (1 pound 2 ounces) ricotta, 150 g (1 1/2 cups) powdered sugar, 2-3 whole eggs, 1 teaspoon powdered cinnamon and a couple of tablespoons finely diced candied citron or orange peel. Combine everything in a bowl and mix well.

Then prepare the pasta frolla with 300 g (3 cups) flour and 150 g (1 1/2 cups) powdered sugar, 75 g each unsalted butter and rendered lard (1/2 cup less 2 tablespoons for the butter and I would guess about the same for the lard), a pinch powdered cinnamon, 3 egg yolks, a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of water. Cut the shortening into the other ingredients with a pastry blender, shape the dough into a ball, handling it as little as possible, and let it rest in a cool place for a half hour.

Divide the dough into two parts and roll one out fairly thin, 2-3 mm (1/8 inch). Lay down blebs of filling in lines, moisten the dough between them with a little beaten egg, roll out the second sheet, lay it over the first, and press down gently between the blebs of filling to make sure the sheets stick. Separate the bocconotti with a knife or pastry wheel, line them up on a lightly greased cookie sheet, and bake them in a moderate oven (180 C; 360 F) for a half hour. Eat them cold.

In looking through Alessandro Molinari Pradelli's just released Il Grande Libro della Cucina Italiana (The Big Book of Italian Cooking, 1400 packed pages, so the title is apt) I instead found this Calabrian recipe that looks good:

Panzerotti di Ricotta

For the dough

5 cups (500 g) flour

1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon (60 g) sugar

4 eggs

Olive oil

For the filling

12 ounces (300 g) fresh ricotta, put through a strainer

1 1/2 cups (150 g) powdered sugar

Powdered cinnamon

For cooking

An egg

A little milk

Fat for frying

Powdered sugar

Begin by combining the ricotta and powdered sugar, and flavoring the mixture to taste with cinnamon (a teaspoon should be fine).

On your work surface, make a mound of the flour, then add the other ingredients and work the dough, adding a few drops of oil at a time, until you obtain a smooth soft dough. Roll it out into a thin sheet and use a doughnut cutter to cut out 2 1/2-inch diameter disks. Put a little filling in the middle of each, fold them over, using a little egg and milk to help them seal if need be, and fry them in abundant hot oil. As soon as they're golden drain them over absorbent paper, dust them with powdered sugar, and serve them.

And this, from Lazio:

Ravioli di Ricotta

For the dough

2 1/2 cups (250 g) flour

An egg

5 tablespoons (60 g) softened unsalted butter

2 tablespoons white wine

The grated zest of a half a lemon

A small pinch of salt

For the filling:

12 ounces (300 g) fresh ricotta, put through a strainer

3 tablespoons sugar

An egg yolk

A few drops of rum

A hint of powdered cinnamon

For the cooking:

Olive oil for frying

Powdered sugar

Make a mound of the flour on your work surface, with a well in the middle, and work into it the wine, softened butter, salt and lemon zest. Knead as normal, until it is smooth and elastic, cover it, and set it aside.

While it's resting combine the ingredients of the filling in a bowl and mix well.

Roll out the dough quite thin, and dot half the sheet with dots of filling. Fold over the second half of the sheet, tamp the dough down between the mounds of filling, and cut the ravioli free with a serrated pastry wheel, tamping down the edges to make sure they're well stuck. Fry the ravioli until golden in hot oil, drain well on absorbent paper, and serve hot, dusted with powdered sugar.

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Replacing wine in a dish

Also got a note from a person who asks"I would like to delve deeper than mac & cheese into Italian cooking, but most of the recipes I've seen call for wine of one type or another. Since I don't drink and have no real desire to stock a wine shelf to cook Italian food, is there a list of possible wine substitutions?"

To be honest, the answer is no. Wine imparts distinctive flavors to a dish, and nothing else will really match well. This as a general observation. Getting down to specifics, if it is to provide acidity, say in a marinade, I'd substitute it with wine vinegar if the marinade involves a little wine and other liquids as well. If it's a wine marinade I'd either change recipe or buy a bottle for the occasion, figuring that it will all go into the pot. If it's a dish that calls for a bit of wine, leave it out and increase the other liquids proportionately. The results won't be quite the same, but they will still be good. And you'll be in good company. For example, Gianfranco Vissani, the rising luminary on the Italian culinary scene who has taken Gualtiero Marchesi's place as top chef, has fits if people suggest putting wine into risotto. He won't hear of it, unless the wine is the only flavoring agent, as in Risotto al Barolo.

Pasta and/or Rice with Chestnuts

Dolores writes,

"My Grandmother was born on one of the small islands North of Sicily (Salina). When I was a small child, she would make little pasta (like Ditalini) with dried Chestnuts. It was a thin sauce with no tomatoes. I would love to make this dish and have even found the dried chestnuts in an Italian Grocery Store.

"Do you know of any recipes like this?"

