This has been a busy couple of weeks. To begin with, rather than discuss something new, I've added another dozen pasta shapes to the pasta shapes glossary, each with a sauce suggestion. We're about half way there. I've also fleshed out the recipes from Versilia, the coastal plain between the Apuans and the sea in Northern Tuscany, with a number of new recipes. The pic of the week is a night shot of Siena's Palazzo Comunale, decked out with tapirs to celebrate the running of the Palio, a madcap three-lap bareback horserace around Piazza del Campo that's not for the faint-of-heart. By strange combination, Leocorno, which won the day I too victory photo to the left, also won this time, with Civetta (their rival) a close second. The Palio a spectacular event that you should at least think about attending if you plan to be in Siena in early July or mid August. For more information, see La Terra in Piazza, an article I wrote a few years ago (image palio5.jpj) http://www.seetuscany.com/culture/palio.htm for.

Sleeping in & Dining Out in Tuscany

While we're on the subject of travel, Dave writes,

We're in Lucca this week and having a great time. Especially appreciate your recommendations from your letters. Some notes and things you may want to point out to readers in the future:

Ristorante d'Olivo was good but very touristy. Felt like the restaurant was there more for the tourists. Ristorante Giglio was very good although we ate there with a friend of mine from Lucca. I was disappointed that the waiter handed us an English menu and there were very few items in the English menu that were also on the Italian menu. The English menu was geared more for american/british taste and some of their better items from their Italian menu were not listed. We're glad we picked up on this on our first day here and are especially vigilant that we only get Italian menus in restaurants. May want to let your readers know.

Our landlord alerted us to a new restaurant that opened only 2 months ago outside Lucca. So far, it was unquestionably the best. Vigna Ilaria, just outside of Lucca. The tourist trade hasn't heard about it yet. The cooking was divine. Orchiette with mussels and pecorino was probably the best pasta dish I've ever had. My wife and I shared a grilled branzino with fried potatoes that was awesome. Their homemade Lucchese tortelli were fabulous. Also on the menu, pasta with seafood ragu, leek and shrimp risotto, and asparagus risotto. This place is a must!!!

The Address: V. Pieve S. Stefano - Sant'Alessio, 967 55100 Lucca (LU) Tel. 0583 332 091

In Central America and buying fish? Be careful.

I recently subscribed to the PANUPS bulletin, which gets the word out on pesticide use and abuse, among other things. The current issue discusses the practice of fish poisoning, which is spreading in Mexico. With their permission, I quote the article entire:

P A N U P S

Pesticide Action Network Updates Service

Pesticide Fishing Spreading in Mexico

June 29, 2001

A report released in May by the Mexican Environmental Enforcement Agency (PROFEPA) documents illegal use of pesticides for fishing in the pacific coast state of Michoacan. The report, the result of a four-month investigation, reveals that at least two insecticides are being used in fishing for "langostino," a lobster-like crustacean. Langostinos are considered a delicacy and are served primarily in expensive restaurants.

The chemicals being used for fishing in the region are the veterinary insecticides "Batestan plus" (deltamethrin) and "Asuntol" (coumaphos), both widely available in the region.

Deltamethrin, a pyrethroid, bioaccumulates and is considered moderately toxic to humans and a suspected endocrine disruptor. It is known to be highly toxic to aquatic species, including fish, amphibeans, aquatic insects and zooplankton. Coumaphos is an organophosphate rated "highly toxic" to humans by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and classified as an "extremely hazardous" substance by the World Health Organization. It is also a cholinesterase inhibitor.

PROFEPA condemned the practice of pesticide fishing but did not address the question of whether fish caught through this method posed a health risk to consumers. The agency did not investigate whether langostinos collected by pesticide fishing have been served at restaurants in tourist areas such as nearby Puerto Vallarta.

Additional evidence suggests that the practice of pesticide fishing may be widespread in Mexico. In late March of this year, two men were arrested in separate incidents in Michoacan for use of Batestan plus in fishing, and more than 340 langostinos were confiscated. Anecdotal reports indicate use of unidentified pesticides in at least two communities near the "El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve" in the state of Chiapas. According to a government biologist working on the Pacific side of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, people are fishing with pesticides to catch a shrimp-like crustacean locally known as "piguas."

In addition, in mid-2000, a Mexican environmental law nongovernmental organization, the Centro de Derecho Ambiental e Integración Económica del Sur (DASSUR), documented pesticide fishing in the Uxpanapa River, at the heart of biodiversity-rich Uxpanapa Valley in southern Veracruz near the Gulf of Mexico.

