Cosa Bolle in Pentola?
The Eternal Youth (?), Winefests,
San Gimignano's new DOC, Recipes from Easter & More
Being the 99th issue of Cosa Bolle in Pentola, your Italian Cuisine newsletter.
Welcome to Cosa Bolle in Pentola! I'm sorry this is a bit late, but I spent last week tasting wines at Vinitaly, Italy's major wine trade fair, and was consequently far from the Internet. The show was fascinating and fun, providing an opportunity to touch base with friends from all over the Peninsula and taste an astounding variety of wines, but it has also expanded to the point that it's becoming difficult to cover. Returning to the site, before I left I put up a collection of springtime recipes that we enjoyed the night we baptized Clelia; you'll find a fine stuffed chicken, tasty vegetable tortes, pickles, and more. The pic of the week is a shot of Castello Grinzane Cavour, where Count Camillo Cavour was mayor before becoming a Minister of the Piemontese Government and guiding the unification of Italy (see below).
Italian Children: Eternal Youth?
Returning to Cosa Bolle, last spring I wrote about the problems besetting Italian families, in particular the extended adolescence that the majority of Italian children, especially males, choose to enjoy, staying under the parental roof until they are well into their thirties. As one might expect, Government agencies and those involved with family and social problems are quite worried about the situation, and are doing all they can to get these kids to sever their umbilical cords and strike out on their own. Not the courts, however; a couple of weeks ago the judges declared that a wealthy divorced Neapolitan had to continue to support his 29-year-old son, to the tune of 1500 Euros a month (about 1500 dollars) despite the fact that the boy graduated from law school with top honors and has turned down several handsome job offers -- he hadn't yet found the "perfect job" and wanted to be supported until he did.
In the US (or northern Europe, for that matter) a thirty-year-old employable child will likely be told he is on his own. Instead, the Italian courts backed him up, ruling that the employment has to match the child's expectations, and if nothing comes along that does the parents have to continue to support the child even if he or she is turning down good offers. There's something seriously flawed with this ruling; as observers were quick to point out: Rather than motivate the adult child to get out and get cracking the ruling lets him or her settle even more comfortably onto the parental shoulders -- no job is without flaws, and even if the offer is handsome the child with high expectations can find some aspect that isn't quite right and decide to wait for something better. In the meantime others accept the offers, growing into positions where they can devise what's perfect for them, and by the time the child's "perfect" job comes up the chances are there will be other people with a lot more experience and better connections made on-the-job competing for it.
At which point the winning candidate may well not be the child; the court's ruling may have pleased him now, but it could result in much unhappiness in the future, and it certainly sent a shudder through a great many Italian households whose elder members now fear they may never get the kid(s) out from under their roof.
Winefests 2002
As always, I stopped by the Associazione Nazionale Città del Vino's booth at Vinitaly and picked up their booklet of winefests and events. This year it lists a website, http://www.cittadelvino.com, which is very nicely done but only in Italian for now; if you want to check the winefests listings click on Le Feste in Piazza (upper left), and fill out the form with the dates and the region that interest you.
What struck my eye in the booklet? Here we go:
- May
- 11-12, 18-19, 25-6 Castello di Serravalle (Bologna, Emilia Romagna): Maggiociondolo, a festival in the Medieval hart of town
- 11-12 Corno di Rosazzo (Udine, Friuli Venezia Giulia): Fiera dei Vini dei Colli Orientali, a festival dedicated to some of the region's great wines.
- 11-12 Florence: Artigianato e Palazzo, a handcrafts trade fair held in the gardens of Palazzo Corsini (Via Della Scala 115)
- 11 Poggioreale (Trapani, Sicily): A cheese show with a ricotta festival.
- 24-Jun 2 Siena (Tuscany): 36th annual week of wines
- 24-Jun 2 Vignola (Modena, Emilia Romagna): The cherry week (Vignola cherries are among the most prized in Italy).
- 26 Cantine Aperte, wineries all over Italy will open their doors to the public
- 26 Montegrosso d'Asti (Piemonte): Barbera Festival
- 26-Jun 2 Montespertoli (Florence, Tuscany): Chianti Show
- 26 Nizza Monferrato (Asti, Piemonte): Barrel race and dinner
- 26 Portacomaro d'Asti (Asti, Piemonte): A Grignolino festival (Grignolino is a light, tart red wine)
- Other things
- Bardolino (Verona, Veneto): The Chiaretto Bardolino Classico festival on the waterfront of Lake Garda.