Not personally, nor have I found anything like this in a book.. However, Pino Correnti gives a couple recipes with chestnuts in his Il Libro d'Oro della Cucina e dei Vini di Sicilia, one from near Palermo and the other from the island of Lipari. Both call for fresh chestnuts; if you have dried ones simply soak them in warm water for several hours to rehydrate them. Here's the first recipe, Pasta Chhi Castagni:

• 1 1/3 pounds (600 g) broken spaghetti (he says sminuzzati, which means broken into small bits)
• 1 1/3 pounds (600 g) peeled chestnuts
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper

This odd, vaguely sweet soup is, he says, from Pòllina, a small mountain town near Palermo. To make it they boil skinned chestnuts in lightly salted water, and when they have become soft crush them, then cook the pasta in the resulting puree. The only seasonings: Olive oil, and freshly ground pepper.

As an observation, the puree will have to be fairly liquid when you add the pasta, and you will have to stir it, lest the pasta stick down and burn.

As a rice-based variation he has you use:

• 1 pound rice
• 1 pound dried chestnuts
• 1 white onion
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 4 boned anchovies, rinsed
• Olive oil
• Salt

Begin by soaking the chestnuts for 24 hours. Mince the onion and brown it in a pan, add the tomato, water, and boil the chestnuts until soft. Crush them with the back of a spoon and salt the mixture lightly.

In the meantime boil the rice in another pot, and sauté the anchovy filets briefly in some olive oil in a third, stirring them around to break them up. As soon as the rice is al dente drain it, and combine it with the chestnuts. Serve with the anchovy sauce.

The final recipe he has is from Lipari, in the Isole Eolie, and is interesting:

• 1 pound rice
• 1 pound wild fennel (with wild fennel what one uses are the fronds)
• A hot pepper, shredded
• Olive oil

He neglects to say how many chestnuts, but tells us to boil them until soft, then peel them, crush them to a fine floury paste (put them through a potato ricer) and sauté them in olive oil, with the hot pepper and a pinch of salt. I'd figure at least a half pound of chestnuts, and perhaps more.

Wash and boil the wild fennel, then remove it from the pot, draining it well and leaving the water in the pot. Add the rice to the pot and cook it; wile it's cooking mince the fennel fronds and return them to the pot too. Drain the rice when it's al dente, whip the chestnut mixture into it, and serve.

A very different taste, says Mr. Correnti, and he's right.

Vegetable Pies

Also got a note from Jane, who writes:

"I'm a bit frustrated....My great Aunt who is now deceased made an onion pie around the holidays and I was too young to ask the important questions.

"I recall only the following: Pie crust top AND bottom, onions, red sauce and black olives. There must be more in it and I have no idea how to do it. I'm in my late 40's and have been searching for years. Any suggestions? I would love to make it for Easter. My mom is an invalid and I know she would get a charge out of it.

"According to my mother, Aunt Marietta came from BARI. I hope this helps."

It didn't help as much as I would have liked. The closest Luigi Sada comes to this in his La Cucina Pugliese is a Tiella di Patate, Pomodori e Cipolle -- a baked dish with potatoes, onions and tomatoes.

To serve 4 you'll need:

• 6 ounces (150 g) potatoes
• 6 ounces (150 g) tomatoes
• 6 ounces (150 g) Onions
• Bread crumbs
• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Salt

Begin by peeling the potatoes and cut them into disks as thick as your finger.

Peel and slice the onions, and slice the tomatoes into thick slices, discarding the seeds.

Oil a dish proportionate to the volume of ingredients, and begin by putting down a layer of potatoes. Sprinkle with minced garlic, oregano, and salt. Another layer, onion this time, and more herbs, this time with tomato. Then a final layer with what remains, dust all with bread crumbs, sprinkle it with olive oil, and bake it in the oven for 45 minutes. Mr. Sada doesn't say at what temperature, but I'd go with about 380 F (190 C).

Though likely good, this isn't very close. However, I did find a Foquazza de Cipodda (Torta di Patate e Cipolla, Potato and Onion Torte) in Ottavio Cavalcanti's Libro d'Oro della Cucina e Dei Vini della Calabria e Della Basilicata. It's from Basilicata, which borders Puglia, and has a filling similar to Aunt Marietta's pie:

• 2 1/4 pounds (1 k) potatoes
• 12 ounces (300 g) button onions, peeled
• 8 ounces (200 g) ripe tomatoes, sliced, discarding the seeds
• 2 ounces (50 g) salted capers, rinsed well
• 4 ounces (100 g) pitted black olives
• 6 salted anchovies (the kind one buys from a tin in a delicatessen, or 9-10 anchovy filets)
• Milk
• Hot water or meat broth
• Lard
• Olive oil
• Salt

Begin by peeling the potatoes, then chop them and put them in a pot with enough milk to cover and cook them, turning the mixture with a wooden spoon, until you obtain thick mashed potatoes. Use 2/3 of the mashed potatoes to line a lightly greased (with lard, the recipe says, though you can also use oil) oven-proof dish. Put down a layer of onions, followed by one of sliced tomatoes, then one of olives and capers.

Next, rinse, bone and break up the anchovy filets, and sauté them for a few minutes in olive oil. Sprinkle the oil and anchovy mixture over everything else, and brush the edge of the mashed potato "crust"with water. Spread the remaining mashed potatoes over all to form a lid and bake the pie in a moderate oven (370 F, 185 C) until it is pleasingly browned.

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A presto!
Kyle Phillips

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