30/30/30 Food Challenge - Day 9: ITALY

    I thought I would start this post off with some food porn.  In the following clip from the 1954 film, An American in Rome, Alberto Sordi plays Nando Moriconi, a young Italian living in Rome. Nando dreams of moving to America and obsesses with all things American.  In this comedic soliloquy, Nando rails against his macaroni and red wine as he attempts to satisfy his hunger with what he believes is true American fare: yogurt, mustard and marmalade on bread with milk. In the end, he abandons the American food and, addressing the pasta, says, "...macaroni, you have provoked me and so I will destroy you!"

 

 

 

    Italian cooking was the first fully developed cuisine in Europe and is the source of every other Western cuisine.  The ancient Romans drew some of their culinary inspiration from Asia Minor and Greece and combined with the bounty of home grown products  made it possible for Italy to teach France and all other Occidental cultures the meaning of good cooking and eating.

    Now I know that at this point, my French friends are reaching for the phone and are about to dial my number to scream obscenities but un instant, mes amis. (Yes, Véro, I'm talking to you.) Please read the next line.

    Larousse Gastronomique, the bible of the French kitchen, has this to say on the matter: "Italian cooking can be considered, for all the countries of Latin Europe, as a veritable mother cuisine."

    Not to belabor the point but it can fairly be said that Italian cuisine became a mother in 1533 when Catherine de Medici travelled to France to marry the future King Henry II.  She brought with her teams of expert cooks who devulged to the French the most sophisticated cooking techniques that had yet been developed.  Apart from pastry and desserts including cakes, cream puffs and ices, they prepared, for the first time outside Italy, dishes that utilized vegetables such as artichokes, broccoli, and the tiny peas that the French eventually took as their own and that the world now knows as petits pois.  The French had never eaten so well.

    Italian cuisine is more about the ingredients than about the preparation. Chefs in Italy believe that the pleasure of eating is greatly increased by the charachteristic tastes of separate ingredients and that blending them together in complicated ways is secondary.  The success or failure of any Italian dish depends primarily on the freshness and goodness of the primary ingredients. 

    This evening's menu:

Antipasto

salami, soppressata, marinated artichokes, olives, roasted peppers,

giardiniera and Parmigiano Reggiano.

Focaccia with tomatoes and onions

 

Gnocchi alla Romana

 

Scaloppine Al Marsala

Broccoli alla Romana 

Patate Arrostite

Polenta Dolce con Ficchi

Biscotti

   

    
    

 

    Antipasto, that which is eaten before the meal, has become an integral part of the modern Italian meal. The focaccia was freshly made and the pepper roasted over an open flame.

    Gnocchi is unclassifiable as either northern or southern Italian and exists in many forms and varieties.  However, it is especially esteemed in Rome where it is made with semolina flour and without the potatoes or ricotta used elsewhere.  Resembling semolina cakes more than dumplings, and covered with butter and Parmigiano Reggiano, gnocchi alla Romana have always been my favorite.  Many years ago, I used to cook them for my wife; now, I've be reduced to wine waiter and dishwasher.

    

    Scaloppine al Marsala, thin slices of veal, mallet tenderized and sautéed in olive oil are simmered in butter and Marsala, the fortified Sicilian wine. The broccoli was sautéed in garlic and white wine; the potatoes were simply roasted in olive oil and rosemary.

    One of the more unusual dishes tonight was the Polenta Dolce con Ficchi. This is polenta cake prepared with grappa and figs.  Polenta has a long and storied history. Napoleon said, "An army marches on its stomach." and since the staple food of Caesar's troops was polenta, one might say that the Roman Empire was built on it.  Polenta is still cooked much as it was in the 1st century except that corn, introduced from America, has replaced the wheat and millet of the Romans.

    Such an ancient food is deserving of a bit more ink and so I have included the following adaptation from Waverly Root's THE COOKING OF ITALY.

    "The staple dish of the ancient Romans was puls or pulmentum.  It was a kind of mush made from grain - in those days usually millet or spelt, a primitive kind of wheat, and sometimes chick-pea flour.  Pulmentum could not have been very inspiring food, but it served to nourish the conquerors of the ancient world.  It was the field ration of the Roman soldier, who received daily about two pounds of grain, which he roasted on a hot stone over his campfire, crushed and put in his haversack.  Whenever and wherever he might bivouac, the mixture was ready to be boiled into a more or less palatable gruel, which could be eaten as porridge or allowed to harden into a sort of unleavened scone or cake.  To this day the modern version of polentum, called polenta, can be eaten in either version - soft and heated with about the consistency of mashed potatoes or hard and usually cold when it can be sliced like cake.

    As time passed, the ingredients of polentum changed.  Millet and spelt gave way to barley; and when the Romans found barley too bland they replaced it with far, a more palatable kind of wheat than spelt.  (In Britany, cakes of coarsely ground grain are still called fars.)  Today, made with corn meal, which was unknown to the Romans, polenta remains a national dish of Italy." 

     

    

    Josee makes the best biscotti in the world.  That simple. I kid you not.

    The wines for the evening: Ceretto Blangé Arneis 2008  and Gaja Ca' Marcanda Promis 2009.

    Joseph Froncioni

 

 

 

Comments

[Liz]

This is definitely one of my favorite menus. I'm particularly intrigued by the gnocchi alla Romana. I'd like to try these. Did I hear someone say, guess who's coming for dinner? :-)