- Castelvetro (Modena): A Lambrusco festival
- Gattinara (Vercelli, Piemonte): A month dedicated to northern Piemontese Nebbioli
- Pontassieve (Florence, Tuscany): Toscanello d'Oro, a wine festival
- June
- 3-9 Lanuvio (Rome): Music festival
- 3 Noto (Syracuse, Sicily): Handcrafts, traditional foods and antiques
- 6-14 Cerreto Guidi (Florence, Tuscany): The Goose festival
- 9-15 Montefalco (Perugia, Umbria): 23rd annual wine week
- 15-17 Santa Maria della Versa (Pavia, Lombardia): A local foodstuffs festival
- 30 Cisterna d'Asti (Asti, Piemonte): A festival dedicated to Bonarda wine and local foodstuffs
- Other things
- Castelpiano (Ancona, Marches): Baloon show and cheese fest
- Genzano (Rome): Strawberry festival
- Pelago (Florence): Wild boar festival
- July
- 2 Siena's Palio
- 6-14 Cerreto Guidi (Florene, Tuscany): Chianti Festival (and a fishfest from the 7th to the 9th)
- 7 Dolcè (Brentino Belluno, Veneto): The wines of the Valdadige
- 13-14 Piombino (Livorno, Tuscany): Historical reenactment with Medieval banquets
- 14 Golferenzo (Pavia, Lombardia): Vinum bonum vinum, wine culture and history in the middle ages
- 16 Noto (Syracuse, Sicily): A tuna festival
- 21-22 Galatina (Lecce, Puglia): A watermelon festival
- 25-Aug 2 Controguerra (Teramo, Abruzzo): A food and wine festival
- 28 Piombino (Livorno, Tuscany): A fish festival
- Other things
- San Mango sul Calore (Avellino, Campania): The fig fest
- Spoleto (Perugia, Umbria): Bruschetta with truffles
- August
- 1-6 Annone Veneto (Venice, Veneto): The wines of Loncon
- 3-4 Castiglione D'Orcia (Siena, Tuscany): The crostino festival
- 3-15 Gualdo Cattaneo (Pomonte -- Perugia, Umbria): Reenactment of charcoal making and other traditions
- 4 Verucchio (Forlì-Cesena, Emilia Romagna): Sangiovese vest
- 4 Monti (Sassari, Sardegna): 10th annual Vermentino Festival
- 4 and 11 Ponte di Piave, Località Negrisia (Treviso, Vento): Wine fest and country fair
- 10 Calici di Stelle nelle Città del Vino: Cities participating in the Città del Vino will put on a variety of events
- 11-15 Celle Enomondo (Asti, Piemonte): 28th annual Barbera festival
- 12 Campiglia Marittima (Livorno, Tuscany): A Medieval dinner.
- 12-19 Castel San Lorenzo (Salerno, Campania): A festival dedicated to seven DOC wines
- 14-15 Cortona (Arezzo, Tuscany) A steak festival featuring Chianina beef
- 14-26 Torgiano (Perugia, Umbria): Agosto Torgianese, wines
- 15-17 Marano di Valpolicella (Verona, Veneto) Fair for San Rocco
- 16 Siena (Tuscany) The Palio
- 16 Cortona (Arezzo, Tuscany) The Porcino Festival
- 17 Annone Veneto (Venice, Veneto) The Harvest festival
- 20 Provaglio d'Iseo (Brescia, Lombardia): Corsa dei Caratì -- not sure what this is, but sounds like some sort of barrel race, and the area is pretty
- 25-Sep 1 Puegnago del Garda (Prescia, Lombardia): A wine and agriculture show for the Valtenasi area and Lake Garda
- 31-Sep 1 Monti San Pietro (Bologna, Emilia Romagna): The Colli Bolognesi winefest
- Other things
- Paternopoli (Avellino, Campania): The Aglianico festival and the vegetable festival
- Spoleto (Perugia, Umbria): The summer truffle festival
- Taurasi (Avellino, Campania) The wine fest and an Aglianico festival
- September
- 1 Novi Ligure (Alessandria, Piemonte): A Gavi festival
- 1 San Colombano al Lambro (Milano, Lombardia): Artisans in the town square
- 1 San Vincenzo (Livorno, Tuscany): Sagitta Turris, a reenactment of a historic naval battle
- 2 Carpi (Modena, Emilia Romagna) The Lambrusco and Lasagna festival
- 2 Verduno (Cuneo, Piemonte) The Verduno Pelaverga festival
- 6-8 Rionero in Vulture (Potenza, Basilicata): Aglianica -- A festival dedicated to the wine that's known as the "Barolo of the South" for it's power and elegance, and an excellent excuse to visit a part of Italy few people know.
- 13-15 Casale Monferrato (Alessandria, Piemonte): The wine and town festival
- 27-29 Erbusco (Brescia, Milano): The Franciacorta Festival. Great bubbly!
- Other things
- Asti: The Douja D'Or, one of the major Italian wine fests.
- Greve in Chianti: A Chianti fest
- Panzano in Chianti: Another Chianti Fest
- Impruneta (Florence): La festa della raccolta, a harvest parade with floats.