In this case, health effects from consumption of contaminated fish were documented. Fishers were using "Butox" which, like Batestan plus, has deltamethrin as an active ingredient. Acute illnesses of both adults and children linked to consumption of contaminated fish and shrimp were documented in various townships near Ejido Palancares, where the pesticide fishing takes place. Researchers frequently heard unconfirmed rumors of frequent abortions and developmental effects in children in the region. Additional research is needed to document these impacts.

DASSUR's investigation, a joint effort with PAN North America, resulted in a report and video documenting pesticide fishing in the Uxpanapa river and its effects. The project's next stage will involve further documentation of health effects, as well as education about the risks of pesticide fishing in other affected communities in Michoacan, Oaxaca and Chiapas. The project will also work to enhance the capacity of affected communities to recognize and report pesticide fishing to the proper authorities and to use local press to raise awareness about the issue.

Sources: "Pesca con garrapaticidas en la Selva de Uxpanapa" by DASSUR in video and printed report. Available upon request from DASSUR. "Denuncia PROFEPA Envenenamiento de Peces," Grupo Reforma Servicio Informativo (http://www.mural.com/occidente/articulo/092807/).

Letter to Mr. Claudio Torres Nachón from Ing. Ambrosio Mayorg Guillen, from PROFEPA--Michoacan "Envenenamiento de Rios en el Municipio de Arteaga para la Captura del Langostino" June 19 2001, and confidential sources.

For toxicity and health effect data on the pesticides, visit PANNA's pesticide database at http://www.pesticideinfo.org.

Contact: Claudio Torres Nachón- Director DASSUR, Primo Verdad 23-4, Xalapa, Ver. Mexico 91000; phone (+52)28 18 2388; fax (+52) 28 18 2028; email dassur@prodigy.net.mx.

The bottom line: If you want to consume shellfish in North America, be sure of where they're from before you buy or order them.

Umbrella Gossip: Pilitics, Internet, & Cecchi Gori

Politics

Enough of the goings on around the world. With the arrival of summer those who can in Italy head to the beaches, if not for a couple of weeks, at least for the weekends, and it's time for the annual Umbrella Gossip rundown. This week much of the attention has been focused on politics: on the one hand, thousands of protesters have announced that they will don home-made riot gear and do their best to disrupt the upcoming G8 meeting in Genova. Considering the layout of the city, a narrow, flat strip of land right up against the shore, with the newer neighborhoods climbing the flanks of the mountains inland, things will likely become quite confusing, and running away could be very difficult if things turn ugly, as they well may. One wonders who approved of Genova as a site for a controversial meeting.

The other political thing to worry about is the budget deficit; last night (Jul 12) Mr. Tremonti, the Minister of Finance, appeared on the National news with a poster board and sketched graphs to show that the deficit will be at least 30,000 billion Lire (about 15 billion dollars) higher than expected, and that this will make the tax cut Prime Minister Berlusconi promised during the campaign this spring considerably more difficult. Howls of protests from the opposition and the unions, who accused Tremonti of spreading panic, but then again, if the situation is as he says, people should know.

Internet

Those who have children who are finishing high school, on the other hand, have proof of the power of the Internet to mull over: In order to graduate, students must pass the esame di maturità, a comprehensive exam that covers the entire high school curriculum, and which is divided into two parts, the first a week of written tests, and then a series of oral examinations. The questions vary depending upon the type of high school (Liceo linguistico, scientifico, classico, artistico, and so on), but are standardized nationally, which shouldn't have presented any problems, because the students take the exams simultaneously, and they were told to turn their cell phones off upon entering the examination halls. However, this didn't keep people from spiriting the first day's questions out, and the solutions, in cell phone-readable form, appeared on the Internet by mid-morning (so did plaintive emails and SMS messages asking for the URLs of the answer pages). There was, as one might imagine, a great hue-and-cry from some corners, which got louder on the second day, when the answers to the questions appeared even sooner. Some people even suggested modifying the rules to make it more difficult to cheat, and repeating the written exams, but then the talk died down -- the writtens are followed by orals, which serve to set the grade, and which one cannot cheat on.

The upshot of all this? Despite warnings that Italians are behind in Internet use, the students, their parents, and their friends seem to have it all down pretty pat.

Cecchi Gori: Collapse of an Empire

Those who don't care about politics and don't have children have had Vittorio Cecchi Gori's problems to discuss. Never heard of him? He's the producer who bankrolled Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful a couple of years ago, and has been behind a number of other popular directors of late. However, his empire has begun to creak at the seams -- people have been muttering about insolvency for a while, and his ex wife's demand for a billion-dollar divorce settlement didn't help matters at all. Nor did his losing his bid for reelection to the Senate, which cost him his Parliamentary Immunity; the revenue people immediately idicted him for money laundering, and when they searched his apartment in Rome, found him hiding in a secret room with Valeria Marini, his strikingly voluptuous starlet girlfriend. The room also contained a safe, and when the revenue people opened that they found packets of white powder that turned out to be cocain. Had he said they were his he'd have been registered as a drug user and that would have been that. However, when asked about them he said the only powder he knew anything about was saffron, so the unamused judges added possession with intent to sell to the list of indictments. The situation is actually grotesque, and all the worse for Florentines because he owns la Fiorentina, Florence's soccer team, and seems determined to drag it down with him -- the team is facing insolvency and has been forced to sell off all the players who helped capture the Coppa Italia just a month ago. So, if you want to get a long face from a Florentine, just mention Cecchi Gori.