- October
- 13 Montespertoli (Florence, Tuscany): The 5th annual vinsanto show
- A host of chestnut festivals, and the beginnings of truffle festivals, which will carry though November.
- November
- 9-17 Imola (Bologna, Emilia Romagna) Il Baccanale, a major Sangiovese show
- After November 6: Many Novello festivals across the peninsula
- Beginning in Mid November: Many Olive oil Festivals
New Red Wines from San Gimignano
The other wine-related news is that San Gimignano, which is well known for its Vernaccia, one of Tuscany's better white wines (and certainly the one with the longest standing traditions), has now begun to produce red wines as well under its own name, rather than as Chianti Colli Senesi. Things are still being ironed out because the DOC commission didn't give them precisely what they asked for, but there are two kinds of San Gimignano Rosso:
- The first is a blend, with 50% Sangiovese and 50% other varietals, which include Cabernet Franc or Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Pinot Nero, and so on; they plan to raise the minimum Sangiovese to 70%, with a maximum of 20% French varietals and the remainder local varietals such as Colorino or Canaiolo (this is one of the adjustments they want to make to the DOC).
- The second is a varietal wine, made with at least 80% of the declared varietal, which can be Sangiovese, Merlot, Cabernet, Syrah, or Pinot Nero. Sangiovese is Tuscany's great grape, and some very nice things will come of it, while the others can scale to considerable heights too; I find the inclusion of Syrah especially interesting because one doesn't see as much of it in Tuscany. On the other hand, I'm a little less convinced by Pinot Nero -- Central Tuscany is too hot for it, or has been in the past decade, and the gripes therefore ripen too soon, before the components that make Burgundian wines so interesting don't have time to develop. So of the various kinds it's likely the weakest, through no fault of the winemakers.
I tasted a number of the new wines at a dinner organized during Vinitaly, and came away impressed -- definitely some new things to look out for. The other thing we enjoyed at the dinner was a risotto made with saffron, and it merits a brief aside. One wouldn't think it now, but San Gimignano was renowned for its saffron in the middle ages, exporting it both to the west and to the east (one of the few spices to go in that direction), and indeed the towers that are now San Gimignano's major attraction were financed by the saffron trade. It turns out that saffron had many uses other than as a spice:
- Sienese and Florentine painters used it as a pigment in their paints
- It was used as a medicine, to treat all sorts of things including the plague.
- Salaries, especially of mercenaries serving San Gimignano, were paid in saffron.
- It was used to corrupt: The Bishop of Volterra bought off a Papal envoy with a bag of saffron, and there is also a record of a Florentine magistrate who refused to be bought off, though we don't know if the refusal came from honesty or the insufficiency of the bribe.
In any case, growing saffron is extraordinarily labor intensive, and as plantations in the European colonies began to produce it in the 17th and 18th centuries San Gimignano's production declined, almost to nothing before a group of farmers launched a program to revive the crop in the early 1990s.
For more info on San Gimignano, check the town's website, and don't miss the saffron page. And for more info on Vernaccia, check their site. You might also want to check my San Gimignano itinerary.
Cotto di Prugne
Moving at last to recipes, a couple of issues back I put up a recipe for Cotto di Fichi and Cartellate, the former being the fig sauce that one dips the cartellate, which are cookies, into before serving them. Making the cotto is quite involved and one does have to have figs. Dolores very kindly sent in the following, which instead uses prune juice:
My dear friend, Catherine LaCalamita, who was born and raised in Bari and now lives in Wappinger Falls, NY, provided this recipe to me.
- 5 64-OZ (2-quart, or 2-liter) bottles of prune juice
- 4 lbs. (1800 g) of white granulated sugar
Place both ingredients into a large, heavy pot. Cook at a very low flame (so it doesn't burn or boil over) and keep the pot uncovered for approximately 4 hours.
You can tell when it's done by checking as follows:
Take about 1/2 tsp of Cotto out of the pot and drop it on a small plate. Run your finger down the middle. If the Cotto stays separated, you know it's done. It is very viscous but absolutely wonderful!
The good part is that you can return the Cotto to the Prune Juice bottles. Catherine keeps it for 2-3 years because she stores it in a dry, cool place (like where you would store wine).
Kyle, this is definitely a LOT EASIER way to make this than the way my Mother and Aunts made it. To tell you the truth, it tastes every bit as good too.
A printer-friendly version of this recipe.
On Making Rice Salad
With regards to Insalata di Riso, i.e. rice salad, an absolutely ideal picnic or hot summer weather food, John Whiting writes,
When I'm cooking rice for this sort of purpose, I often start it in olive oil for a few minutes as though I were making risotto, then add a slightly generous amount of boiling water and keep checking the rice until it's al dente, then drain. With the initial cooking in oil the grains never stick and the salad requires a bit less oil to make it taste as though it has quite enough.
A Gibraltarian Easter: Spinach Pie and Hornasso
Marie, who has kindly shared a number of recipes that arrived in Gibraltar via Genoese sailors in centuries past, provides a couple of neat Easter things:
Easter here in Gibraltar is accompanied by Spinach Pie and Hornasso. You know I've written to you before with other recipes which our Genoese descendants left us and these are a couple you could be interested in.
The Spinach Pie is simple enough. You would need enough shortcrust pastry, whether bought or home made to line your oven dish with as well as some for the top. The filling is made from four or five bunches of fresh spinach leaves, boiled, strained and chopped, good handful of fresh or dried marjoram, bunch of parsley, bout ten garlic cloves, chopped, bunch of spring onions chopped, seven or eight eggs, and two cupfuls of grated cheese, the stronger the better, 2 cups of bread crumbs, and salt to taste. Mix all ingredients together. Line your oven dish with the pastry, prick the bottom of the pastry with a fork, to help it cook, pour in the filling (at this stage you could make little wells in the filling and drop in two or three whole eggs, shell off of course. Pour dribbles of olive oil over the whole mix to help it stay moist. (I forgot the oil this time round and its come out bit dry, I am afraid). Cover the filling with the rest of the pastry, prick the pastry on top, and if you have a little pastry left it is usual to decorate with pastry made leaves or flowers; depends how artistic you are. Brush some egg on top, to give it nice colour when cooked and pop it in the oven. Takes about two hours to cook, or less depends how big you are making it. Oh I forgot again, oven must be hot, about 190/200 (C; 380-400 F) would do.
The other traditional Easter delight we have is called Hornasso, and it is a sort of dry cake. The ingredients are half a pound of margarine, two cups of sugar, six eggs, half a cup of milk, two pounds of raising flour, and about two good tablespoons of aniseed. The grated rind of two lemons.
You cream the butter and the sugar till light coloured and fluffy, add the lemon rind and the aniseed. Beat the eggs in one at a time, adding some flour at the same time, so it won't curdle. Once all the eggs and milk are in you continue to add the flour until mixture comes off sides of the mixing bowl. Powder your work surface with some flour, put all the mixture onto it and knead, adding more flour onto the surface until mixture becomes workable, but not too much or it will become too dry and floury. You make them out into big bun shapes, or you can also make a ring and place a couple of previously hard-boiled eggs on top held by a cross made of the same dough. Brush the tops with either milk or egg. Flour a couple of flat cake tins, put the buns on them, and put them in a previously heated oven; about 200 (C; 400 F) is fine. If you feel they getting brown too quickly lower the heat a little. They are ready when risen, and golden brown; to test for doneness stick a clean knife in and it should come out dry. I usually also tap them on the underside, and if they sound hollow, they are done! They will keep for a long time and the ones with the eggs on top are eaten on Easter Sunday. I usually make double these amounts because it is also traditional to swap some with the family. That way you get to find out whether theirs are better than yours or vice versa.
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A Savory Neapolitan Easter Bread
And finally, Cristina writes,
I have been making an Easter Bread from Naples called Casatiello for about 20 years. It and the goat are my staples for an Easter meal. The bread takes forever but it is worth it. I was never given a recipe, just an explanation by a couple of guys from Napoli. So that is the best I can do here.
Make a basic bread dough, whatever you like except double the yeast. Let it rise until double. Punch down and roll out into a large square (about 30" x 30"). Spread on some lard (I have no idea on the amount but a good guestimate would be 225g/half pound) and sprinkle with a lot of fresh cracked pepper. Now add 1/4 lb each of chopped up salame and pancetta and a little bit of chopped up prosciutto. Sprinkle with coarsely grated pecorino romano or parmigiano. Roll up into a tube. Grease an angle food cake pan with lard and place tube inside (forming a ring). Lay 5 eggs (wash them but do not boil them first) on top and top with a criss cross of dough (2 strips of dough, forming an X, laid on top to hold down the eggs). Let rise for another hour or more (again, should be more than doubled). When ready, place in oven at 375 - 400 F (185-200 C) until the top is nice and brown and looks ready. This normally takes about an hour to an hour and a half. The smell in your house should tell you it is ready (my mouth starts watering and I know it is time :-)
Now the hard part. Let bread cool. Place in a paper bag (NOT PLASTIC) and leave it for the following day (do not refrigerate). It really needs a day to get full flavor. Leftover is great toasted the following day or even topped with a mild cheese and tomato slices and toasted in the oven.
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This week's proverb is Calabrian, and is often used to refer to children who turn out better than their parents: E rhe spine, nescia la rosa. Amidst thorns, the rose blooms.
A presto, e
Auguri!
Kyle Phillips
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