Sicilian Recipes

Moving towards food, Pam writes:

I'm trying to locate a recipe for a dish my father remembers from WWII in Sicily -- rabbit cooked with chocolate. Can you help?

Pino Correnti ties the recipe to a Siracusan sweet-and-sour rabbit recipe, and this invites a brief aside. Though it's now relatively rare, at least in the North, this sort of sweet-and-sour combination was quite common in the past. It derives from the need to make meats palatable by soaking them in vinegar, in the days before refrigeration, and from the custom of using sugar as a sort of "sweet salt" (as opposed to sea salt), which the knights returning from the Crusades brought home with them from the Holy Land.

In any case, he says the Siracusan recipe originally called for hare, rather than wild rabbit, and that it has now spread throughout Sicily. To serve 4 you'll need:

• 2 wild rabbits
• Flour
• 6 ounces (150 g) pitted green olives, chopped
• 2 tablespoons capers, rinsed
• An onion, sliced
• 3 ribs celery, chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 1/2 ounces (35 g) pine nuts
• 1 1/2 ounces (35 g) raisins
• 2 carrots, cut into rounds
• 1 cup white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• olive oil
• Salt
• Ground hot pepper or pepper to taste.

Chop the rabbits into 6-8 pieces each, discarding their heads. Dredge the remaining pieces in flour and brown them well in hot oil, turning them often lest they burn. While you're browning the rabbit, heat a little more oil in a second pot and cook the onion and celery until the onion has wilted and turned golden, then add the capers, olives, carrots, raisins, pine nuts, and bay leaves. Transfer the browned rabbit pieces to the pan, season them with salt and pepper, dust them generously with sugar, and sprinkle the vinegar over them. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook the rabbit until it's tender, by which time the vinegar should have for the most part evaporated, so as to produce a thick sauce.

In the summer months, people customarily also add diced fried eggplant, or bell pepper filets, after blistering them over a burner to remove the skins.

How to transform this into Cunigghiu 'Nciculattatu, Rabbit with Chocolate?

Omit the olives and capers called for above, adding, in their place, 2 more bay leaves, three cloves, 1 tablespoon of wild fennel seeds, and, when you add the vinegar and sugar, 2 ounces (50 g) shredded bitter chocolate.

A printer-friendly version of this recipe.

Pesto alla Siciliana

While we're on the subject of Sicilian Cuisine, almost everyone is familiar with Pesto alla Genovese, the green garlic-and-basil sauce that's one of the symbols of Ligurian cuisine. The verb pestare means "to stomp on," or to crush, and therefore the word pesto describes a process more than a product. Indeed, pesto alla genovese is made by grinding the ingredients in a mortar.

So is Pesto alla Siciliana, which is made with tomatoes rather than basil. You'll need:

• 2 ounces (50 g) pinoli
• 3 small heads of garlic
• 2 large sun-ripened tomatoes, blanched, peeled, seeded, and chopped
• A small bunch of basil
• A small bunch of parsley
• The leaves of a stalk of celery
• Olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste

Mince the herbs. Remove the skins from the garlic cloves. Grind the pine nuts and garlic in a mortar with the tomatoes, work in the herbs, and continue grinding until you have a smooth paste. Check seasoning, work enough olive oil into the mixture to transform it into a smooth sauce, and you're ready to use it over pasta, or to serve it with boiled or grilled meats. A little goes quite a ways; keep the remainder in a jar in the refrigerator.

Pesto alla Trapanese is a little less strong:

• 6 cloves garlic
• 6 ripe plum tomatoes
• 1/4 pound (100 g) blanched, peeled almonds
• A bunch of basil
• Olive oil, salt, and pepper

Grind the garlic, basil and slat to obtain a paste, then work the tomatoes and almonds into it, grinding until the mixture is homogenous. Add pepper to taste and olive oil sufficient to produce a sauce, and it's ready.

A printer-friendly version of these recipes.

This week's proverb is Tuscan. Chi Altri Giudica, Sé Condanna: He who judges others condemns himself.

A presto,
Kyle Phillips
Webweaver, About Italian Cuisine

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